The world of IHEs ("institutions of higher education," for those not in our elite loop) is abuzz today, not just with caffeine, the usual buzz for IHEs, but with the news that Harvard University is ending its early-action admissions program.
What's that all about?
These days it seems that everyone wants to get into elite universities, especially as defined by US News and World Report's annual college issue, which ranks universities like ... well ... college football and basketball teams. Hence, competition is fierce to enter said universities, with only a fraction of applicants offered admission. Hence, students look for any edge they can get.
Meanwhile, universities are looking to raise their "conversion" rate, which is not the number of baptisms but the number of accepted applicants who actually choose to enroll, a key figure in US News rankings. Hence, they want to offer admission to those students most likely to enroll. Hence, they want to figure out who those students are and, if possible, constrain their choices so that they are even more highly likely to enroll if offered admission.
Thus was born early admission programs. To students willing to apply initially to only one university, a university offers an early date for application and an early response. Regular college applications are mostly due in the late winter. Early applications are due before Thanksgiving and answered before Christmas. The terms of that application, if it is for "early decision" are (a) the student is legally bound to apply to just one university; (b) if offered admission, the student pledges to accept. If it is the milder "early action," then the student does have the option of choosing a university through the regular admissions program later in the academic year. And elite IHEs generally admit a higher percentage of their early applicants than they do the regular ones.
What this has meant is that students intent on getting into the "best college possible" have gravitated to early applications. Some admissions counselors speak of students who don't know where they want to go to college but are convinced that they must apply early someplace. This is how the game is played to get into the "best college possible."
So the gripe is that early applications put universities in the driver's seat instead of students. They limit student choices, make nearly impossible comparison of financial aid packages, and demand an even earlier decision about a highly significant matter from an adolescent who probably can't decide what to wear most mornings. And as usual, it is assumed that students of lesser economic means are disadvantaged by this process, which doubtless they are.
So Harvard's announcement addresses this gripe. And as Harvard goes, other elite IHEs go. It takes the pressure off when the perennial number one in US News makes the first move.
So what does SWNID, part of the IHE world, think of all this?
First, the elites are kidding themselves, if they actually believe it, to think that this move will significantly impact their demographics to bring a larger percentage of economically less-well-off students to their campuses. The impact of early applications is nothing compared to the perception that no one can afford $45k per year to go to an elite institution. The real focus, if Harvard and others are serious about penetrating the middle and lower classes, needs to be in publicizing their need-based financial aid systems. For the brightest students without a lot of money, the elites can often be a huge bargain. But that's a well-kept secret.
Second, we find ourselves very happy to work at an institution that specializes in late applications. How does that underreported story work? We'll tell it about "Jason," a composite character.
Jason is a high school senior and a Christian. Various experiences of the last couple of years have made him take his faith more seriously.
Jason is also a pretty good student. Everyone, from parents to guidance counselors to peers, has ambitions for him. They look for him to go to a "good college" and get a degree that will take him into a prestigious, highly remunerative career.
Meanwhile, Jason is involved with leadership in his church. He assists his youth minister in organizing activities, goes on a foreign mission trip over Christmas, and talks to his friends about his faith. For him, such things are most important. Further, he finds that the people he admires most are people who earn their living from the church.
But Jason likes to please people. So he follows the path laid out for him by parents, peers and counselors, applying to several public and private colleges. And because he's a good student and good person, he gets good offers from those. At high school graduation, he tells everyone that he's going to The College That Everyone Respects.
But then, over the summer, his social world is altered. Working at a summer job, he's no longer around his guidance counselor or many of his friends. But he is still active at church and beyond with his faith. His core commitments begin to bubble to the surface. He wonders whether he really wants to go to The College That Everyone Respects to major in biology and then go to optometry school.
Then he goes to a Christian youth conference, he thinks for maybe the last time. And there, away from other pressures but confronted with a different one, he realizes where "God really wants him to be."
So CCU gets his application around July 20. When we process him and admit him, he calls The College That Everyone Respects and tells them to keep his deposit with his blessing.
Most of the Jasons prove to be just the kind of student that CCU wants. Most of them stay around (per our latest statistics, 88% of freshmen stayed to become sophomores and 72% graduated within six years, both figures well above average nationally; those interested can locate the data by beginning here). Most of them are an utter delight to teach. Most of them do significant things when they graduate.
So let Harvard give up early admission. We'll keep late admission.
Maybe we'll call it "mature admission."
6 comments:
God bless the Jasons of this world.
With each passing year, I grow more and more convinced that the U.S. News rankings may well prove to be the worst thing that ever happened to higher education.
It's hard to say that anything was worse for higher education than the 1960s, unless it was the 1970s. But I agree completely.
Having been employed at the aforementioned Christian University, I must say that late enrollment was very helpful at times. I liken it to those television game shows where contestants are stuck in a vault with flying dollar bills. You're supposed to grab as many as possible in an alloted amount of time and, near the end of the time, you start feverishly grabbing as much as you can before the time goes out.
But this late enrollment also forced us to be naieve about the student's background and intentions. One student walked into the office four days before classes started; that's even later than the late deadline. After hearing his transformational story I went in and pleaded for his admission and he was accepted.
Two weeks into the semester he disappeared. They got into his dorm room to search for clues of his whereabouts and found beer in his mini-fridge as well as pictures of him with strippers. Apparently he moved in with a buddy of his at a state college and was resigned to 24/7 partying. Not quite the ministry students we were looking for.
The sad part is it's all a result of the pressures put on admissions officers to lure new students into schools. You quickly figure out how your performance is being judged and do your best to fulfill those requirements: hence, early admission. Until universities begin to view enrollment as an institutional issue, little will change.
From Jason's perspective, however, the real problem creeps up when he hits his sophomore year of school, matures further, and realizes that vocational ministry is not for him. Given the lack of options for majors at an institution like CCU, what is Jason left to do?
On the one hand, he could transfer to another college, but part of the college experience, and arguably a large part of that experience, is the relationships one builds while there. To leave a school behind is often to leave those relationships behind as well. Further, entering a school as a Junior or Senior, one is often behind in the relationship dept as many people will have formed close friendships during their earlier years. Additionally, due to the unique curriculum at institutions such a CCU, Jason may find it will cost him additional time and money (which must often be paid back) to complete a new degree as many CCU courses do not fit as neatly into degree programs at mainline institutions.
Staying and finishing the degree, on the other hand, can be equally problematic as a degree with the word "Bible" in it can seem somewhat limiting, at least to those in HR departments reviewing stacks of resumes. Hopefully Jason will have taken a good creative writing course to be able to explain to interviewers why a 'Bible' degree is beneficial for one working in _____ field.
While it is great to offer Jason an opportunity to make a last minute choice to go "where God really wants him to be," I think he would be better served by an institution which offers him more quality choices once he figures out "who" God really wants him to be.
I guess I'm one of those students that rock the curve on graduating within 6 years...or is that 6 years of actually going to school full-time?
I shall remain nameless because I am probably the worst of all of us in this department. But I will share a tad of my story.
I came to CBC&S (not CCU at the time)a week and a half after classes started. I didn't apply. I wasn't accepted. My preacher called the school and said, "Hey I have a kid who should be in bible college, do you have a problem with that?"
And the school took me in. I had spent a year at a secular university, had planned to go back, had transferred scholarship money to that school (from my dad's employer), and had signed an apartment lease for 10 months in that city.
My roommate found another roommate (to assume the lease), and I loaded up my mini-LTD and made the 8 hour trip to Yankeeville. I arrive on the second Friday of school at about 2 p.m.
I met with my advisor, and then went down to the dorm and moved in with a guy who had thought for a week and a half that he was going to be roommate free for the whole year. My roommate asked me to go to Forest Fair that night to go to the cheapie theater. I said yes and we went with two girls that he was prospecting.
When I got back to the dorm at 11ish, I took a shower in the communal bathroom on 4th south because I felt dirty from the long travel day, moving in in the heat, and the rated R movie that we watched.
In the shower, I cried like a baby. I was homesick. I was tired. I was out of my element. And I didn't know what to expect. I had just had a massive fight with my parents over my decision to leave a "real school" pursuing a "real degree" and go to bible college.
I found CBC to be a wonderful place: the people, the ministry opportunities, and the academy. While I have not blossomed into Bob Russellhood, I can confidently say that CBC challenged me, formed me, and made me like no other earthly force. And of course it isn't all that eartly as the Spirit of God is working through the school day in and day out.
My favorite profs were Dyke, Weatherly (sorry for the brown nose), Pressley, and North (in that order). They are all markedly different. Dyke is full passion. He is awed by God and what God has done in history. Weatherly is intelligent, thorough, and holistic (nobody can or is willing to harmonize biblical studies / theology with systematic theology like Weatherly). He is also quite funny. Pressley is intelligent and analytical and funny too. North isn't funny. But as a pure lecturer, he knows his stuff.
CBC was a rigorous school (though not every professor). I have had much other education, but no other school has taught composition the way CBC taught it. Papers, papers, papers. It starts with 10 hermeneutics papers and builds from there. It was painful, but educational.
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