Banish the Term #Rejected in College Admissions
“What didn’t they like about me?” One of my students, understandably upset, pleaded with me when she wasn’t admitted to her dream school. I thought we’d been over this likely outcome, like a thousand times, so I stammered, hiding my frustrating about how futile her question was.
Many students assume that admission offices review their applications to decide if they could either thrive at that college (admit), or if they would not be a good fit (rejected). This reasoning is absurd, actually; it’s simply the case that increasing selectivity coupled with the roughly same amount of beds means there’s just no room for thousands of perfect fits.
There’s an urban legend that Harvard could craft, out of each year’s applicant pool, ten equally qualified freshman classes. It’s not entirely untrue. With a staggering 4.5% admittance rate, Harvard can’t fit the thousands of perfect SAT scorers, class presidents, star oboists, quarterbacks, princes of Monaco, and valedictorians who apply.
The “admission funnel” is a visual metaphor depicting the chronology of populations admission offices deal with. Numbers decrease through the funnel from inquiry to applicant, applicant to admit, and finally, to matriculate. Looking at Harvard’s funnel, it’s more like a bottleneck. Perfectly admissible students are simply squeezed out.
Students without a “hook” such as an athletic or artistic talent the institution wants to recruit that year, or a currently needed demographic difference, are at a particular disadvantage. Institutions are charged with ensuring access across racial lines, which actually incited lawsuits against affirmative-action at the Supreme Court level. Socioeconomics present another major factor as students who need financial aid might face higher standards than their “full pay” counterparts. As colleges practice variations of “need-blind” or “need-sensitive” admission, families are confused by the phenomenon of “College Admission Roulette: Ask for Financial Aid, or Not?” addressed by Paul Sullivan for the New York Times. Simply put: most colleges have to limit the number of financial aid recipients.
Still, students believe they’re “rejected” due to flaws. How can we change how they process their disappointment? How about changing the vocabulary? We must help them move beyond simplistic concepts of “rejection” to the nuances of changing demographics. We should broach the issue of access with them, contextualizing their situation when they’re not admitted. After all, they’re old enough to vote.
To address the issue at its core, we should also educate about fit, quality-beyond-the-rankings, and the strategy of casting a broad net of applications to a spectrum of schools that reflect students’ unique traits. A diehard fan of Loren Pope’s 40 Colleges That Change Lives, I continually find gems among the 3,000-plus excellent colleges in the U.S. alone. There will always be unattainable dream schools, but developing a host of exciting alternatives — as opposed to reaches vs. safeties — we can ensure happy outcomes, and soften the blow and prep students for their imminent letters of non-admission.
I thought I forewarned my applicant about selectivity, and shored up her confidence with the other schools on her list. She still clung on to the idea that she maybe she could’ve done more in her application. Truthfully, she could not have. She submitted a perfect application, IMHO, with a pretty ideal transcript, scores, and resumé. But she was one of thousands of students who just didn’t fit, and I’m desperate for them to understand that they’re not “rejected,” but simply “not admitted.”