So, the most competitive college admissions season is nearly behind us.
What have we learned?
What has been seen by students (and families) applying this year to college is that there is no way to know for sure how colleges make admissions' decisions or who will get into what schools, or why. Neither grades, nor test scores, or even a great non-academic profile will assure students the ability to get into the more so-called elite schools.
The great counsel that I can still give students and their parents is to follow their passions regardless of the name of a specific school or schools. Don't worry about getting into one of those named brand colleges or universities because you can't predict with any certainty what colleges may want in a particular applicant or in a class that they are trying to build.
The brutal fact is that the more elite schools are only admitting about 5% of those that apply.
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell posits that the so-called elite schools like Harvard, Stanford, Brown, etc. would do just as well to have a lottery to get in once students have reached a certain acceptable admissions threshold.
Perhaps schools should stop with this crazy admissions process and go to Gladwell's lottery. In fact, perhaps that's what they should call it "Gladwell's lottery." So, I can hear it now in the halls at Princeton, "We went to a Gladwellian situation." Or, "How did your Gladwell turn out this year? Did you get that squash player you wanted?"
I poke a little fun perhaps, but it is ridiculous how these "elite" colleges are dictating what the less competitive colleges must do in order to be deemed successful.
From enrollment management to endowment creation to student selection, colleges will have to become more transparent. I tell students all the time that there is "a college out there that is just right for you."
I hope they believe it.
