Playing Hard to Get in College Admissions

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[Music]

so there are two things that i consider

myself

an expert on college admissions which is

my career

and pop culture which is my guilty

pleasure

so in march of 2019 when a news alert

popped up on my phone with felicity

huffman and lori laughlin

among dozens charged in college

admissions scandal

i thought for a second that somehow the

things i’m

most familiar with or at least care the

most about

had gotten mixed up in this bizarre

algorithm to become my own personal

clickbait

unfortunately the story was true as of

now

50 people have been charged mostly with

bribing

exam administrators of tests like the

sat to facilitate cheating

or with bribing athletic coaches or

university administrators to

nominate unqualified applicants

as recruited athletes now there have

only been eight

colleges named in the scandal eight out

of more than five thousand in the

country

whose selective admission practices have

inspired families to commit illegal

activity

of those eight colleges

and we talk about the selectivity of

those colleges what we’re really talking

about

is admission rates so an admit rate is

of the percentage of students

out of thousands and thousands who

actually apply to that college what

percent is actually admitted

the lower admit rate the more selective

a college so anyways back to the scandal

of those eight colleges more than half

had an admit rate

below 12 but

80 percent of american colleges emit

more than half of their applicants

i often find that students and families

can be fixated on colleges that

aren’t a realistic option for most

students

and as a society we’re not really

helping with that

let me give you another example based on

this overlap of my personal and

professional interest

tony stark also known as iron man the

lead character in some of the top

grossing films of the past decade

well everyone knows that he went to mit

admit rate

seven percent in the television show the

office

which it seems like this entire

generation of teenagers has binge

watched on netflix

the office is constantly highlighting

the alma mater of andy bernard

cornell admit rate 10 percent

in gilmore girls which i watched when i

was in high school rory gilmore applies

to

and is admitted to only two colleges

harvard and yale

admit rate five percent in fact

the admissions scandal was nicknamed

operation varsity blues

based on the movie where the lead

character is obsessed with attending

brown university

admit rate six percent

if you remember one thing i say it

should be the selectivity of a college

does not equal the quality of an

education

but the colleges that we tend to

celebrate

highlight in pop culture who are in a

worst-case scenario commit fraud to try

to get our child admitted to

are often colleges that are unrealistic

options

for most students in my job

some of the toughest conversations i’ve

had are with students

who were not admitted to their dream

college but wasn’t really their

dream college if it didn’t recognize how

great they were

why have we trained our brains to think

of colleges like someone playing hard to

get

would you want to date someone who

wasn’t into all the great stuff you have

going on

if someone told you they would only love

you if you played soccer

but you had never even kicked a ball

would you photoshop pictures of yourself

scoring the winning goal

that actually happened in the scandal a

lot of athletic photoshop

should you change yourself just to be

accepted by someone

why value a college that doesn’t admit

you

these should be rhetorical questions but

here’s the thing

we know that in college admissions and

also in love

playing hard to get actually works in

2011 there was a study conducted by

aaron whitchurch

timothy wilson and daniel gilbert

basically

they showed college age women facebook

profiles of

men and they told them that these men

either liked them a lot

like them an average amount or felt

uncertain about their feelings

guess which men the women were most

interested in

yes the ones who felt uncertain

do you know what else feels uncertain

the current state of college admissions

and pretty much everything else right

now so i wrote this speech in the winner

of 2020 with plans to deliver it in

march

and at the time we were in a national

conversation about the cost of college

and student loans and whether the

admissions process is favored towards

wealthy families

who can afford to provide their son with

opportunities that might make them

more attractive to a college or can

afford to pay 15

000 to rig their daughter’s s.a.t scores

a lot’s happened since then those

conversations are still relevant but

colleges are also talking about

how to keep students on campus and

healthy college admissions offices

recognize that due to the pandemic

most students haven’t had the

opportunity to take many s.a.t or act

tests if any at all and they’re waiving

that requirement to apply

laurie laughlin was recently sentenced

to two months in prison

and high school students are still

trying to decide and

figure out which colleges to apply to

but without the opportunity often to

visit these campuses

maybe they’re not at school in person

with resources to help them figure this

out

they might be relying on what they

already know about these colleges

and how do we learn a little bit about

colleges well we hear their name in the

news

or we hear their name on a movie screen

or on the television

or we hear about them through rankings

now some of the best known college

rankings are through u.s news

they rank colleges across the country on

about 15 different areas of academic

quality

however two of those areas of quality

are the college’s perceived reputation

by others

and how many students they deny each

year

now we know that this selectivity and

uncertainty

can certainly fuel attraction but there

has to be some

level of perceived interest to fall in

love with a person

or with a college if you’ve ever lived

with a high school student

you know that seemingly out of nowhere

your mailbox starts filling up

with college brochures that’s because

when students take the psat in about

10th or 11th grade

the college board the company that owns

the psat

buys test takers names and information

or sells test takers names and

information to colleges

and then colleges after buying that

information use that information to

start recruiting students

now i worked at a college for eight

years i certainly understand

that colleges are working to build these

freshman classes and they’re trying to

increase the academic quality and

increase the diversity of these

of the students applying and they can’t

know based on some initial testing

information

whether or not they would actually admit

the student so what happens

students get information about a college

telling them to apply or to visit

they know that college is hard to get

into which makes them even more

interested

so they apply they’re not admitted

and then the college has the distinction

of denying more students than ever

before

now i want to be clear that no college

admissions office

or no college counselor was ever part of

the scandal

in fact i’m not really blaming colleges

i’m blaming you

we need to start thinking differently

about what makes a good

college good is it because it denied

90 percent of its applicants or is it

because it’s offering

opportunities for students to grow into

the best version of themselves

when you hear about the student who

applied to all eight ivy league colleges

and was admitted

which is a college list that actually

makes very little sense if a student is

really being thoughtful about what type

of college

might be a specific good fit for them

well anyways are you more impressed with

that student

than your nephew who applied to a local

regional

university admit rate 74

because it was a good fit for him

academically

socially and financially as adults

we’re just as bad about this playing

hard to get

as teenagers maybe worse how many times

have you become more interested in a job

or a person or an opportunity

when you found out it was going to be a

little bit harder to get than you

originally thought

i have a confession when i found out

that i was selected to

talk at tedx greenville i was elated

and then i thought i wonder how many

people actually applied

the point is not whether or not this was

a selective process which it was

but that i should be honored that i had

this opportunity that someone recognized

something that i wanted to offer and i

can stand here today

the gallup purdue index which is the

largest

representative study of american college

students in

united states history released something

called

the big six six college experiences in

these are the experiences most closely

aligned with

students feeling prepared for life after

college

spoiler alert these experiences prove

that it’s not so much where you go to

college but what happens once you get

there

these were experiences like i had i had

a professor who cared about me as a

person

or i had the opportunity to become very

involved in a student organization

or i had a job or an internship that

allowed me to apply what i learned in

the classroom

these experiences were not i went to a

college that denied most of my friends

or my parents felt very smug when they

tell their neighbors that i’m attending

this elite institution

so parents let’s talk about you for a

second

if you tell your child that the only way

they’ll get into a

good college is by taking a class that

they hate

or if you encourage them to apply to a

bunch of highly selective

institutions just to see if you get in

then what you’re saying is

who you truly are isn’t good enough and

something’s only worth having

if it’s practically unattainable also

here’s a suggestion don’t commit fraud

to try to get your child admitted to

college

support them through the process but let

them take it on

on their own and be proud of them no

matter what

because the name brand of the college

that your child attends

is not a reflection of you or your

parenting

now in my job i strongly believe that

students should be challenging

themselves

that means taking higher level courses

that means

trying out new activities or hobbies and

yes that means applying to a college

that might be a reach for them

but as a high school student the choices

you make about how you spend your time

inside and outside of the classroom

should be about what makes you feel like

the best version of you

not what makes you feel like this ideal

college applicant

i sometimes find that students who’ve

been admitted to wonderful colleges

are fixated on the one college where

they weren’t admitted

as if that college is more worthy or

carries more weight

than the colleges that have accepted

them

have a place for them on campus have

offered them scholarships

have you ever known someone who was

stuck on a relationship

that clearly wasn’t right for them

there’s no such thing as

the one that got away when it comes to a

college

there are plenty of colleges out there

who will accept students as they are

without falsifying sat scores without

photoshopping themselves

onto a crete onto a crew team and

there’s a lot of people out there who

will love you

just the way you are i guess what i’m

trying to say is

your dream college isn’t the one who

won’t admit you

and the perfect person for you isn’t

asking you to change

college and to a greater extent life

is about finding the people and the

places

that accept the real you students need

to know that their destiny

is not tied to a dream that’s only

achievable if they try to change

themselves

we should love and accept college

applicants

just as they are and know that their

dream college

is one who will do the same thank you

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