Marketing-U

COMPETITION IS FIERCE FOR COLLEGE ACCEPTANCE
HIGH ACHIEVEMENT DOESN'T ALWAYS MEAN ACCEPTANCE TO TOP SCHOOL

Laura Huffman

I'm trying to get my 5-month-old son an audience with the Pope.

Or perhaps he can come up with the cure for cancer.

As tough as it is for even high-achieving students to get into the colleges of their choice today, I shudder at the thought of what my child will need to achieve to get that precious acceptance letter or e-mail (or hologram?) 18 years from now. Even though one year at a private college or university costs the same as my parents paid for the house I grew up in, more and more students are attending college, which is great. Except that, as a result, fewer spots are available, which is not so great. The competition is getting fierce.

The Japanese know about competition. There, college-bound students attend jukus, or cram schools. After their regular school day ends, they go to additional classes, sometimes lasting until midnight, all in the pursuit of one goal: getting into the college of their choice. With no standardized test like the SAT or ACT, students study for and take an entrance exam at each college where they seek admission. After all that tremendously hard work and sacrifice, to fail to get into these schools can be devastating. Japan's adolescent suicide numbers are the same as those of the United States, although it has only one-third the population.

I'm not suggesting we're going to see a sudden surge in the suicide rate among college-bound teenagers here. I'm just saying that sometimes this level of competition can take its toll. For those who strive to get into UNC or Duke, Notre Dame or Yale, high school can be a stressful time. In Japan, teenagers are expected to sacrifice these years in order to get into college. Most students do not have jobs, nor do schools offer athletic programs. Their job is to excel at academics, and both their families and society understand and support that. Here, students are expected to be nearly superhuman in order to get that precious acceptance letter - all while reveling in what they are constantly told are some of the best years of their lives.

When I was in school, the only arms race that existed was between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, journalists are reporting of a "college arms race," in which students as young as middle school are already taking the SAT. On the high school level, where I teach, I see high-achieving students who not only are taking a schedule packed with Advanced Placement courses, but also are playing varsity sports, acting in the school play, running any number of clubs and organizations, and working a part-time job. Oh, and let's not forget community service. These kids spend their weekends organizing runs for breast-cancer research and their spring breaks building houses in Nicaragua. All that would be fine - character-building, even - if there were a clear payoff. Instead of rewarding the growing numbers of high-achieving kids with scholarships to prestigious colleges, however, higher education grows only more expensive, and acceptance letters are even harder to come by.

As a teacher, I also feel a bit like a farmer. I spend the fall semester writing recommendation letters for my college-bound seniors and the spring semester waiting to see the harvest of responses from colleges and universities. This year, while several students earned scholarships to top universities, many other students at the top of the class were either wait-listed or rejected from their dream schools. I received disappointed e-mails from students. One young man wrote to tell me he was now ashamed to tell people he didn't get into his two top choices and would have to tell people that he got in only to his "safety" school. He suggested people would think less of him. Others were devastated they didn't get into that same school.

It's a tough blow for these hardworking young people. They expected all this hard work to pay off with a letter saying "yes." Perhaps it is also a valuable lesson: Don't put all your eggs in one basket; learn to deal with disappointment. I didn't get into my top choice for graduate school, I tell my students. If I had, I would never have met my husband here in Charlotte.

But I'm still trying to get that appointment with the Pope.