To put it bluntly, the college admissions process sucks. To channel my inner Holden Caulfield, it’s all phony. This weekend, I read this awesome essay published in New Republic titled “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League” written by a former Yale professor William Deresiewicz who saw the negative impacts the college search can have on students. (Link: https://newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere ) I agreed with a majority of the points brought up in this article, so I am about to go on a little tirade about the problems with college admissions:

For students looking to gain admission to an elite institution, they must cobble together a spotless resume with impeccable academics, substantial leadership, meaningful leadership, countless extracurriculars, and a series of essays that details some “life-changing” experience that they’ve seen in their 17 or 18 years. In order to fit into this mold of the “ideal candidate,” high schoolers, especially those from the upper middle class, strain themselves in order to do it all, for the promise that an elite college will offer an elite future. This path of AP classes, leadership positions, community service hours, SAT prep classes, and college essay workshops leaves no room for error. The thought of being inadequate and failing even slightly has created a generation of college students who have never really challenged themselves or taken any considerable risks (and I include myself in this generalization). And with the seemingly endless things that high schoolers “ought” to be doing to prepare for college applications, students feel like they are never doing enough and that they always have to be “on.”

The incredibly competitive nature of gaining admittance to an elite college often devolves into a pissing contest for both students and their parents. People in my high school applied to elite schools just to prove that they could get in, without considering what is actually best for them. And the parents of high-achieving students take such pride in the level of prestige that goes along with what college their child attends. I can vividly imagine the women in my mom’s book club humble-bragging about how their child got into Bucknell but decided to attend Colgate instead. *eye-roll* Then you must consider the roll the family wealth can play in college admissions. SAT scores are supposed to be a benchmark for aptitude, but can often be a better benchmark for how much your parents invested their money and your time in prep classes and practice tests.

I hate the idea that there is a specific formula that students can follow to gain admissions to top-tier schools. It is so easy to be put into the cattle chute of killing yourself in high school to gain admissions to the best college and then killing yourself in college to get into the best grad school/first job and then killing yourself there. High schoolers are pushed onto this path without really being asked if it’s right for them. Deresiewicz compares high-achieving high school students to “thoroughbred” dogs circling a racetrack. He continues to explain that this path of elite high schools and elite college creates “a large number of very smart, completely confused graduates. Kids who have ample mental horsepower, an incredible work ethic, and no idea what to do next.” When your goal is to get into the best college or to get the highest GPA in college or whatever, it is very clear to define success and very easy to feel successful when you achieve that. But when the educational system is no longer spoon-feeding you your next steps, it can be difficult to decide what makes you happy and what success looks like. After 16+ years of education centered around external validation, it can be difficult to be internally motivated post college.

Now that I’ve listed all my frustrations with the system, I don’t really have any comprehensive solutions. One thing that I would stress to high schoolers going through the college admissions process and my fellow undergraduates is the importance of self-reflection. When you’re constantly worrying about leadership positions and grades and service hours, it can be difficult to find time and think about big questions: What do I like?; Where do I find value?; What motivates me?; Why am I studying what I am studying?; How can I do good in the world?; What does a successful, fulfilling life look like for me?; I think that answering these questions is very difficult (heck, I don’t think I can answer even one of these satisfactorily.), but I feel it’s important to start asking. If you can find a fundamental “why” (your internal motivation for your career/life), it can act as a North Star for the decisions you make along the way. If we keep bogging high-achieving students down with endless AP classes and prep courses, they cannot find the time to start contemplating these questions. If we can instill a culture of internal motivation from an earlier age, we will create a generation of undergraduates more driven, more curious, and fundamentally more prepared for the life beyond college.