Class of Luxury

Have I just become an old crab or does the thought of a college dorm (sorry, residence hall) with a "heated pool, a hot tub, a sand volleyball court and four tanning booths" make you kind of cranky? Today's Chicago Tribune reports on several luxe facilities featuring everything from walk-in closets to maid service, "communal" 47-inch flat-screen TVs to computer-linked washers and dryers. (The tanning beds, inexplicably, are at Arizona State.)

Not too many years ago I visited a college in Massachusetts that had just built a residence hall of six-person suites where each student had his own room, there were two bathrooms, and a kitchenette. Purdue's $52 million (yes you read that right) facility also comes with a meal plan. Many living facilities are built with single rooms (some even come with private bathrooms), since most kids have grown up without having to share a room or even a bathroom, and why would they want to start now? My thought on seeing that dorm was, Why would I want to make my own food in college?

Although many of these luxurious accommodations come with a hefty premium tacked on to the regular room and board charge, they are being snapped up even in this economy. Nothing, apparently, is too good for current college students. As the Trib writes, "Tom Cheesman, architect of Purdue's $52 million First Street Towers, said the residence hall is 'essentially a hotel.' He said it is especially attractive to 'helicopter parents who want to send their son or daughter to college campus but give them all the luxuries of home.'"


It's certainly a far cry from my freshman dorm at Amherst. I lived on the 4th floor (no elevator) with two roommates, neither of whom bathed much, in a room meant for one or maybe two. The fireplace and woodbox revealed the building's early 20th-century origins, but the former had been blocked up so we relied on the inadequate steam heat that barely reached us in the winter and blasted us finally when it started to get warm. In the depths of a New England January we had an eighth of an inch of ice on the inside of our bedroom window. At least we didn't have to cart our own wood for the fire.

Somehow, though, we managed to survive and do well. I had bought a new "record player" to bring (it also had an eight track player!) as well as an area rug, a desk lamp, and an electric typewriter I had gotten for graduation. A clock radio, too. Some books, and clothes, as well as some records came in a few boxes. My roommates brought even less. There were students who had a lot more than I did. One of my dorm mates had a huge stereo and a water bed; so I suppose those who had, brought. (One of the Purdue students has been "keeping 30 pairs of shoes at the ready and jamming the bookshelf with every episode of "The O.C." and "Dawson's Creek."" Really? For what?)

But then I suppose we had less to bring and fewer, or at least different, expectations, about what to bring and what to expect about living in a dorm. As a kid I remember thinking that a "dorm" meant I'd be in a barracks with a lot of other people, a prospect that scared me. But I did like the idea of living with a few other guys. We didn't share a lot but we co-existed pretty well. My living situations got slightly better over the years, but I wasn't in it for the amenities, and reading the Trib article I felt glutted, overwhelmed by the presence of things in an environment where ideas and relationships should be dominant.

Colleges have been in an amenities race for some time now, building massive "fitness centers" and other facilities to attract students, and new dorms are no exception. I wonder, though, what it means to try to replicate what students have at home rather than having them experience communal or semi-communal living. Negotiating a bathroom with 30 other hallmates can be exasperating, but it can also teach patience and, well, negotiation; having to clean up after yourself (or, more likely, not) gives you a sense of who you are and a taste of living on your own. Trying as hard as you can to stay in your individual bubble seems sad to me--like going to Paris and never leaving your hotel.

Everyone romanticizes their college experiences so I won't go on, but I do wonder what might have happened if Purdue had spent $52 million dollars on their labs and on faculty. Or if ASU had bought textbooks for low-income students instead of tanning beds. This kind of reckless consumption doesn't bode well for the future.

Elephant in the Room

The Choice, a New York Times blog about college admission, has begun a series of answers to questions posed to HarvardҀs Dean of Admission, Bill Fitzsimmons. Those of us who have worked in the field for more than a few days will probably know how to answer the questions from nearly 900 respondents. WhatҀs remarkable is that even though there are dozens of books, articles, websites, counselors, and other methods purporting to reveal the ӀsecretsԀ of college admission, the questions and assumptions are the same as they have always been.

The admission process is the elephant being discussed by the blind men: each one ӀknowsԀ what heҀs feeling׀a tail, an ear, a leg׀but no one knows the whole thing. Some insist that most spots in a Harvard class are reserved for wealthy donors or legacies; others believe that the deck is stacked against public school students (Interestingly, Fitzsimmons, himself a Harvard alum, is from a blue collar background). Another demands to know that applying for financial aid will have no impact on a studentҀs chances, yet another asks how HarvardҀs process can Ӏreward diversity without committing a type of reverse discrimination.Ԁ The tone of the questions ranges from Harvard-induced bliss at having been accepted to outright skepticism, with some dark rumblings from fringy types about why Harvard Ӏgives awayԀ so many seats to Ӏforeign bornԀ students.

Underneath all these comments are two questions that vary according to whether you have a child of college-going age or not: ӀHow can my child reach the inner circles of wealth, connection and power?Ԁ and ӀWhy canҀt Harvard [or other appropriately big and powerful school] fix everything thatҀs wrong with our social system?Ԁ These are both unanswerable and mutually exclusive, which is what makes college admission so much fun.

Ultimately, however, the pleas to Fitzsimmons add up to what used to be addressed to philosophers: ӀHow shall we live our lives?Ԁ Parents of second graders want to know how to plan lives that will result in Harvard attainment; a high schooler worries that if she leads an ӀauthenticԀ life she may be disadvantaged by someone who has polished and ӀcreatedԀ hers; those without Harvard genes lambaste a policy that seems automatically to reward those who have them. We want answers that will assure us that life isnҀt random but has some direction and meaning. But in expecting ӀHarvardԀ to provide those answers, we avoid the more difficult task of wrestling with them ourselves, which is why philosophy is so hard.

Of course, one big mistake is to assume that only Harvard can address those questions. As college counselors and admission officers never tire of saying, the ӀbestԀ college is the one that will challenge you appropriately, open your eyes to new ways of thinking, and help you develop and broaden your talents as you take your place in the world ahead. Plunging full-on into college life will be rewarding no matter where you are.

A true story: While I was in the Amherst admission office, one of our tour guides told us that her parents had pressured her mercilessly to apply to Harvard even though she wanted to attend Amherst. They had never heard of Amherst and insisted that Harvard was the place sheҀd go. After much haranguing, they finally prevailed upon her to visit Harvard and take the tour. At the end, a visitor asked the tour guide, ӀIs there anything youҀd change about your Harvard experience?Ԁ The guide replied, ӀI would have gone to Amherst.Ԁ The rest, as they say, is history; hers, anyway.

Despite our best efforts, college admission remains an enigma wrapped in a mystery stuffed in an elephant. We just need to remember that weҀre dealing with flawed human beings and human systems. But Americans expect answers, not more questions: Socrates was executed for being annoying, remember--he wouldnҀt last ten minutes in an admission office. And no matter what answers Fitzsimmons gives, they wonҀt be the ones questioners are looking for. Even Harvard canҀt supply those.

A version of this essay appears on the NACAC blog, Admitted.

Random Pleasures

Surprise! Harvard, Princeton, and Yale top the U.S. News university listings again, with Williams atop the liberal arts college list. IҀve suggested for a number of years that the perennial ӀwinnersԀ simply be retired and let the rest duke it out each year (no offense to Duke) so we can get a real contest going.

If weҀre stuck with the rankings, letҀs make a cage match out of рem! Instead of a constant set of characteristics that give rise to virtually identical hierarchies each year, change things up so thereҀs some real suspense, like there is on the WWF or American Gladiators. Forget all this genteel bickering, or Ӏreputation rankingsԀ filled out more or less at random, letҀs get some chairs, boards, barbed wire, and beer and get a real contest going. If youҀve seen Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler, you know what I mean. Have colleges clash over stuff that matters: the square footage of their student centers; the pounds of tomatoes served in the dining hall; the average height of the faculty; the most expensive textbooks; the acreage per student. These are all concrete elements that can be objectively measured. For that matter, letҀs include the amount of concrete on each campus. Have college presidents batter each other with rolled-up copies of The Chronicle of Higher Education until thereҀs only one left standing (presumably the one who used the issue with the Almanac tucked inside).

Whether or not people actually use the rankings in any biblical way, the main impulse seems to be to eliminate randomness from the college selection process: If you look at all the factors and set them up rationally, youҀll have the ӀperfectԀ match!

This, we know, is totally impossible. Any time college counselors get together, we talk about how we came to our alma maters more or less by accident, not design. We took our tests, sent in some applications, and chose one of the ones that chose us. We seldom did doctorate level research before deciding where to apply; yet we managed to emerge as decent human beings.

I applied to Amherst because my counselor tossed out the name in passing one day. IҀd never heard of it but since it was a bus ride from New Jersey I went up and fell in love with it: it looked like what I thought college should look like. And luckily, they accepted me. (Another story.) When an Amherst professor once challenged me about why I had chosen Amherst, I couldnҀt say anything that he didnҀt counter with a variation of, ӀBut plenty of other schools have good teachers and classes. What makes Amherst unique?Ԁ I was annoyed at the time but the exchange has stayed with me because the reality is I could have been just as happy anywhere else.

We fool ourselves if we think we can eliminate randomness from college choice, or, indeed, from many of the choices we make. TodayҀs Chicago Tribune has a story on how some colleges are trying to use social networking to match up roommates. Students can see their future roomies and make decisions accordingly. But jettisoning randomness can make life duller and bring out our lesser instincts. One girl said she asked for a change when she saw the ӀshabbyԀ house her prospective roommate lived in. Another college stopped using extensive matching questionnaires because it just led to peopleҀs being more disappointed when things didnҀt work out.

So if weҀre not going to have collegiate cage matches anytime soon, I suggest taking the rankings and getting some darts. You know where IҀm going with thatŀ

A version of this blog entry appears in the NACAC blog Admitted.

Raw Material or Finished Product?

Eugene S. Wilson, legendary admission dean at Amherst College, believed that no matter how long he was in the business he'd never perfect the art of human evaluation, and that was OK. For him, every applicant was an opportunity to see the potential in a young person, to assess him fairly, and to render a decision that might indeed prove incorrect down the line. For him (and his immediate successor at Amherst, Ed Wall), admission was most definitely an art, not a science, and putting a class together was the delicate balancing of the college's needs with the needs and desires of young men (and later, women) as they began to enter adulthood.

When I joined the Amherst admission office in 1990 I was delighted to be part of that tradition. To this day, I believe that Dean Wall used his gut more than my numbers to admit me to Amherst in 1973, and I wanted to have a chance to combine hard numbers and humane considerations to create Amherst's next generations in a way inspired by Wilson and Wall. At the core, I think they recognized that applicants to college were still unformed persons trying on new identities and exploring different aspects of their lives and the world's offerings. A liberal arts college like Amherst was designed to help students choose well and build on their previous accomplishments as they moved into their future lives.

To me, this meant that students would apply to college as works in progress, ready for the college to exert its influence on them, and vice versa. We were looking for potential, a most elusive quality: We all know of the class presidents who burned out or the most likely to succeed students who never made it out of their hometowns. Our test as admission officers was to spot the energy, the uniqueness, the elusive qualities that infused the GPA and test scores and made the whole a great deal more than the sum of its parts.

But after a few years of helping make admission decisions, I began to feel that looking for the :diamond in the rough" or the "potentiality" of an applicant was less important that getting the numbers as high as possible. Not that it was ever fully mechanistic, but our admission process seemed to me more dependent not only on the black and white figures but also on what students had already accomplished. We celebrated (and rightly so) the applicants who had achieved some remarkable goal, like writing a novel or developing a new invention, but they began to overshadow other applicants who had "only" led a community food bank or restructured their high school's student government or did exceptional work in math or biology classes. I began to call these applicants "merely wonderful" because while they were truly exceptional in their own right, they faded in comparison to the superstars.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have taken the precocious, but it became clear to me that we were beginning to look for the already formed instead of the in progress student. Faculty members wanted to see more students who had been published or made major contributions to their fields. We wanted to see academic "heavy hitters" almost to the exclusion of anyone else. We were lucky to have plenty of them apply and we were always in a little awe of what some of our eventual freshmen had done, but some of the pleasure in putting a class together was lost as we had to turn down more and more exceptional students to make way for the super-accomplished. That pleasure had come from being able to say "yes" to someone we could see as coming into him or herself at Amherst. It was potential we wanted to see on campus as much as past accomplishment, but increasingly the process became more mechanistic and less idiosyncratic, leading to more predictable, but in many respects less satisfying results.

This situation was reflected in the change made a few years into my tenure at Amherst. Our last round of deliberations was devoted to each dean's bringing to the table one favorite candidate who hadn't made it in the regular rounds. Although the applicant had to meet basic requirements for admission, the deans could present their candidates and have them admitted. Even though this round occurred after weeks of debate over hundreds of candidates, it was often the liveliest and most interesting. We were able to exercise our judgment and reward some wonderful quirk in a wonderful student who we felt would add to the incoming Amherst class. Our choices often reflected our own personalities and interests. I remember speaking up for a kid from Arkansas who, among other things, liked to create "found poetry" by cutting up prose and putting it back together randomly, then reading it at poetry slams. Others spoke for student-athletes, mad scientists, and others who would otherwise have been overlooked, and we always ended the season on that high note.

Admission continues to be more an art than a science, especially at small liberal arts colleges, but I still wonder whether the impulse to enroll only the most over-accomplished students has crowded out a more humane imperative to identify human potential that will benefit from our institutions' educational offerings. It affects students, too: The more they see the overachievers being rewarded with college admission, they more they feel they have to stay up until two in the morning and spend every waking moment getting ahead. Perhaps we should re-examine how we look at human potential in the college admission process in order to recalibrate our expectations of students' past and future, as well as our institutions' missions.

Is Free Tuition Really Free?

I know you shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth (and surely there's a 21st century version of that around somewhere...), and I support colleges' and universities' using more of their endowments to ease the financial burden on families with low incomes. In fact, I work with first-generation and underserved students, so anything that eases their way to college I support. But I wonder about the implications of a "free" college education: By not asking a student or family to make any financial commitment to a college education, how will that change the dynamic between them and the college or university? And how will it affect the way a student values that education?

I've worked with the Daniel Murphy Foundation here in Chicago for a number of years. They help talented 8th graders from needy families attend private schools here and elsewhere by providing a scholarship and by getting the host schools to kick in most of the resrt of the tuition. But no matter how financially needy the family is, they are asked to contribute something to their child's education. This seems proper to me because it asks the family to back up its generalized support of its son or daughter with hard cold cash, a measure of its commitment. It's a commonplace that we value most what we pay for, and I think that applies here, too.

One might say that disadvantaged families are already in enough of an economic bind but I'm not talking about asking for anything that the family can't handle. The DMSF pegs its request of the family to income and families are able to pay it. It's not about the money; it's about the commitment. Since most of the colleges and universities eliminating loans and so on are in the elite crowd, perhaps their status automatically generates commitment from the families, but I think if someone comes up to you and hands you a diamond for free, you're going to wonder about whether it's stolen or a cubic zirconium. Without a price tag it's hard to gauge the value of the item. And I don't think it's unfair to ask students to shoulder some kind of debt if they really want the kind of education that a college can give. Again, not anything crushing (save that for law school or med school) but enough to keep their eyes on the academic prize.

My other reservation about the rush to give away the store is that it only benefits a handful of students at a time and only at the very point of entry to college. All that money might be better used to strengthen the educational prospects of more students from disadvantaged backgrounds sooner, so there might be a greater number of first generation and underserved students in the application pool. Right now, colleges' and universities' largesse is passive, not active: It rewards those who have made it through the American educational system but hasn't actively affected it. In a sense it validates a Darwinian process of survival of the fittest instead of attacking many of the inequities of the system at their root.

The economic might of the Harvards, Yales, Amhersts, and so on might be better used to inject life and hope into needy schools starting at 9th grade or even earlier, helping them build strong foundations for their students as they prepare for college. By taking a more active role in education, by considering themselves part of a K-16 educational continuum rather than the beneficiaries of the results of "educational selection," colleges and universities might have a much greater and more significant effect on the education of America's least served but not undertalented students. So two cheers for spending more of their endowments, but a third cheer in reserve for when colleges and universities really take up the task of improving American education where it needs it the most.

The More Things Change...

Acceptance and rejection letters are out for this year and the usual articles about how it's never been harder to get into college and so on have been coming out like crocuses at the first sign of spring. As I've noted before, this isn't really news, it's just a repeat of articles from the last 10 years with different numbers, and of course we always have the details of rejected or waitlisted students being astonished that they didn't get into their "dream" schools, how much the pressure is getting to them, and so on. Focusing on colleges and universities whose acceptance rates seem to be approaching zero, the ultimate exclusivity (not may idea--see Doonesbury from a few years ago), media make it seem as though legions of rejected students will soon be roaming the streets in their ragged cardigans, homeless shades doomed to walk the earth without any cozy campus to call their own.

Of course, this is nowhere near the real picture. Just about everyone who applies to college will get in somewhere; quite a few colleges even (mid-April 2008) now are still accepting applications. The whole thing is only a problem if you care very deeply about where you attend and think that if you don't go there your life is somehow ruined, destroyed, or otherwise diverted from its true course and flowering, all of which is nonsense.

A colleague and I were talking the other evening about our own college research and application processes, laughing at our callow approach to the whole thing. She and I are contemporaries, so we're talking about the early 70s, before the whole thing got really out of hand. We were both clueless, to be honest, even though we were both good students. I was head of my class at a large public high school in Chester, NJ, which offered honors but no AP classes that I can recall (not a big thing then), and I did well in the honors track, although to this day I consider calculus my mortal enemy. I had what today would be considered so-so SAT scores (no I'm not telling, although to my chagrin I still know them), and a decent although not spectacular career in the chorus and the theater group. I also worked part-time at the local pharmacy, working the counter and making deliveries all over the area.

When college came on the horizon late in my junior year (although my family always told me I could go anywhere I wanted when the time came), we had no special seminars, no offers of essay help, no test prep, no piles of glossy viewbooks, no "college counselor." I figured I'd apply to Harvard and Yale simply because my uncle, whom I greatly admired, had attended the former and taught at the latter; I briefly considered Tufts, my father's alma mater, but since he was an engineer I thought it was a school for engineers, so I dismissed it. There was no "strategizing" to it; I was just going with what I knew.

One day, going by my guidance counselor's office, I heard him call to me and ask what I was thinking about college. I told him, and he said that was fine, but had I ever considered a small liberal arts college? I asked what that was and he said a good place to get an education but smaller than a university. That seemed fine to me so I asked him to name a few. "Well, Amherst, for example," he replied. I'd never heard of it, but I was willing to check it out.

I don't remember what I knew about Amherst (it wasn't much) before I got on the Peter Pan bus in New York for the four hour ride to Amherst, MA later in the summer, but when I got off in the town center, I swooned at the New England charm and the compact yet spacious Amherst College campus. I thought, "This is what college should look like!" I walked around by myself, coming without warning on the spectacular view of the Pioneer Valley from Memorial Hill, after which I was completely overcome with desire. I dropped in on the admission office, which at the time was tucked away in the main administration building. I was smitten without having seen a student, professor, or admission office person. I asked about interviews. I didn't need one, I was told; by the time I returned to New Jersey, I was ready to apply.

The time came and I applied to Harvard, Yale, and, at random, Ithaca College in upstate New York. I applied to Amherst early decision, still intoxicated with the thought of lounging on that hill, or simply being there, reading, surrounded by nature. Hell, even the trees seemed intelligent. I wanted to ingest it all. But once the applications were in I went on with the rest of my high school life. (I don't remember what I wrote my essays on, but I do remember that I didn't get any help that I recall. My mother may have given them a quick read, but not much else--no English teacher or counselor help.)

Ithaca accepted me almost immediately, it seems to me. Harvard and Yale turned me down, which was OK by me, especially when I recalled my "group interview" at a Yale's alum's home. A group of applicants sat around a table and an admission person spoke with us after we had each had a chance to speak with one of the Yale alums who had gathered for the occasion. The home was elegantly appointed, perhaps even lavish; it seemed like a mansion to me and it made me uncomfortable. But what I really remember is the girl who said, "I understand Yale has a burgeoning film department." I made a face, probably, groaning inside at her pretentious use of a big word to impress the dean. It was then I decided I didn't want to go to Yale, although I learned a new word that day.

Amherst deferred me, making my guidance counselor, David Boelhouwer, crazy. He couldn't understand it and called to see what had happened. Turns out, you did need an interview if you applied ED and lived within 250 miles of campus. He managed to wrangle an interview for me over the Christmas break with the Dean himself, the legendary Ed Wall. I went back to campus, courtesy of my aunt, who drove me out from Acton MA in a snowfall and waited while I had my session. I remember being disappointed that Dean Wall didn't ask me anything about my grades or accomplishments; instead he asked what I was reading and I told him The Wheel of Love, a story collection by Joyce Carol Oates. We talked about that. What was even more frustrating was that I didn't even like the book, and during the whole interview I could see the snow coming down harder and harder and the light fading and it was a long way back to Boston.

Afterwards, Dean Wall took my puny hand in his massive bear grasp and told me it was nice to meet me. Despite my disappointment, I stopped at Hastings in town and bought an Amherst sweatshirt, which I resolved not to wear unless I got in. My aunt picked me up and we drove back to the Boston suburbs.

The day I got into Amherst was the only day in my school life that I cut a class. My mother, who had been in a terrible auto accident over New Year's 1973, had needed a nurse during the day, and I would take over when I got home. Consequently I was able to have a car at school. When the letter arrived, she called the school and I got called to the office. She wanted to open it. At first I said yes, then changed my mind. I rushed out of school, hopped into our VW Bug and zoomed home, where I found the acceptance letter. I celebrated a bit with my mother, ran upstairs and put on the sweatshirt, and raced back to school, in time to catch the end of my German class. Mrs. Kerekes, a stern but fair Hungarian, started to scold me, but when she saw the sweatshirt, she started beaming, and all was forgiven.

So I got to Amherst, but here's the punchline--to this day I don't think I even knew that Amherst was all male until I actually got to campus. (It went co-end in 1976, one of the last schools of its kind to do so.) My whole experience of college search and application was a fluke arising from a casual comment by my counselor. I'm sure that if he'd said "Williams" or "Union" or "Hamilton" or "Calcutta" I'd be one of their alums today. Total chance. And I'm also convinced that I owe Joyce Carol Oates credit for my admission. Even today I feel guilty about not reading everything she writes (which would, of course, be impossible for a mortal with only 24 hours a day to read...)

So back to my colleague and me sitting in an Irish pub in downtown Chicago. Her story, in its similar lack of focus on "getting into" a particular college, is very similar to mine. And yet, here we were, laughing at our ignorance and marveling at the fact that we managed pretty well in spite of it, having survived and even prospered. Our lives are good, our work fulfills us, and we have good memories of our alma maters. Yet they were accidents! When I see today's high school students sweating, and planning, and conniving, and arranging their lives so they'll "stand out" starting even before high school, I have to wonder what it is they're really doing. It's not a bad thing to want to go to a particular place, but, let's be honest, it doesn't really matter where you go to college. The important thing is what you do once you're there.

I can already hear you saying, "Well, but what about the contacts, the smart kids who attend, the best professors, and so on?" I still say, it makes no difference, and to fret about it is a stress that's totally unnecessary. The contacts you make in one place are different but the same as in another--you find the people you need to find no matter where you are. You attend classes or not, you party or not, you start becoming an adult or not, no matter where you are. And with acceptance rates below 10 percent, those big deal colleges are doing other schools a favor by making sure they have a good supply of smart kids who end up fanning out all over the country. So do yourselves a favor and think that you could probably do just as well applying to colleges randomly as you could trying to predict and insure every element.

In the long run, we can't control what will happen no matter what we do or how much we'd like to. Why should applying to college be any different? The students with the least stress were the ones who came to my office and said, "You know, I think I'll be happy wherever I go." As the Chinese say, "Be careful how you travel or you may end up where you expected to." That's the spirit!