The Key to College Readiness

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Seniors, it's the first month of school, and seniors are already in the doldrums. That glow of the first day of senior year is a million miles away, buried under layers of college essay drafts, emails to the teachers writing your college letters, and four failed attempts to remember your school's CEEB code. One college application is in, two more are stalled, and it seems like all you can do now is wait for something to change.

And you're right. If you want to be college-ready, it's time to go bowling.

This isn't about adding one more extracurricular to your Common App, and this isn't a way to earn that PE requirement you somehow dodged in 10th grade. This is about getting a taste of college life here and now, since bowling teaches you:

Humility: Just about everyone is a terrible bowler, and it drives you crazy that you are no exception. This is largely because you can't come to terms with the fact that the idea seems so simple — throw the ball, knock down the pins — but the reality is just more complex.

College is just like this. College students take four classes that each meets twice a week, and you have six daily classes in high school. With all of that free time, how can anyone possibly run out of time to study or turn in a late assignment — especially since someone else does the cooking? Try as you may, you just don't understand the drama; but thanks to the intricacies of bowling, it will become clearer to you right around the fourth frame. Remember this freshman year.

Flexibility: Amateur keglers go to great lengths finding an outfit that goes nicely with rented bowling shoes. These fashion marvels may have one blue stripe, one red stripe, brown laces, and a spot of fluorescent orange paint sprayed on each toe, but you refuse to look bad at the bowling alley. You will scour the back of your closet, delve to the depths of your dresser drawers, and even enlist the help of your parents (!), but you will find the perfect ensemble to keep everyone's eyes off the only pair of shoes you are ever likely to wear that glow in the dark.

College is no different. Try as you may, you won't be able to escape the overcooked Friday fish casserole, the roommate with a passion for loud polka music, or the lab partner who persists on sharing their political beliefs that are the polar opposite of yours. You can't run, you can't hide, and setting your hair on fire just won't help. It's time to search high and low for a way to put the best possible face on the situation, and move forward — even if you have to ask for help to do so.

Understanding: You've bowled the same way since you were five. The first three frames are awful, the next four frames make you feel you could be the next king of the alley, and the last three frames give you a sore arm and a lot of time in the gutter.

Seeing the pattern of when things are about to go sour is the beginning of wisdom, and the end of life in the gutter. So do something different. Warm up your arm, don't throw the ball so hard, and remember what happens. You'll learn a little more about what works and what doesn't, and that will come in handy for the next frame of bowling, or for your college frame of mind.

You see, bowling makes you college-ready. It's all about the approach.

College Counseling and Mental Health

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

The key to all counseling—personal, academic, career, mental health, college—lies in one goal:  To give the client something new to think about.

Consider that for just a moment.  

A client comes into our office with a given set of rules and ideas about how the world works.  Since they haven’t come in for a social call, it’s clear they want those rules and ideas to do something else than what they’re now doing.  They want them to make more sense.  To open up more possibilities.  To bring them more peace.

How do you know this has occurred?  You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice, watch it in their step.  No, they probably haven’t overcome whatever it is that brought them in.  But they’re leaving with a new plan for what the next step is, and what it could lead to.  That’s not just hope; that’s strategic hope.  That’s counseling.

I thought about this when I read about a new survey of high school counselors showing more time is being spent on mental health counseling, and less on college counseling.  The survey suggests students feel the cost of college is a big factor in keeping them away from thinking about that option, followed by uncertainty about their career interests.  Apparently the thinking behind this last factoid is, why go to college unless you know what you want to be when you grow up?

These data points should be discouraging to the profession for a number of reasons:

• The shift is much more significant in public schools than private schools.  Over 60 percent of public school counselors report a downtick in college counseling, compared to 18 percent in private schools.  If we accept the long-standing premise that private school parents tend to be more involved in their child’s education, that would suggest public school students are shutting out college before they don’t really know what they’re saying no to.

• That’s clearly true with the issue of not going to college because they are unsure about career options.  Going to college used to be a vital step in the process of career exploration, and many (most) colleges are designed to give students two years to try out new paths and personas before settling on a major.  Why are students assuming otherwise?

• It’s certainly true that the colleges that get all the media attention cost too much—on average, over $43,000-- and, once again, that’s all the more reason for the media to create a more balanced approach to covering postsecondary options.  In Michigan, most students can go to the first two years of college for free, and in Detroit, most can go to four years of college for free.  Otherwise, a year of public college will run you a little over $11,000, and that’s before financial aid.  Not exactly a car payment, but manageable, with some advanced planning—planning public school counselors can, and should, be giving families in sixth grade.

• The report is a reminder of the sad level of training most public school counselors get in college counseling.  College counseling and mental health counseling aren’t either-or propositions—in fact, tell a mentally distressed student college is a fresh start, and watch their eyes light up.  But we aren’t trained that way; college counseling is an add-on about getting into Harvard, not something every student deserves to understand.

Until the media, and counselor training programs themselves, stop selling college as an elite activity, too many students will make choices they don’t understand, and that is a disservice to them, their families, and our society.

Initiative

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

He was the best combination of head and heart, the kind of student who wanted to change the world, who knew that doing so would take more than just hoping it would happen.  That’s why he went to see the director of our summer studies program one spring, having done his homework.

“I was reading an article the other day that said something like 85 percent of all students living in urban areas don’t know how to swim” he told the director.  “Since all the students in our summer program are from Detroit, I was thinking it might be a good idea to teach them how to swim.  My friends on the swim team and I can do that.”

And that’s how 200 kids from Detroit learned how to swim that summer—and 200 more the summer after that, and the summer after that, and ever since.  The summer swim program soon became as much a part of being on the school’s swim team as 6 AM practices, thanks to a smart kid with a good heart who had an idea, and acted on it.

No one ever knows why a college takes a student, especially the colleges that are incredibly popular.  Everyone has very similar grades, most tend to have the same test scores, most teacher letters are written so badly they don’t say much of anything (just tell stories about the student, really), and more than a few personal statements are devoted to students talking about how they’ve made a difference in the world.  But I’d like to think admissions offices took one look at this student, who started a program that teaches .03% of a city how to swim every summer, and said “Yeah.  That’s it.”

Make no mistake—there are tons of students out there who try to persuade colleges they’ve shown initiative every year.  It’s just that most of them don’t really have an example of demonstrated initiative that will make a college stand up and pay attention.

Where do they go wrong?

One and done  The biggest mistake is when students start a school club that is often based on a personal interest, and that’s it.  There’s no Anime club at school?  Cool—I’ll start one, hang 5 posters up at school, name myself president, and Hello Harvard!

Harvard, and most every other college, sees this coming.  If all you’ve done is start a club, with no information on membership, frequency of meetings, or activities, you’re whistling in the wind.

Classroomitis OK, says you, if it’s meetings they want, it’s meetings they’ll get. Three pals of mine and I will meet monthly and watch our favorite shows at school.

Mmmm. How about putting together some classic Anime episodes and presenting them to interested middle school students at their school?  Or introducing this genre to folks at the local senior center?  Taking your interest on the road shows a little more innovation—and, not coincidentally, shows a little more commitment.

Sit and git  Why stop at watching Anime—how about making some?  Zoom in an Anime artist who wants to share their talents, and open the seminar to your larger community.  You’re now changing a town, especially if…

Create an event …it’s capped off with an annual Anime festival, held in the school auditorium.   Local artists share their wares, maybe a guest lecturer comes by.  Add some snacks, and you’ve built something bigger than yourself, something that will last after you graduate, something that makes a difference.

Do that, and it may get you into college.  Then again, maybe that doesn’t matter as much anymore.

"College Material" and "Terrorists"

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

I’ve likely told you this story before, but, evidently, it bears repeating.

A 10th-grade boy comes bounding out of the classroom when the bell rings and heads straight to the counseling office. “I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I want to go to college, and become a disc jockey.”

You ready?

The counselor responds thusly. “That just goes to show what you know. You don’t have to go to college to become a disc jockey, and that’s a good thing in your case, because you aren’t college material.”

To be fair, this was a while ago, part of those days when, much as we hate to admit it, many counselors weren’t really counselors, but teachers tired of the classroom, and too tired for the classroom. Since then, many licenses and certifications exist to make sure school counselors understand they are not in the business of dispensing personal, um, wisdom, but instead are in the business of human development. The work isn’t about the counselor; it’s about the counselee.

I’m sorry to say I still hear about episodes like this, too often in the area of college counseling. Our nation’s obsession with Harvard plagues our profession as nothing else does. Suzie comes into our office in the hopes of finding a nice little college nearby so she can major in business and take her scrapbooking hobby public, and we put her through a labyrinth of college searching because we’re worried she can’t get into Brown. Suzie likely knows that. That’s why she hasn’t asked about Brown.

As a profession, our track record tends to be better, especially in human relationships and mental health. This makes sense, since the vast majority of counselor training programs are coursework in developmental psychology (often at the expense of college counseling, which is almost never taught as a separate specialty, even though it is). Given that bias, most counselors just seem to understand that, when a kid comes in our office with that look on their face that is neither happy nor sad, it’s time to grab the tissues, shut up, and listen.

But apparently, not always. A report from a middle school in Michigan indicates a student was having trouble with a class, and decided to do what he was encouraged to do—he went to go talk to a counselor.

You ready?

Once she heard of the problem, the counselor admits that her response, at least in part, was “I don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

If, at this very moment, you are asking yourself any of the following—“What was the student’s religion?”, “What did the student look like?”, “What was the student’s last name?”—let me respectfully suggest you find a new line of work, as should, in my opinion, this counselor. She apologized for the remark, and there has been a federal investigation into the incident.

The kid who wanted to be a disc jockey went on to college, and became a band director. He returned to his hometown to work as a teacher, starting a side business as a disc jockey, and taking night classes to get his master’s degree in counseling. He went on to become his hometown high school’s counselor…

You ready?

…replacing the counselor who told him he wasn’t college material.

Here’s hoping that middle school kid overcomes the adversity his counselor provided him, and thrives in the same way.

I understand the reason why professionals want to stop being called guidance counselors. Still, at times like this, it seems there are counselors who could use some serious guidance.

Testing: The Patience of The Classes of 2025 and 26

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Many years ago, there once was village in a rural region that was plagued with locusts.  Desperate to solve this problem, local leaders asked scientists to intervene. No problem, said the scientists; there’s another insect that eats locusts, so we’ll just bring in a few thousand of them, even though they are not native to this region.

 

They bring in the locust eaters, who do their thing, and within a week, the locusts are gone. Trouble is, the locust eaters are still hungry, so they now began to eat their secondary diet.

 

Straw.

 

Soon, the entire village was homeless.

 

This story came to mind when I read the recent exploits of the SAT and ACT. You may recall this spring, when a number of popular colleges decided at the very last moment to reinstate their testing requirement for this year’s seniors. Many weren’t surprised they were bringing the requirement back, but doing so this year meant a lot of students were going to have to take the test this summer and fall, at testing centers that were sized to meet last year’s demand.

Summer came, and the scarcity became evident in a hurry. This was especially true on the coasts, where stories of students flying—on airplanes—to take the SAT became more common than they should have. Reports of shortages continue this fall—and, given that the poor pay for proctoring the tests has now reached a tipping point among school counselors, it’s unlikely to ease up this spring.

 

Once that news settled down, it was ACT’s turn. Starting this spring, and depending on which version of the test, the ACT will be shorter, and the Science test will be optional.  This gives colleges only about 6 months to decide if they will require the Science test—which is actually a science reasoning test—so students can decide if they’re going to take it. If they do, the new, 2-hour ACT goes back to being closer to 3 for them.

 

To summarize, the two tests colleges once decided they could live without during COVID turn out to be indispensable after all—so much so that they needed to be required and/or altered with less than a year’s notice. This means students who dealt with COVID as seventh- and eighth- graders—during the time when the role of testing was up in the air—now get to deal with even more testing that’s up in the air. Is the test available? Will they need to use frequent flyer miles to pay for them? Will the college of their dreams still require the Science test—and, if so, when will they tell them?

 

I teach at a community college, and the big push there is assessment—every department has to assess student learning on a common topic. Trouble is, there’s no common required question or assessment method. If the subject is the Constitution, one class could be asked a multiple-choice question about its ratification, while another could be asked to write an essay on the Bill of Rights.

 

Member of the Classes of 2025 and 2026 have to be feeling the same way—they’re being measured on all kinds of things that, depending on who you talk to, have something or nothing to do with being successful in college. I used to feel they mattered, but this year, it seems to have more to do with if a student can afford plane fare, or has a counselor who knows a college’s testing policy before the college does. Here’s hoping this year’s juniors and seniors don’t end up homeless as a result. 

Rethinking Secondary School Reports

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Almost every fall, I’d pull up the first college application I received, look at the details the college wanted me to provide on the secondary school report, and think, what on Earth does any of this have to do with the student who’s applying to college?

 

You’re dubious? Let’s go for a ride.

 

Class rank Since the college has the student’s GPA, and I’ve given (or will soon give them) the GPA scale we use, it isn’t all that hard to figure out how well the student has done in school. Why then does it matter how well they’ve done in school compared to other students?

 

I used to think this was just true at the small school where I worked. But since the difference between an A and an A- affects rank at big schools as well, I can’t help but wonder what class rank says about students in any high school. Many schools have gotten rid of class rank as a result of this. All schools should follow. 

 

GPA Some high schools do not list a GPA because many of them don’t issue grades. I get it—they don’t want the shorthand of a grading system to get in the way of understanding who the student is, and the qualities they bring to learning.

 

That argument works for me parwith class rank, but not as much with GPA. I don’t grade on a curve, so student learning isn’t evaluated based on who else knows what—it’s based on what the student knows about a defined body of content. If all grading occurred that way, I think the old 1-4 GPA scale would work well. As it is, GPAs are a bit of a mess, and I salute colleges who have the unhappy task of trying to make sense of them. 

 

Student discipline report I worked at a private boarding school, one that happened to be on the same campus as a graduate school. One of our 11th graders was looking out his dorm window when some graduate school coeds came by after curfew, and invited him to a party. Out the window he hops, and off he goes, missing bed check. Since the colleges he applied to asked about discipline in general, they were told.

 

Colleges don’t want to know about this stuff—and if they do, I hope it’s to give the lad a medal of some kind for taking initiative to live life to the fullest. Understanding many discipline issues are more severe, colleges should still refine this question to ask if the student was disciplined as a result of putting another person at harm. Two days off for a graffiti violation shouldn’t really keep anyone out of college. 

 

Behavioral checkboxes From leadership to academic curiosity, most college applications have about 18 character qualities they’d like counselors to evaluate on a checklist. Arguably a good shorthand way to summarize the student.

 

The problem? Again, the checkboxes ask the counselor to compare the student to other students, not to an absolute standard—and the comparison is for all students the counselor has ever worked with. Not only does this defeat the purpose (what does it say when the student is the most honest in a group of ne’er-do-wells?), it also makes it pretty hard to answer (can a student really show diligence in a way that makes them one of the top students I’ve ever worked with?) Since the counselor letter is supposed to address this anyway, how about if colleges read that to understand what they’re getting in this student, and decide if they have something to offer?

An Open Letter to College-Bound Students and Their Parents

by Patrick O'Connor, Ph.D.

Five years ago, I had the privilege of working with two dozen very committed, student-centered college enrollment officers, to offer this advice to high school seniors, and to students about to begin their college experience.  Five years later, I’m hard pressed to find words that offer better advice to this year’s seniors.  This is a little longer than my usual blog, and some of these admissions officers have moved on, but I think this counsel is well worth the space today.  Please feel free to share with any and all.

There are few times more exciting to work on a college campus than the start of a new academic year. Across the country, thousands of new students descend on institutions of higher learning, each student with their own talents and aspirations, eager to share their understanding of the world, excited to discover more about who they are and what the world has to offer. Those of us working in college admissions offices are grateful and humbled to watch this happen every fall, as bright, able students begin a journey of discovery as strangers and emerge from the experience knowing more about themselves, each other and the possibilities that await after graduation.

To be sure, the process of starting college, and the application process that accompanies it, can have its moments of anxiety and uncertainty. Applying to college opens students to scrutiny in ways few other events in life do, and the uncertainty that accompanies the college application process can be rife with doubts. The same can occur in the initial few days of the first year of college, or even subsequent years, as students see the academic and social challenges awaiting them, many wondering if they are up to the tasks required of them.

Recent studies suggest more students are experiencing bouts of anxiety, doubt and depression over the transition to college, and life in general, than ever before. Increasing competition for limited spots at some colleges, concerns over the ability to meet the financial demands of college attendance and general concern if the student is heading in the right direction are just some of the factors contributing to this increase. Combined with what other reports see as rising personal and social pressures, it is easy to understand why more students than ever before are looking for reassurance at a time of transition that seems to offer so little of it.

To those students applying to college this fall, we say to you -- we hear you, and we are here to help. Out of the thousands of higher education institutions in the United States -- be it a four-year college or university, a two-year college, or a technical training program -- not a single one runs an Office of Judgment. The purpose of an office of admission is to authentically represent our institution and the experience it can provide. We review each applicant and determine if that student’s talents, goals and interests will be best served by our school, without exceeding our capacity to serve all students who enroll.

It’s been said that no one goes into college admissions because they want to see how many students they can reject. This isn’t always easy for students to understand, especially when there are more qualified applicants than room to admit them. But that is a limitation of the college, not the students. There are many places where you can shine, and the application process give you the opportunity to explore all of them.

Our work with you is designed to nurture and encourage you in every step of the application process, to create a dialogue that allows you to bring forth the best, clearest picture of who you are, what you think about and what our institution can do to help you grow. If your work on an application finds you wondering where to turn for help, support or reassurance, contact us. Helping you is not our job; it is our privilege.

Recognizing that many of life’s challenges aren’t related to college, it is important to realize you also have local support to help you with any issues that may come up in your life. Understanding that teachers and school counselors are often faced with high numbers of students to serve, these professionals have a remarkable track record of stepping up and offering help to students who ask for it. From reviewing drafts of admissions essays, to listening to your plans for the future, to connecting you to other professionals who may offer greater help with other challenges, the educators and support teams of your local schools are here for you as well.

To those students starting their college careers this fall, we say welcome. Our work with your application for admission may be over, but our help in welcoming you to campus and assisting with a smooth adjustment to your new academic home is never over. Our colleagues in other parts of the college, including student services, academic support and the faculty, know there is more to a successful college transition than good grades and a strong classroom experience.

If asking for help feels uncomfortable, know that every student feels that way. It may look like everyone in college is walking around with great confidence, but nearly no one is. College is a new world, with a new language, culture and norms. It’s more than OK to acknowledge that you need some help making sense of this new world, and research shows that’s much more likely to happen if you find a peer or mentor to connect with. It’s also the No. 1 reason you’ll come back for the next semester, and the next year, and graduate. Start with the one person for whom asking feels the least awkward. People who work for colleges are there for one reason -- your success -- and they want to help.

To the parents looking for the best way to promote strong, healthy, autonomous life habits in their children who are college bound, we strongly urge you to play an active role that puts the student at the center of the application and transition processes. The skills needed to complete a college application require the same levels of judgment, organization, collaboration, leadership and initiative that make for a strong college experience. Now is the time for students to refine those skills by practicing them and receiving constructive feedback that allows them to reflect, regroup and try again if necessary.

A regularly scheduled weekly meeting to discuss college application issues in high school and transition issues in college, typically around 20 to 30 minutes, provides a healthy avenue of reliable support and structure your student can count on. There will be ample opportunities to take steps to support your child in this process, but as is the case with almost every parental duty, the vital steps are to listen more than speak and to love the child you have, not the child you want.

Cultural and technological advances have created opportunities for students that were difficult to imagine even a handful of years ago, yet this abundance of choice seems to have brought new levels of hesitation, doubt and stress for many young people. Our work as admissions professionals -- as educators in our own right -- is to do everything we can to clear the field of opportunity of as many of those doubts as possible, and provide each student with the opportunity to realize the very best in themselves, in others, and in the world they will help shape.

Bill Conley

Vice president for enrollment management

Bucknell University

Bob Herr

Vice president for enrollment management and dean of college admissions

Drew University

Jody Chycinski

Associate vice president and director of admissions

Grand Valley State University

Deren Finks

Dean of admissions emeritus

Harvey Mudd College

Laurie Koehler

Vice president, marketing and enrollment strategy

Ithaca College

Greg MacDonald

Vice president, enrollment management

Lafayette College

Ken Anselment

Dean of admissions and financial aid

Lawrence University

John Ambrose

Interim executive director of admissions and recruitment

Michigan State University

Robert Springall

Vice president for enrollment management

Muhlenberg College

Gregory Mitton

Associate dean of admission/director of financial aid

Muhlenberg College

Gerri Daniels

Executive director, admissions

Northern Michigan University

J. Carey Thompson

Vice president for enrollment and communications, dean of admission

Rhodes College

Heath Einstein

Director of admission

Texas Christian University

Angel Perez

Vice president, enrollment and student success

Trinity College

Matt Malatesta

Vice president for admissions financial aid and enrollment

Union College, N.Y.

Clark Brigger

Executive director of admissions

University of Colorado Boulder

Don Bishop

Associate vice president for undergraduate enrollment

University of Notre Dame

Jim Rawlins

Director of admissions/assistant vice president for enrollment management

University of Oregon

Eric Furda

Dean of admissions

University of Pennsylvania

Gil Villanueva

Associate vice president and dean of admission

University of Richmond

Timothy Brunold

Dean of admission

University of Southern California

Andrew Wright

Vice president for enrollment management

University of Southern Indiana

Jeffery Gates

Senior vice president for student life and enrollment management

Utica College

Raymond Brown

Vice president for enrollment

Valparaiso University