Every year, I feel excited about my students going off to college. Some of them have already built a college friend group during senior year of high school, and others have the natural confidence to create one as soon as they hit campus. Personally, my three kids had three different freshman year experiences. During the move-in, my oldest made new friends to have dinner with that night; she politely recommended a place where we could eat before she even unpacked. At the time, I didn’t realize how unusual that was.
The truth is that freshman year, socially speaking, is not easy for most students. An advisor at my youngest daughter’s college spoke to us about helping students manage expectations (sound familiar?) at Parent’s Weekend. She advised them to stay positive, make “life raft friends,” and understand that these friends, and their roommates, might not become their closest friends for life. Good advice, little comfort. The vulnerability that comes with seeking acceptance is painful.
Settling into freshman year keeps getting harder as students watch their Photoshopped friends partying like celebrities. It’s tough to connect when everyone is lost in their phones.
I wish that I didn’t feel moved to post this video every year, but it's worth watching. Made by a Cornell freshman for a school project, it somehow captures not only the discomfort, but also the optimism, of the freshman college experience. The video remains hopeful, and so do I, because the college experience really does get better!
Do you consider yourself to be an expert on any given topic? If you’ve ever spoken with authority about it, you may have assumed one of these flawed postures. (I have, but I’m working on doing better.) In Think Again, organizational psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant stresses that thinking flexibly is the only way to grow our knowledge and effectiveness. While preachers often speak from faith alone and politicians and prosecutors attack the opposing side, scientists operate from constant experimentation and the belief that causation is not correlation. They expect to be wrong, not the other way around. (As an aside, their necessary flexibility angers those who search for one definite answer.)
I try to think like a scientist as I help my students and their families (with occasional lapses). Too much changes every year in college admissions for any of us to speak with certainty. I would be ignoring the data if I advised every Cornell-hopeful to be confident of admission when the math proves the opposite. Applying to the “highly-rejective” colleges only makes sense if you, like a scientist, expect denial and rejoice in the unlikely event of admission. But, happily, thinking flexibly is often about all choices, not just limits.
Although I encourage students to be open-minded about majors and careers, many choose large public institutions where they feel compelled to pick a school within a college and/or a major. For pre-professionally-minded students, that’s fine. The problem is that others feel pressured to craft a path and career before they are ready to do so.
Liberal arts colleges and even large research institutions like Tulane have long-offered interdisciplinary freshman seminars to small groups of students. These are creatively-blended academic, fun courses that stimulate critical thinking.
This week, a friend told me that the University of Wisconsin Madison offers FIGs (First Year Interest Groups), and that one of my incoming freshmen has chosen this smart way to make a large school smaller and understand the connections between academic fields. For example, the First Year Seminar Rainforests and Coral Reefs requires enrollment in chemistry and Spanish. It’s obvious that this course might stimulate a student’s interest in Environmental Science or Engineering as well.
I just learned about FIGs this week, which proves that there will always be something to discover even if it’s not brand-new. Learn to think flexibly to avoid Armchair Quarterback Syndrome, another one of Grant’s classifications. Particularly prevalent among privileged groups, those who have it confuse confidence with competence. Stay open-minded as you consider college options!
This marks a dramatic change in applying to college.
Edward B. Fiske characterizes use of average scores this year as promoting “inaccurate and misleading data” in his comprehensive and reputable college guide. Therefore, The Fiske Guide to Colleges 2022 will feature no test scores. We can predict that other guides will follow.
Why?
“...only 44 percent of those who applied to college through the Common Application through Feb. 15 2021 submitted SAT or ACT scores. That represents a substantial decline from last year (comparing only colleges that used the Common App both years), when the total through Feb. 15, 2020, was 77 percent.”
Most of my students still choose to take standardized tests, and I still encourage them to do so unless preparing for testing is, or becomes, too stressful and sabotages their grades or if they are poor test takers.
I have seen the shift in attitudes towards testing shift for the past ten + years. Test optional colleges were the outliers, albeit a large group of schools that grew each year. The lack of opportunity for students in many areas to test during the pandemic pushed us to the current status of testing. Nearly all colleges are test-optional,
test-blind, or test-flexible. Exceptions are the Florida and Georgia public university systems. Many colleges have committed to remaining test optional permanently, while some are making their decisions one year at a time.
Despite the current position on test scores, one answer does not fit all. Contact me to discuss test scores in the context of the 2021 admissions data I have from my own students and those of consultants nation-wide.