College admissions frenzy: it’s not in your head

August 26, 7:35 AMCollege Admissions ExaminerLauren Starkey

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The equation is pretty simple: record numbers of students are graduating from high school, and a record number of them are applying to college. Add the online Common Application, which makes applying to a dozen or more colleges relatively painless. And the answer is: “more competition than at any time in recent history,” according to a paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.  

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that “Playing the Admissions Game: Student Reactions to Increasing College Competition” highlights the changes by showing how one applicant would have managed from 1972 to 2004. The likelihood of being admitted during that period fell almost nine percent. According to the Abstract, “the most pronounced increases in competition [were] found among higher-ability students and in the Northeast.”

But this is what we thought was going on. Now we’ve just got some quantitative proof of the frenzy. The study, however, goes further, examining the impact of the increased competition. Not surprisingly, students are working hard to boost their chances for admission. More are taking AP classes and prepping for standardized tests. That’s a good thing, right? Sounds like a high school education is becoming more rigorous.

The authors of “Playing the Admissions Game” come to a different conclusion, suggesting that the response “has not caused students to become more engaged in their studies.” They continue, “In conjunction with the psychological and informational costs associated with competitive pressure…, these results should raise doubts that the increased competition for college admission has had a net positive effect on what and how students learn.”

Is the true result of the competition that high school is becoming nothing more than a step toward college? That’s something that we, whether as parents, educators, or counselors, need to address. Many students study subjects only once—in high school. The future historian takes physics, the engineer reads works of great literature. High schools encourage students to be generalists, to explore foreign languages, civics, art. We can't allow those four years to become not a meaningful part of the journey but a mere stepping stone to the next level.