The world of college admissions isn't what it used to be. Only a few decades ago, good grades were, in many cases, all you needed to gain admission to the institution of your choice. Nowadays, even straight A's and near-perfect SAT scores can't guarantee entry into even more modestly prestigious schools. Such a high-stakes educational c
ulture has spawned a generation of driven kids perpetually competing for the limited number of slots at the nation's most selective colleges and universities. Setting aside personal interests for more college preparatory routines, many of today's college-bound high school students ardently push themselves through endless hours of study, multiple extracurriculars and other "admissions friendly" activities in an effort to gain entry into the upper-echelon arena of higher education. "Well-roundedness" and "versatility" are major buzz words. So many of today's kids bent on getting into their "first-choice", even as acceptance rates at most elite schools remain intimidatingly small, that every facet of each student is all the more important. Bluntly stated, "You can't just be the smartest. You have to be the most athletic. You have to be able to have the most fun. You have to be the prettiest, the best-dressed, the nicest, the most wanted . . . and, above all, you have to appear to be happy" (p. 42).
ulture has spawned a generation of driven kids perpetually competing for the limited number of slots at the nation's most selective colleges and universities. Setting aside personal interests for more college preparatory routines, many of today's college-bound high school students ardently push themselves through endless hours of study, multiple extracurriculars and other "admissions friendly" activities in an effort to gain entry into the upper-echelon arena of higher education. "Well-roundedness" and "versatility" are major buzz words. So many of today's kids bent on getting into their "first-choice", even as acceptance rates at most elite schools remain intimidatingly small, that every facet of each student is all the more important. Bluntly stated, "You can't just be the smartest. You have to be the most athletic. You have to be able to have the most fun. You have to be the prettiest, the best-dressed, the nicest, the most wanted . . . and, above all, you have to appear to be happy" (p. 42)..
In her follow-up to Pledged, a poignant in-depth look at college sororities, author and journalist Alexandra Robbins profiles a select group of overachieving high school seniors at Walt Whitman High School (Bethesda, MD), each daily enduring the pressures to not only perform well academically, but to fulfill a complex set of "preferred qualifications" deemed necessary for eligible applicants to top-tier universities. That each student is abundantly qualified goes without saying. Increasingly more important in regards to the model application is the "life experience" aspect. Potential students with impeccable grades and accompanying accolades are frequently disappointed to learn that their shiny resume is totally void without evidence of authentic exposure to the real world at large. "You would have to have lived in Mongolia for two years or have been in a civil war", one of Robbins' profilees was told when considering applying to Stanford. What stands out as a glaring counter-effect to this ultra-competitive system, and what Robbins subtly attempts to reveal, is how the entire function of education is essentially turned on its head--the process of learning and acquiring knowledge has been superseded in place of the ambition to secure approval and acceptance from the institutional realm.
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