The College Application Process
Ivy Coach stands with the writer of an editorial on “The Huffington Post” in calling for highly selective colleges to address social injustices in admissions policies (i.e., the discrimination against Asian and Asian American students).
There is an editorial up on “The Huffington Post” written by Manuel R. De Juan entitled “Bring Back Sanity to the College Application Process, Please!” that we figured we’d share with our readers. In the piece, Mr. De Juan, himself a graduate of Yale with a Wharton MBA, describes his experience this past year going through the college application process with his son. He describes the feeling of not really knowing what he was in for prior to the experience. As he writes in reference to watching other high schoolers walking into school, “I wish they knew what I know now, about the college preparatory process; and especially about the college application process. I want to tell them that only one year ago I thought I knew, fairly well, what I needed to know to advise my son. I want to reveal to them the inherent weakness in my confidence that I, alone, could find out anything I might need to know. I want to warn them. I want to encourage them.” Well said.
Mr. De Juan’s son was accepted to the honors program of his “dream school” but he inherently believes the college application process to be unjust. As he describes it, “The current college application process to competitive universities is, in two words, ferocious and atrocious. It is rife with social injustice, plagued by inefficiencies, and is simply unfair to kids and their parents. Something is deeply wrong, and leadership is required to correct the issues. I do not advocate a social revolution to address my concerns. Yet, I beseech universities, testing services, and high schools to understand that they are placing extraordinary and unnecessary burdens on high school kids and their parents. In their quest to thrive, colleges, testing services and high schools are allowing (to give them the benefit of the doubt) a level of distress that is affecting negatively students and their parents, in the United States and around the world.”
There are indeed social injustices and inefficiencies in the highly selective college admissions process. As an example, we’ve been writing and saying for years that Asian and Asian Americans face discrimination in the process. At Ivy Coach, we help our Asian and Asian American students overcome these unjust practices. Thank you to Mr. De Juan for pointing out that some things in highly selective college admissions need to change. It’s people who raise their voices for change in unison who are the ones to change the world.