As I walk through the halls of Miami Lakes Educational Center (MLEC), students with dark circles and thick AP review books clutched in their arms all become one monotonous wave of anxiety, depression, self-doubt and everything a teenager shouldn’t be experiencing in the prime of their youth.
The pressure to “make something out of yourself” weighs heavier than the text-book filled backpacks of high school students across the country. Perfect GPAs, AP classes, great extra-curricular activities, community service hours, high SAT and ACT scores—all are things that High Schools student have to juggle if they want a chance at acceptance into a revered and selective American college.
But as I step into my classroom and settle down, I look around. I see a gamut of colors: African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics all sit and listen to the teacher attentively, eager to ace the next assignment, eager to pass the class, eager to graduate high school, eager to chase their dreams. And although they are capable of achieving wonders, many are held back by their low socioeconomic backgrounds.
The admissions process for colleges set in place now put students from underprivileged backgrounds at a disadvantage. The playing field is not even, considering that colleges are equating a student with limited access to resources with those who have unlimited access.
A report called “Turning the Tide” by Harvard Graduate School of Education calls for a change. And its acknowledgement of the problems with admissions today is a relief to teenagers—myself included—that hope colleges someday will judge students based on their character rather than how high their test scores are.
The report asks colleges to send a clear message that admissions officers won’t be impressed by just more than a few Advanced Placement classes. Poorer high schools may not have the funding to offer them to students and students in schools that can indeed offer many Advancement Placements develop an array of mental health problems due to stress.
The report recommends less emphasis on standardized test scores, which has a large correlation with family income. Another recommendation the report offers is the discouragement of inflated résumés by accepting information on simply a few extracurricular activities. Essays and references would be used to see whether or not an applicant’s community service activities or extracurriculars are heart-felt.
Stephen Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at the University of North Carolina, told the New York Times , “Just making people jump through hoops because we can — we don’t want to do that. We might as well be admitting these people on the basis of their height or the size of their neck.”
