Having helped six kids through college admissions, I am acutely aware of the pressures — ridiculous in retrospect — associated with the process. After way too much fretting, each child found a college that matched his or her style and passion, and each graduated in four years — or, knock on wood, will do so soon. Our kids attended a number of secondary schools, public and private, depending on their needs. As different as they and their school experiences were, they all felt thrown into the same pressure cooker, largely unrelieved by their schools, when it came time to apply for college.
I remember one experience most vividly. A daughter who excelled academically was considering some of the most competitive universities in the country. Throughout her school career, she had been doing everything school counselors recommended: taking as many Advanced Placement courses as possible (the school offered thirty-some); preparing to score high on the SAT; being involved every quarter in a sport or performing art; and doing all of this without allowing a B to besmirch her transcript.
Finally, the time came to visit colleges and choose where to apply. I joined my daughter in the office of the college counselor who had worked with her since her freshman year and knew her well. The counselor pulled out a thick binder of data, unlike anything I had ever seen. The data reported on every student in the high school for the last decade. It included their SAT scores, GPAs, every college application they had sent — regular or early admission — and the admission decision — accept, defer, or reject. The data were then sorted by college or university, listed in rank order of selectivity. The database made it easy to see, very precisely, the fate of students with any GPA or SAT score, applying to any college in the county, from this well-regarded high school.
Ranked number one among public high schools in the state, then and now, the school obviously believed it was important that students apply to colleges to which they would be accepted — and all the better, if the college was perceived to be a competitive one. To be fair, parents seemed to have the same values. So, with data far more powerful than any online ranking system, this school could see how college admissions worked for its students. As a data geek, I was impressed. Admission decisions appeared to have little randomness to them at all. At any given college, students above certain threshold scores got in, and those below those scores did not. Early admission bumped up probabilities a notch. Marginal scores often received deferrals. All the college talk, absorbed on countless tours with her older siblings, about looking for unique qualities in each freshman, seemed quaintly dishonest.
I quickly forgot I was a data geek. As a parent, I was appalled. After doing everything recommended since she entered school, our daughter was being counseled with hard data about where to apply — and where not to. There's no harm in helping students find success or avoid unnecessary disappointment. But that's a far cry from helping students find their passions or their perfect match. After visiting a number of very good colleges, my daughter found what she believed to be her spot, and then following the data very carefully, applied early admission. I was certain she would be accepted — as was the counselor — but December 15 arrived without an envelope in the mail. The college website indicated letters had been sent. For three nights, my daughter literally cried in worry that she had been rejected. Finally, I called the admissions office. A representative told me: "Her letter must be lost in the mail; please tell your daughter she has been accepted." That evening she cried in relief; I wanted to cry also — for her needless suffering.
Independent schools attract some of the highest potential students in the nation. Their parents, paying a great deal for the school experience, expect that an independent school education will provide their child with the best preparation for life — academic, social, emotional, everything. But come college admissions time, expectations for acceptance to the "best" college almost invariably soar. Our schools have to work hard to maintain a balanced view of what is best for the whole child. Research is clear that the key to college success is not the prestige of the college but the match of the college to the student's style and passions. Students need to pursue a college education that enables them to thrive in all respects. This may be a super-competitive college, or it may not.
I know from meeting with lots of upper school leaders around the country that educators understand this. Yet we are all tyrannized a bit by college admissions season. Recently, I visited a school that is trying very hard to get ahead of the tyranny. San Francisco University High School (SFUHS) is renowned for its academic rigor. Founded just 40 years ago, it was created to provide an unmatched college prep program. Today, it attracts many of the strongest students in the Bay Area. Families are increasingly from the world of high tech, but that has not changed their expectations for college — reputation matters. As Head of School Julia Eels explained, parents want a well-rounded experience for their children. Often, they also pressure their children and the school to gain admission to highly competitive colleges.
To provide better balance, the school has instituted an advising program, beginning in the freshman year, to help students, and their families, appreciate what is most important to student development and success. The core of the program is daily advising. The school assigns every freshman a faculty advisor, who remains with the student until graduation. Nothing unusual here. But what is unusual is that the school carves out one full class period a day for freshmen to meet with their advisor. The school reduces the teaching load of every advisor by one class per day, so freshmen advisors teach three classes per day, instead of the normal four — and can give advising the attention it deserves. This allocation is a huge expense for the school in terms of both financial and human resources. It requires additional faculty to teach classes otherwise taught by the advisors, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. The practice is also a measure of the school's commitment.
Advisors receive explicit guidance about how to help their advisees grow. Advisors are organized into teams, headed by an advisory leader. Advising teams meet once a week with their colleagues to discuss student needs and options for supporting them. The school also provides programmatic support, based on the school's assessment of the needs of well-rounded students. After freshman year, students meet with their advisors once a week instead of daily. Advisors continue to meet with their advising teams, to be mentored in their work. The advisors with whom I spoke were effusive. They received the support that they needed to do their job well — something often missing in faculty advising programs, in my experience.
The school began this system several years ago after recognizing in a self-study that the advising system just wasn't doing the job of helping students thrive — rather than survive — in the pressure cooker of a rigorous academic school. According to the school's leader of student support, the school asked other schools around the nation for advice on advising programs, and found lots of schools less than satisfied with their efforts. So SFUHS went to work creating its own. This is an area that can benefit from experimentation and sharing. Upper school counseling systems are still judged by their college lists more than by the smiles on the faces of their students.
At SFUHS, I saw lots of smiling faces. A regular whole-school assembly was especially uplifting. Run by students, the assembly is a time to pursue core values while having some fun. This particular Thursday (it wasn't even a Friday), teams of four representing each class competed in the popular live video game, Dance Dance Revolution. While it would be difficult enough for one dance-inept person like myself — my kids regularly embarrassed me with this game — the students competed not individually, but with each team member taking a quadrant of the dance. As the competition intensified, students alternately cheered and howled with good-natured laughter — teams did not necessarily select their class's "best dancers." It was all about teamwork.
Every school looks for ways to lighten the load, to brighten spirits, and to let kids be kids. SFUHS was unusually intentional about the fun. Building strong and trusting relationships between students and adults, providing students daily opportunities to safely discuss their hopes and fears, and using all four years of high school to help students put college and life in perspective constitute a dedicated effort to move from counseling to support. It's a model I wish more high schools, of all types, could emulate.