Somewhere in America right now, a 17-year-old is at home, sweating out the college admissions process.
She's a junior in high school -- from Scarsdale, N.Y., perhaps, or maybe a suburb of Los Angeles -- and all around her are the symbols of impending change. Her bedroom desk is littered with admissions brochures from Stanford and Georgetown, and her schedule is booked solid every night this week with SAT review classes. Sure, there are still 11 long months to go before she actually has to submit any kind of college application, but it's never too early to start the process rolling. You know how it is nowadays.
Downstairs, Dad's hard at work online again, wrapping up flight reservations for the family's whirlwind tour of the New England schools. Mom's on the phone in the kitchen, chatting with her friend down the street about which kids got those treasured thick envelopes during the recent early decision round. And all the while, even as her parents busily take steps to map out her future, our 17-year-old friend is nowhere to be found.
Actually, she is at home, but locked in her room, armed only with a pencil, a notebook and her AP Spanish textbook. This is the spring of her junior year, after all, so there's no room for slacking. Last semester that counts. Last chance to get those grades up just a little bit more.
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This 17-year-old is fictional, but out there in the suburbs and big cities of this nation are a lot of real ones just like her. They are the products of an admissions system that demands an exceptional number of students -- years of advance planning, as well as an intensive self-marketing effort -- should they desire entrance to a handful of competitive colleges and universities.
In the debate over college admissions -- and specifically, when it concerns the practice known as early decision -- many think that these students pay an unreasonably high price. Critics here at Penn (and at other Ivory Tower outposts) have been quick to cite these poor, overworked adolescents as evidence of a system run amok; as the ultimate proof that when it comes to college admissions, one's hard work and aptitude most often lead to nothing else but, well, more hard work.
They're right about that.
They're also right when they say that, ideally, 17-year-olds should not be concentrating so much on the next step in a life that offers so much in the present. And they're right, too, when they say that the college admissions system now resembles something more like an elaborate game than a dignified, understated selection process.
In a broader sense, though, the advocates for the stressed-out, upper class Ivy hopefuls are sorely missing the point. When all is said and done, after all, these are the kids who typically have no problem getting the good news from Penn or Princeton. They have the tools to succeed, and despite a few long nights and uncomfortable moments along the way, not much really keeps them from achieving at an appropriate level.
By contrast, thousands of equally able students compete under the same conditions, yet lack the basic tools to "play" the admissions game with the same level of success. Obviously, financial circumstances play a part in that, but so too do simple environmental factors. If a high achiever in a poor neighborhood doesn't understand the options available to him -- like early decision, which researchers have likened to a 100-point SAT boost in the application file -- then he simply won't take advantage of them.
Here is where universities like Penn can make the greatest difference in their own reform efforts. Not by catering to the well-off legacy applicant from Long Island or the science whiz from New Jersey -- but by building a renewed admissions structure that eliminates the element of gamesmanship, and strives to provide an equal playing field for all applicants.
That effort must begin with the elimination of early decision. Though the practice has admittedly benefitted this university over the last two decades (by attracting the high-enthusiasm students that Penn once lacked), the practice now represents but a shell of its designed purpose.
It's not just helping the 17-year-olds from Scarsdale gain that last little bit of momentum. It's also keeping a whole other segment of the population off the playing field.
As long as early admission exists, that playing field will remain the domain of those with the tools to play. It's time to end the game altogether.
Jonathan Margulies is a senior Management concentrator from North Bellmore, N.Y., and outgoing editorial page editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian .
