The College Admissions Scoop: Selective Schools Grasp at Reasons to Deny

By Marilyn G.S. Emerson, M.S.W., CEP

Every morning, I post to College Planning Services, Inc.’s Facebook page links to articles that I feel offer something interesting about higher education and the college and graduate school admission process.  One of today’s links was to the podcast of The Brian Lehrer Show: College Letters.  Today, the day students across the country, and the world, will hear from a small group of highly sort after colleges and universities, Lehrer airs a highly relevant interview with Jacques Steinberg, education writer for the New York Times.   

To my surprise I agree with most everything that Steinberg says.  I agree especially that the admissions process “is not fair.”  Steinberg tells listeners not to put stock into what rejection means because the process can be highly subjective.  As an example, Lehrer plays an excerpt from the recent Tova Smith NPR broadcast Behind the Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst. Listeners hear that a student is rejected because the reviewer does not like the first sentence in the student’s essay, which she interpreted as not showing intellectual passion, but rather showing a passion for just music.  This example showcases, according to Steinberg, how admissions officers at the highly selective schools are sometimes “grasping for reasons to say no.”

To all the parents who will be hurting tonight because their children were denied, take a deep breath, swallow your disappointment and move forward. Your child was just one of the unlucky ones. Your child is still the same intelligent, curious and wonderful person he or she was before the denial.  Where a person attends college does not determine success in life.  It is up to your child to determine his or her own success.