The Door

After March 31st there will be no more wondering.

The tables will dramatically turn and applicants will morph into decision makers. It is the sweet/sour spot for many high school seniors. The college door will either be open or shut - no more "Messing with Mr. In-Between."

As I watched Tina Fey's new movie Admission I was simultaneously chuckling and aching for all college applicants. The search can be exhausting (and expensive).

The application process has the look of computer circuitry to me where seemingly endless wired pathways connect to achieve a singular outcome - in this case acceptance to a school.

And if today's college search appears as the intricate guts of a computer, my long ago quest looked more like the cardboard box in which the computer is shipped. So much simpler.

It wasn't necessarily better, but simpler? Yes.

In her rich memoir, My Beloved World, Sonia Sotomayor vividly details her life growing up in a rough Bronx neighborhood, her education and post law school employment up to her Supreme Court nomination. She joined the girls' Forensics Club in high school which was coached by an upperclassman, Ken Moy. Ken urged Sonia to debate using her hands less and listening more so she could hear the vulnerability in her opponents' arguments. How could he know these would be among the seedling ideas to root so deeply in the future Justice's life?

Ken whose parents ran a Chinese hand laundry in East Harlem and whose father was "trouble three ways - heroin, gambling, and a violent temper," was accepted to Princeton. It was Ken, who called Sonia when he was a freshman there and uttered the words that impacted her college choices saying "Try for the Ivy League."

Sonia's first view of an Ivy League school was from a movie theater seat when she saw the film Love Story. She describes as a high school senior how the setting was other-worldy when she writes, "Apart from Camden, New Jersey and the alternate reality of Puerto Rico, I had never traveled far from the Bronx and I had certainly never seen anything like this."

Her high school guidance counselor suggested Catholic colleges, but Sonya  replied, "I want(ed) to apply to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford." Sonia followed the application steps like every other student. When she received a postcard from Princeton with the box of "likely" checked she asked her counselor about it. The astonished woman's reply was, There's a very good chance you'll get in."

Sonia ranked among the top ten students in academics in her high school. 

In her memoir, Sonia recalls that a few days after she received the postcard, she walked past the school nurse, who asked in an accusatory tone, "Can you explain to me how you got a 'likely' and the two top-ranking girls in the school only got a 'possible'?"

And there it is - as true 41 years ago as it is today - the question of what factors make a college applicant 'worthy' of access.

Sonia's access resulted in her earning summa cum laude honors from Princeton, selected to Phi Beta Beta Kappa, and was awarded the University's Pyne Honor Prize, a singular honor awarded to a senior who has most clearly manifested excellent scholarship, strength of character and effective leadership.

A NYTimes article titled "Better Colleges Failing to Lure Poorer Strivers" by David Leonhardt cites a recent study by two longtime education researchers (Caroline Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard) that shows a significant percentage of low-income students with top test scores and grades continue to not apply to the nation's best colleges.

While these top schools cast a wide net in some major cities and their surrounding suburbs, the study suggests that low-income students with very high test scores and grades who live between the nation's coasts are ignored. 

In plain numbers, of the 238 selected 'best' colleges listed, only 34 percent of low income high-achievers attend. Among students in the highest income quartile that figure is 78 percent.

"Many top low-income students instead attend community colleges or four-year institutions closer to their homes," the Times article notes. Even in the all access Internet age, top low-income students who have little to no interaction or exposure to someone from one of these schools will ignore them in their college search.

I understand how this happens but not the why. It seems dated in this abundant information age. What is clear is that the issues these students face in their everyday lives weigh heavy in how they overlook top college options even though they excel in school. Why are they not being reached? How is this possible?

Interestingly, the Supreme Court will decide in June on a University of Texas case looking to restrict race based affirmative action as one criterion in college selections. I look forward to hearing the court's responses, especially that of Justice Sotomayor. (By the way, I recommend her spirited memoir.)

It's not only a matter of the door opening for students. As suggested in the Hoxby/Avery study, students first need to know where to look beyond their front doors.

Link to the NYTimes article on low-income students with top grades: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/education/scholarly-poor-often-overlook-better-colleges.html?pagewanted=all

Link to the Hoxby/Avery study from the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/latest-conference/2013-spring-selective-colleges-income-diversity-hoxby

Link to the NYTimes article on the University of Texas affirmative action case:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/us/a-changed-court-revisits-affirmative-action-in-college-admissions.html?pagewanted=all

From the blog A Subject for Consideration