By Erin Croddick Avery, D. Min.
“What is it that even the poorest can possess and even the richest cannot buy?”
A week ago, you may have answered, “An elite college acceptance.”
They say that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And while there’s been ample tongue and finger wagging this week over the college admission scandal, I pause to reflect on the disposition of good parents everywhere who bear the tender hopes and fears of their beloved children from conception to launch and who yearn for a straight path from points A to B for them.
I intend not to lessen the vulgarity of the ring of cheating, bribery and scandal. I mean, however, to explore how “Operation Varsity Blues” humanizes our intentions as parents, to contemplate the good deed it accomplished in exposing the vulnerabilities in the selective college admission system and to consider how the inverse proportion between stress and control is at work in the lives of both college-bound students and their parents.
I’m quite certain that I’m not the only parent who has walked away from a child’s hockey playoff game with tears welling up in her eyes for the disappointment of my daughter’s defeat. As parents in this particular moment in history, perhaps no different than the industrious generations of our largely immigrant ancestors, we desire so much more for our children and are less certain of that possibility than ever. The firestorm around Amy Chua’s “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” was an indication of the tough-love immigrant mentality where the next generation would not be permitted to decline, not on our watch. And does that well-intended desire for increase rather than decrease prompt us to want to shelter our children from suffering, from rejection, from having to ride the wave of uncertainty?
And what parent among us, if given that straight path, albeit unethical, wouldn’t be tempted in some way to want to provide that for their child?
William Rick Singer, the mastermind behind the fraud, was an astute observer of the soft, side-entry vulnerabilities in highly selective college admissions. For time and eternity it seems, the sum of the addends of power and wealth have equaled access. To this day, to know a trustee at a college and to secure a letter from him or her can often guarantee a thick letter in the mail come acceptance season.
Singer also observed that recruited athletes are routinely ushered to the front of the admissions line because they fulfill an institutional priority: competitive NCAA athletics. And who among us would not agree that winning the Final Four certainly has put beloved alma maters on the map that may have lived in relative obscurity otherwise? We won’t even speak of the role all of these factors play in college rankings.
Additionally, psychoeducational testing to diagnose learning differences has also existed to even the playing field rather than to game it. Singer even got to the test proctors, those woefully underpaid souls who sacrifice Saturdays, analogue clock in hand, trying to measure out 25-minute intervals with nail-biting accuracy.
Again, I pose to anyone who despises those who sought out illegal means to create advantage: Which of the above would you eschew in the interest of equity?
What will the fallout of this scandal be moving forward? Will trustees no longer write letters supporting applicants? Will students with test anxiety or diagnosed learning differences or 504s be denied extended time or other test accommodations? Will recruited athletes not gain advantage in the admissions process and receive their likely letters in advance of their classmates, having only applied to one college?
I predict that all of these measures will proceed unchecked. Perhaps there will be more communication between the athletic liaisons, admissions offices and coaches. Perhaps trustees’ chits will be limited. Perhaps development cases will go through a checks-and-balances system and perhaps more colleges (in addition to Harvard and the like) will employee third-party private investigating firms to fact-check exaggerated credentials. Maybe the office ombudsperson will actually be granted some power to override admissions decisions (however unlikely).
But my greater concern as an educator and counselor of young people is the expectation that failure is to be avoided at all costs, even by choosing unethical or illegal means to attempt to ensure it.
For those caught up in the snare of this plot – their great loss could be all of our great gain: That we, the adult stakeholders, might resolve today to meet uncertainty with the open embrace of an adventurous and hopeful future versus trying to stringently secure the ever-elusive life goal of “success,” however we (or our children) choose to define it; that our goal will be reducing excessive achievement pressure for our children’s overall well-being.
And perhaps the values lesson that we are placing squarely on the shoulders of teenagers – to be blameless and perfectly shiny and packaged for their college applications – could be shifted toward the archetype illustrated in the Japanese art of ***ITALkintsugi,*** wherein broken vessels are glued back together with solid gold filigree. Perhaps, it is precisely in our brokenness that the greatest lessons, beauty and value are discovered. Those of us who have sustained tremendous growth prompted by a rueful mistake are living proof of the grit and perseverance that gives birth to self-confidence, self-awareness and integrity: that which the poorest have access to and even the richest among us cannot buy.
For more ideas and further discussion on the topic of character in the college process, please read Harvard Graduate School of Education’s 3-year-old initiative: “Turning the Tide II: How Parents and High Schools Can Cultivate Ethical Character and Reduce Distress in The College Admissions Process.”
Erin Avery is a lifelong resident of Monmouth County and is the founder of Avery Educational Resources, LLC, a comprehensive one-stop consulting organization specializing in college, career, transfer, boarding and graduate school as well as test prep and exam simulation serving a domestic and international clientele.
This article was first published in the March 21-27 print edition of The Two River Times.
