In 2015, an op-ed columnist for the New York Times by the name of Frank Bruni wrote a book famously titled, Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be. In it, Bruni spends roughly 200 pages making that very case: what you do and who you become in life is not determined by where you go to college. He begins by naming a number of ultra successful business executives, powerful public servants and other famous people who received their educations from lesser known and, in many cases, obscure colleges before going on to become household names. With that backdrop, he spends the rest of his book making the case that students can find success at any number of colleges, not just those with brand names. What they do in college is the primary determinant of their success.
I couldn’t agree more. Further, I believe that a logical extension of Bruni’s premise is this: where you get in is not who you are. I find that most high school students are less concerned with what their future college says about who they’ll be and more concerned with what their acceptance to– or rejection from– a particular college says about who they are today. In other words, their current self-worth is based on “who wants them”, whether they decide to attend that institution or not. And who can blame them? Our culture has long treated acceptance to certain colleges as a reward for a successful high school career. We say things like, “Make good grades, so you can get into a good college.” We focus on getting in rather than getting through and insinuate that any old college won’t do; it must be “good”.
But what constitutes a good student, and who determines what makes a good college? The first part of the question is complicated, isn’t it? If we relied solely on class rank to answer that question, we’d come up with one list of students; if we used test scores, another. If we used work ethic or extraordinary achievement in a particular subject area or outside the classroom, we’d come up with another still. You can begin to see how complicated college admissions is for universities that use a holistic approach to reviewing applications.
Most Americans answer the second part of the question by going through the annual college rankings in U.S. News & World Report in ascending order. The result? The universities near the top of that list– whose enrollment numbers are static — receive a record number of applications every year! Add to that the fact that colleges have other things to consider besides students’ grades and accomplishments (like whether their institution can collect enough tuition to operate and whether their entering class will have diverse backgrounds, interests, intellectual traits and talents). The result is that many good — even extraordinary — students are increasingly rejected from these “good” universities. Yet, those very same students might receive a full ride at a college that doesn’t hit all the arbitrary metrics required to rank high in U.S. News. And, just like there is more than one measure of a good student, there is more than one measure of a good college.
I have chosen this month to write this blog because in Texas, where I live, this is a seminal time for many high school seniors. Our two flagship universities, UT-Austin and Texas A&M, have begun to release admission decisions for the high school class of 2023. With a record number of Texas high school graduates and a state law that precludes the majority of students outside the top six percent and top 10 percent of their graduating class from gaining direct admission to UT or A&M, respectively, admission to these two institutions has become increasingly elusive. To put it into perspective, if a student goes to a school with a graduating class of 600 students, typically just a handful more than the 36 with the highest GPAs will be offered admission to UT-Austin. Say it’s 14. Are the 550 who aren’t offered spots unworthy, unqualified, or otherwise bad students? When it’s laid out like that, the absurdity of such assumptions becomes clear.
To all high school students, I cannot stress this enough: where you get into college does not determine your worth — as a student or a person. Your worth is based on who you are, and who you are should determine where you apply and decide to go, not the other way around. Apply to colleges that are good for you, and I guarantee you will be happy with both where you go and who you’ll be.
