College Application Article

There was an article I read over the weekend about how Harvard, America’s equivalent to Oxford University, has recently proposed changes to the college application process in America. The list of proposed changes includes making the SAT and ACT optional (to de-emphasize standardized testing), taking into account a person’s performance in their extracurricular activities (instead of just looking at how many they took), and a better way of showing sustained community service for  community (instead of just seeing a couple discrete projects here and there). Overall, I can say I agree with each of these huge changes for various reasons. With the de-emphasis on standardized testing, students won’t feel nearly as much pressure to do well in high school that could lead to the crippling stress and/or (in extreme cases) depression that some students face in high school today just because it seems like their every move is being watched and that, if they don’t do well enough, all of their hopes and dreams will come crashing down.This isn’t good for anyone’s mental health, much less a developing teenager, and seems like a good change to be making solely because of this fact. In terms of extracurricular activities many students who take them really don’t show enough effort for them and drag everyone else who is there for a learning experience down. If colleges began evaluating a student’s performance in these activities the people in them who actually do what is asked of them will receive the credit they deserve for their hard work and won’t be considered equal to a person in the same activity who did nothing in it. Lastly, community service is essential to a community’s survival. I’ve heard of multiple people who say all they did was a couple hour projects here and there and got through the application process who then tell me “so, in other words, don’t worry about community service. They won’t care how much you do anyway” (or something of that nature). An emphasis on the continuousness of community service would be a great emphasis for students to focus and improve on in their lives.

In short, I agree with every single one of these changes and hope to see them implemented as soon as humanly possible.