After writing my last piece on Turning the Tide, the recent report by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Making Caring Common I have noticed a common flaw – the expectation that what has been growing, and developing for quite some time will instantly change. The hope that all of a sudden universities and colleges will fling open their doors to “well-deserving” students and all will be good. Yes, this is an over generalization but one that needs some perspective.

The business of education is exactly that – a business, and a very big business. Money flows in all directions. Those who have been in college advising can hark back to the time the word “admission” was changed to “enrollment management” and thus setting in motion all sorts of data crunching and terminology akin to the business world. These events and countless others began the turning of the tide in the direction that we have now come to loathe, condemn, and banter about.

Turning the Tide is not about this per se. If we look at the title it states two things:
1.    Turn
2.    Tide

So let’s look at each of these. Turn is to change direction, reverse or rotate. Tide is “a stream or current, tendency or drift of events and ideas”. But if we consider the tide of the ocean as being the tide we are talking about, it is a massive undertaking. In my limited viewpoint, Turning the Tide is exactly that, a massive undertaking to change not only the thinking on admissions, but also hopefully the admission process but also the societal misdirection that is causing us to look at American democracy.

The issue at hand seems to be that while this all sounds promising, what actual actions will universities take to make changes? Also, what actual changes will schools develop to help create the changes asked for? And finally, how will we actually get students to genuinely invest in meaningful Caring beyond the “I will do something because it looks and sounds good”?

Some have made the connection that the Turning Tide project is tied to the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success and that causes some enormous worry. The new application system will be ineffective in meeting the stated goal of accessing students currently underrepresented and the locker will be filled with vague attempts to prove Caring much like in the days of grit, perseverance, leadership and other lauded verbiage.

Admission to selective universities is not going to become less selective. For that to happen selective schools would need to expand to the point of dilution and thus become ineffective. What Turning the Tide represents is that universities hold a position in our culture to send “a message” that engages both the ethical and intellectual. After all, is this, in part, what a college education is about? To get us to think critically, analytically about society to develop solutions whether they be technological advancements or a more accepting and responsive society.

There are certainly aspects of the report that are broad strokes but the underlying message is clear. We all need to turn the tide. Each of us needs to help make this process better – being mindful of the stress our students are under to bringing collaboration and understanding between peoples of all walks of life. It is the hope that the tide will begin to turn; the schools will embrace responsible citizenship and intellectual advancement. In turn, students and their families will begin to seek appropriate avenues to further education. Finally, that universities will continue to lead the way. This whole endeavor starts with all of us. We are all shareholders or stakeholders in this process. And yes, if Harvard hadn’t said it perhaps no one would have listened. But now that it has been said, do we need to quibble over who said it? Instead, perhaps we should take the risk and see where this will lead.

Hamilton Gregg is the founder of International Educational Consulting and has worked in education since 1985. He helps students and their families understand their personal and educational needs and find the right school to meet their requirements. If you are a student or parent who would like to ask Gregg a question on our blog, please email hsgregg45@gmail.com

Photo: Jonathan Combe (flickr)

There is a lot to look forward to as we enter 2016. It promises to be a very chaotic year as we consider the upcoming events – The Revised SAT, The Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success, changes in China regarding international education and the big event, the US Presidential election. While I will not comment on the latter, the other events unfolding deserve comment.

Starting in May of this year, the revised SAT will debut overseas. In the US it will come in March. Many students and their parents are already scrambling to sort out what this will all mean for applications in the coming year. Will it have an effect? Most likely, partly because it is new and there are significant changes. If you are unaware of what those changes will be, I encourage you to go to collegeboard.com or khanacademy.com to see what is coming.

Many students have been trying to pre-empt taking the new test by cramming in the old tests the last couple of months. Most students will find, however, that they cannot avoid the new version. Since many students will have taken the test several times and they will be depleting their options. Students who take the test more than three times will serve notice to the schools they are applying to that they are focusing on the old test. And while most universities have not really defined what they propose to do with the variety of test scores they will be receiving, a student may be sending upwards of five test scores – three old and two new. Sadly, the time students will be wasting may have some impact on the most valuable part of their application – school.

But the problem has been compounded by the fact that College Board cannot seem to get scores out from previous tests. November 2015 SAT scores where just released over the holidays and December, well, we hope to see the soon. Further, for those students who took the PSAT, their scores may also arrive soon, another delay presented by College Board.

What does this all mean? More anxiety, more frustration and more complexity to the application process. It also places students in an uncomfortable position of not being able to plan ahead. Most Grade 11 students will soon begin the arduous task of researching and otherwise preparing for next year. It will be a rare student who has old SAT scores who can march forward. Other students, having to take the Revised SAT, have no idea what is coming. Students who had the foresight to take the ACT are most likely in pretty good shape. But since the ACT is not really offered on the Mainland, there is an added stress. What remains to be seen is how everyone – students and colleges – sort all of this out.

I have already written about the Coalition, but one thing is true – the Coalitions intentions are good, the process and the actual reality of what the application and website will look like remains to be seen.

So we come to the final piece of this article; changes coming from the Chinese government to the international programs make it is clear that China wants to reinvigorate their education system and retain some of the lost brain drain. But they have much to do. Even with curricular changes to the GaoKao and forcing international divisions to unlink from the main schools will only create confusion. It seems unclear what definitive steps are being taken to ensure confidence in the education system. And while deriding the effect of “western values” Mainland schools will need to provide an education that meets future skills and acumen for the coming generation of students employed in a 21st Century China. At the moment, the 400,000+ students seeking education around the world have more confidence elsewhere than at home.

The New Year always brings a regeneration of ideas and resolutions. It seems that the near future is presenting conflicting challenges as family looks to understand what all these changes will mean now and into the future. My resolution for the New Year is to keep a level head. Most people do not like change. It creates a certain amount of uncertainty that promotes decisions, which are rash and often unsupported. So, while keeping a level head, I also plan to keep it simple; a great rule of life. Keeping it simple, provides space to keep a level head. Happy New Year!

Photo: pixabay