Off Campus Fun

Given that highly selective colleges are reinstating test requirements (now that they have enough data to evaluate their “COVID experiment”); and given that even during COVID, test optional schools never stopped accepting significantly more students who submitted test scores than those who opted out (at a 2-3X rate); the lesson has been clear: Standardized tests can help predict which students will thrive (not just survive) at any given college (which is, after all, what we all want—parents, colleges, and most of all students.)

I have never accepted the argument that a smart, successful student “is just not good at standardized tests.” Colleges’ own research, and my own experience after 25 years as a test prep coach, compel me to rather think that every such student has not been taught how to work efficiently or methodically; has not been taught how to manage stress or overconfidence; has not been taught how to prepare for something big by chunking, organizing, prioritizing, and conditioning,

To earn what is now considered a competitive score, students must grow capacities quite different from those needed to earn A’s in high school. And these capacities, colleges deem, are essential for their students to thrive, both on campus and off. Indeed, how can one grow socially and emotionally off campus, if one is in the library 24/7,

Students without these skills may very well graduate college with gold-colored “high honors” tassels hanging from their caps. But if that is all, if this is the only goal, then it will have been a replay of high school, and a tragic forfeiture of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.