College Admissions for the 21st Century

224 Pages·2010·0.57 MB·English

by  Robert J. Sternberg

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

COLLEGE ADMISSIONS
FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
RobertJ.Sternberg
HARVARDUNIVERSITYPRESS
Cambridge,Massachusetts&London,England
2010
ToHenryChauncey,Jr.
Copyright©2010bythePresidentandFellowsofHarvardCollege
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Sternberg,RobertJ.
Collegeadmissionsforthe21stcentury/RobertJ.Sternberg.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-674-04823-2(cloth:alk.paper)
1.Universitiesandcolleges—UnitedStates—Admission. 2.Education,Higher—
Standards—UnitedStates. 3.Educationalequalization—UnitedStates. I.Title.
LB2351.2.S742010
378.1′61—dc22 2010011512
CONTENTS
Preface vii
1.CollegeAdmissionsandTesting 1
2.HowWeGotHere:
TheTraditionalCollegeApplication 35
3.AlternativeAdmissionsPractices 58
4.ANewWayofLookingatIntelligenceandSuccess 71
5.AssessingHiddenTalents 109
6.EncouragingCreativity,
PracticalIntelligence,andWisdom 134
7.ImplicationsforStudents,Colleges,andSociety 172
Appendix:KaleidoscopeQuestions
fortheClassesof2011–2014 181
Notes 189
Index 201

PREFACE
I entered into the admissions
business as a sophomore in college. I was interested in how my
college,Yale,couldimproveitsadmissionsprocedures.Ihadthe
audacity to write to Henry (Sam) Chauncey, Jr., dean of under-
graduateadmissionsandfinancialaidpolicy,andsonofthepres-
ident of the Educational Testing Service, asking him whether he
would be interested in creating a job for me in the Yale under-
graduate admissions office. This brazen approach had worked
formebefore,havingyieldedsummerjobsformeattwocompa-
niesthatcreatedpsychologicaltests,ThePsychologicalCorpora-
tion(theninNewYorkCity)andtheEducationalTestingService
(in Princeton, New Jersey). I had the first of these jobs during
twohigh-schoolsummers,andthesecondwhenIstartedcollege.
Chauncey replied and scheduled an interview. He must have
been at least somewhat impressed, because he hired me. I am
gladhedid,becauseIlearnedalotandmoreoverbecausetothis
dayheremainsalifelongfriend.
FortwoandahalfyearsIworkedpart-timeinadmissionsand
then, after graduating early, I became a special assistant to the
dean of undergraduate admissions, who at the time was a man
named John Muyskens. I spent a semester doing what admis-
sions officers do, as well as researching undergraduate admis-
sions.Thosewereheadytimesduringtheearly1970s,whenwe
viii PREFACE
all believed that we could make the world a better place if only
weadmittedthe“right”studentstoYale.
I decided that, in order to pursue my interests properly, I
would need a PhD, so after that one semester I headed to Stan-
ford as a PhD student in psychology. There I would begin what
hasbecomealifelongprogramofresearchintothenatureofhu-
man abilities, their antecedents, and their consequences. One of
mymentors,LeeCronbach,toldmethatthefieldofhumanintel-
ligencewasprettymuchdead.ButIhavedonewhatIcantore-
viveitovermorethanthirtyyearsofteachingandresearch,dur-
ingwhichmyinterestinadmissionshasneverwavered.
Three years after entering Stanford, I received my PhD and
headed back to Yale as an assistant professor. I was determined
to change the way people thought about abilities, and the way
such abilities were tested and developed. I suppose that, in the
ideal world, I would be writing in this preface about my enor-
mous successes. I’ve had some: along the way I have picked up
numerous awards and eleven honorary doctorates. But I have
hadlittleornosuccess inchangingthewaythisnation tests for
ordevelopshumanabilities.
The traditional, narrow approach to admissions testing re-
minds me of an experience I had last summer, while traveling
with my wife. She and I sat in a restaurant with a spectacular
viewofanenormouswaterwheelthatwasspinningandchurning
water as it had been for scores of years. The wheel looked per-
haps a bit worse for wear, but it continued to do, after all the
years,thejobitwasconstructedtodo.Itwasofferedbythetown
asahistoricallandmark—onethattouristslikeuscouldenjoy.
Thestandardizedtestsweusetodayareroughlyasoldintheir
conceptionasthatwaterwheelisinitsexecution.Butthesetests
arenottreatedmerelyasitemsofhistoricalinterest;insteadthey
play a central part in determining which students will make it
intowhichcolleges.Imaginewhattheworldwouldbeliketoday
if medical, telecommunications, computing, or other technolo-
gies were stuck at the beginning of the twentieth century. Many
PREFACE ix
diseasesthatarenowcurableoratleasttreatablewouldkillpeo-
plewhonowcanstayalive.Peoplewouldbewritingalltheircor-
respondence with a fountain pen and ink, or with clunky type-
writers, instead of with a computer. Overseas telephone calls
would still be an expensive novelty. Today’s standardized tests,
metaphoricallyspeaking,arethosehistoricalnovelties.
That said, the message of this book is not that the standard-
izedtestsweusetodayarehorribleandevil,andthattheworld
would be a better place if they were to disappear overnight. On
thecontrary,suchtests,likeeveryothermeasureusedincollege
admissions,havebothstrengthsandweaknesses.Formanyindi-
viduals and groups, they are reasonable although not excellent
predictors of academic success in college. They tell something
aboutastudent’sacademicpotential.AstudentwithSATscores
inthelow300sislesslikely,onaverage,tosucceedacademically
inahighlyselectivecollegethanastudentwithscoresinthehigh
600s.
Atthesametime,scorescanberaisedorloweredbymanyex-
tenuating circumstances that the scores, by their very nature,
cannot take into account—differences in education, first lan-
guage, home environment, conditions of testing, and so forth.
My argument is not that tests are intrinsically bad, but rather
that the information they give is incomplete—they are not
enough.Wecandobetterbydevisingnewassessmentsthatsup-
plement the old ones and that more comprehensively reflect the
psychologyoftoday,notjustofyesterday.
Everytimeonewritesabook,onehopestochangetheworld.
If the past is the best predictor of the future, I will not succeed
withthisbook.Butthen,ifthefuturewerenodifferentfromthe
past,wewouldstillbetravelingbyhorseandbuggy.Sothisbook
represents my hope that it is possible for our society to change
course and recognize that our traditional way of doing things
with regard to admissions, instruction, and assessment is less
than optimal and has been for quite a long time. We need to
move beyond our horse and buggy mentality in educational in-