Washington Monthly - September/October 2019 - 22

T-shirts, and other products. "Make fundraising part of your
personal success story," Envision's site says.
"It's absolutely appalling," said Anna Ivey, the admissions
consultant, of these tactics. "So many schools that have summer programs are richer than God. They don't need to be taking money from teenagers hoping to score some extra points
in the admissions process."

o what is the "best" summer experience for high
schoolers?
For one thing, there are far cheaper ways to explore an academic interest over the summer than a pre-college
summer program. "Take a class at a community college," said
Colleen Ganjian, founder of DC College Counseling. Ivey suggested taking a free online course from platforms such as
edX.org, which features many of the same top-tier schools. "I
understand it's fun to be on the actual campus," she said. "But
at what price? And for what benefit?"
Admissions counselors also say that teens should do what
they used to do, before the pre-college and summer experience
fad took hold: get a job. "College admissions officers love jobs,"
said Ivy Coach's Brian Taylor. "It doesn't matter if you work at
McDonald's. If you need a job to help your family pay the bills,
that makes you likable, and that's a huge part of the process."
"A job is great," said Stefanie Niles, president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling and a vice president at Ohio Wesleyan University. "They have the opportunity to

make money, manage their money, they learn about responsibility, they're working in a team setting. There's a lot you can learn
from a summer job." Niles added, however, that the "ideal" summer experience is up to students and there is no magic formula.
"From the admissions side, we like to see students participate in
activities that help them grow, that expose them to new ideas,
and where they may be challenged in new and interesting ways."
Nevertheless, so long as the college admissions process remains opaque and increasingly competitive, and so long as parents and students become ever more desperate for the brass
ring of acceptance into a selective institution, the allure of precollege summer programs will only grow. In fact, the next frontier is pre-college for middle schoolers, which more schools are
beginning to offer. Summer Discovery, for instance, said it currently runs two such "junior discovery" programs, at UCLA and
Georgetown, but could be expanding its offerings next year to
accommodate parent demand.
Parents, meanwhile, are reluctant to pass up any conceivable potential advantage for their kids. "Guilt plays into a lot of
this," said one parent who sent her kids to multiple pre-college
programs. "Don't you want to give your kids a leg up?" But rather than a competitive edge, pre-college programs may too often
be selling big dreams, false hopes, and a tantalizing taste of an
elite education that is ultimately out of reach.
Anne Kim is vice president for domestic policy at the Progressive Policy
Institute and a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly.

Three things you might not know about Frostburg State University:

Students make a difference from the beginning.

Frostburg grads earn more.

Frostburg grads have gone on to great things.

Frostburg students don't wait until graduation or graduate school to participate
in research, build on their own ideas or provide leadership for causes they care
about. Making a difference starts when they step on campus.
Don't take our word for it. The federal government's College Scorecard,
The Economist magazine and the Brookings Institution all say that Frostburg
grads earn more 10 years out than graduates of similar schools.
They are CEOs of major corporations. Emmy winners. A Tony winner. An astronaut.
Teachers and college professors. Doctors and lawyers. Thousands of Bobcats took
what they learned at Frostburg and turned it into successful lives..

FROSTBURG
22

September/October 2019

HAGERSTOWN

ONLINE

FSUAdmissions@frostburg.edu | 301.687.4201 | www.frostburg.edu

http://www.edX.org http://www.frostburg.edu

Washington Monthly - September/October 2019

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