It has been a long time since I had a bit role in Stanford admissions, but I have followed the national trends recently. Many elite universities over the last 5 years have been cautioning high school students not to take too MANY AP classes. A few have placed limits on the number they will consider in admissions and/or the number that they will allow to count as units or to satisfy requirements. I am not sure where Stanford stands at the moment.
Nationally, there is growing awareness that elite-bound high school students have been working themselves sick--particularly in terms of mental health--and that universities need to find a way of choosing admits that does not stoke the arms race. Locally, many Stanford faculty are scared to death for their own high school students. The Stanford ghetto is served by Gunn High School, where there have been two suicide clusters in recent years. There have been agonizing, soul-searching meetings where parents speculate about the role that academic pressures and stress have played in the epidemic of high school depression--with suicide being merely the tip of the iceberg.
Now add to all of this the pandemic shutting down normal social life, the fact that young people are far more cognizant of and frightened of global warming than their parents, the perception among youth that our political system is utterly broken and incapable of solving significant problems, the fact that it has never been harder for kids to earn extra money to help with college expenses--and you get a truly horrific climate for many of our applicants.
I hope very much that all of us take seriously Mikaela Brewer's missive to the world. Our admissions system, along with the entire Stanford community, needs to exhibit a level of kindness, empathy, and understanding well beyond what we are used to.
Nationally, there is growing awareness that elite-bound high school students have been working themselves sick--particularly in terms of mental health--and that universities need to find a way of choosing admits that does not stoke the arms race. Locally, many Stanford faculty are scared to death for their own high school students. The Stanford ghetto is served by Gunn High School, where there have been two suicide clusters in recent years. There have been agonizing, soul-searching meetings where parents speculate about the role that academic pressures and stress have played in the epidemic of high school depression--with suicide being merely the tip of the iceberg.
Now add to all of this the pandemic shutting down normal social life, the fact that young people are far more cognizant of and frightened of global warming than their parents, the perception among youth that our political system is utterly broken and incapable of solving significant problems, the fact that it has never been harder for kids to earn extra money to help with college expenses--and you get a truly horrific climate for many of our applicants.
I hope very much that all of us take seriously Mikaela Brewer's missive to the world. Our admissions system, along with the entire Stanford community, needs to exhibit a level of kindness, empathy, and understanding well beyond what we are used to.