Ever been on a road trip through the Deep South? I did one year and it was an experience I will never forget. I remember driving over narrow dirt roads through some of the thickest forests I have ever seen. As the car continued on, my surroundings peeled away until I was traveling over a giant bridge spanning the width of the Mississippi River, with boats passing underneath and a view that stretched forever.
I love metaphors, and this is literally one (couldn’t resist a little literary humor).
The dirt road is our K-12 education. The radiant bridge is our collegiate system.
America really is a special case. As our K-12 education system is entering a state of free fall (with the only hope of rebound resting on the shoulders of dedicated teachers and some serious paradigm shifts), our university system continues to serve as a beacon to the world, only growing brighter as time progresses.
So what’s with the contrast here?
Does it make sense for a nation with some of the lowest test scores in the industrialized world to have 60 to 70 of the top 100 universities in the world? No, it doesn’t.
But that’s how it is.
As a senior in the class of 2012, the college process just opened for me. The two biggest applications (Common Application and Apply Texas) just opened nationally within the past few days, and I along with millions of my peers have been checking ethnicity boxes and entering resume info all week long.
Recommendation letters, transcripts, SAT’s, Subject Tests, AP’s, ACT’s, class rankings, national merit, valedictorian, honors, scholarships, FAFSA, early action, early decision, regular acceptance.
As much as I may complain about the college lingo along with the rest of my senior peers, the truth is: America has done a fantastic job of carving out a system that is the best and the brightest in the world. While the K-12 programs around the country may be slim and winding through a thick forest, we have done an incredible job of connecting their end points.
And not only our roads. The best and the brightest K-12 education programs ultimately mean nothing if they are a dead end with no road to higher education. Systems from South Korea to Finland are being built with helping international students gain admission to the schools America has to offer. A degree from an American university isn’t something that simply helps with employment in the States, but is rather a symbol of the finest and brightest education the world has to offer.
In the eyes of pupils around the world, admission into an American university is quite literally their path to the best life possible.
Let me also get one more thing straight: it isn’t all about the Ivies. In order to get a feel for this article, I looked over multiple indexes to see how American schools stack up internationally. Opinions may lie, but numbers don’t. On the 2010 Time Higher Education World University Rankings, 15 of the top 20 schools in the world have their campus in the United States.
It was probably even more surprising scrolling down the list. Everything from branch off colleges to massive state schools was on that list; not only Ivy League members in the North East. America quite literally has one of the best college education across the board.
In writing this article, I decided to get a few fact checks and opinions from someone who has ran through the system and knows where it ends. Her name is Celina and she is currently a political science major at Columbia University in New York City. I figured if anyone had a few words of advice to share with someone about to run the college application obstacle course, it would be her. And she did. For all of us anxious seniors out there, her quote is probably the best to close with:
“The admissions process is as much for you as it is for them. The colleges that accept you are, in general, going to be the kind of places who want you – and to be honest you’ll probably end up happier at these places than at the places that rejected you. You want to find a college that’s a good fit for you, and you should treat admissions less as trying to be “good” enough for the college, and more as a process to let you know where you’ll be in a positive, productive environment and where you wouldn’t fit in so well.”
As a senior about to head off for college, my opinion in the article above might be slightly biased. That’s where you, dear reader, come in. I need your opinion in the comment field below to keep my facts straight and my opinions centered.
What do you think of America’s collegiate system? Is it really the best in the world? Does it have deep running flaws of its own? Does America’s K-12 system really lead to college?
As a senior applying for college this is good to read
yeah, no kidding, save us some heart break lol
I liked this article a lot. I do agree with many of your points, however, I also believe that test scores are important, but I don’t believe they define a person’s intelligence. Many people in history have not gone to college or even dropped out of high school, yet made lasting contributions to society like Henry Ford or Bill Gates. I think that a huge defining quality of America is that we don’t require someone to have a college degree or a high school degree or any degree to be successful as long as that person is proactive in his decisions and future.
I totally agree. There tends to be blurring between the value of an education and what you are actually capable of. The name on your diploma only means what you make of it.
Honestly, there really is no assurance that you are going to do great because of the school you go to. All the school can do is provide you the tools you need to be ready to go into the world and ALL American universities do that better than any other nation in the world.
You raise a very good point: It’s about the spark you carry, not the diploma
Thats cute, we have a fifth grader reading the blog
keep it mature or get off, i like discussing education in the comment field, and this is one of the few blogs i enjoy because of how easy it is to just comment and hold a conversation
I like this. However I personally believe college is primarily about race. If you’re not Asian, stick to community college. Let us Asians have the choice of school, for we deserve it.
Dont agree
I love people of all race
calm the competition bro, giving us asians a bad rep
I agree(:
I WAS JUST KIDDING
k, good, haha, i really dont like it when die hard asians make the majority of us into something we are not through stereotypes
some of the smartest people at my school are white/black/hispanic, and although my parents are super strict grade wise, they are both immigrants from china and really try to show me how much more open it is here than in china, and it gets under my skin when some of my other asian friends forget that so they can get into harvard
This is by far my favorite blog post
i just wanted to say this since my other comments arent going through
It is really refreshing to be reminded of how amazing the school system is. Sometimes, it seems like the ivies are make or break for a good life, but its good to see thats not the case in a global context
I thought this post was great!!! Will help me a lot at KCU, Go Cats!!!
Then don’t. You clearly aren’t capable of reading anything beyond easy readers (and just barely) based on your other comments. This is a good blog and I avidly follow it
Despite the rude commentor who seems to be mocking you, or maybe even just ornery, i really do enjoy reading this blog jacob
Jacob, you’re awesome, and this blog is awesome.
Keep it up, dawg. :]
Agreed.
Let’s keep this blog mature please, it makes it so much more enjoyable
Great blog dude
im a fish in college and this is so true
i got turned down by upenn, and ended up going to ut and that was the BEST thing that ever happened to me
i totally mix with the culture of austin and am loads more happy than if i went somewhere else
totes agree dude, by far probs my favorite
cant wait until i can comment this on another
Nevertheless, he/she does make some good points.
He/she is right insofar as the secondary versus tertiary education systems in the US are concerned. While it’s true that national scores are going through the floor relative to China, India, and Hong Kong, not to mention some European countries (to whom we’ve been superior throughout the Cold War up to 1990), and that the US still has the most universities per capita, the smartest universities, the most patents filed through universities, and the most ongoing federally and privately funded research projects (even the University of Houston has some high-profile ongoing research in Physics), just looking at the raw numbers without considering the story behind it is truly ignoring most of the painting and criticizing one missed brushstroke. The psychology of the population must also be considered. I could go into more detail, but in the interest of size, I’ll just say this: with a lower percentage of people in our age group actually enrolling in college, what we are see is an elite masked by the general failure. The brilliance of the member of the elite is statistically ignored because of the sheer mass of those who simply don’t care about their education. This division in society will be one of our generations biggest problems. I should stop now, because I truly could write a lot more, but it is something to consider and I hope I’ve made y’all think.
And that is the exact point I was trying to make through this article. The way the American education system is created is to pull the small grains of excellence out of the mass of statistics and elevate them to a global position. And America has this system mastered.
The problem, however, is what to do with the rest of the mass. You simply can’t write them off, for that would be foolish to getting America to go farther.
The reason these test scores are dropping so fast and so far is because the American education system has given up on trying to lift everyone to college. Instead, elite programs like AP and IB are meant to focus the resources for the school onto getting those students who show promise into schools where they can expand their knowledge to a limitless boundary.
The flip side of that argument is America has given up on the rest of the population. It seems as though you are either a garbage man or a rocket scientist. There really is little in between ground. Standardized tests have fallen off in meeting the needs of the students because America wants the kids to be pushed through the system and moved out of the way for those who went through the rigor the school had to offer.
The system really has become a case of two extremes.
You’re taking the elitism too far. I didn’t mean AP/IB vs. the rest; I mean the few who care versus the many who don’t.
Also, resources for AP/IB are very limited for that exact reason: most parents don’t like that their kids get ignored, and their fits serve to ensure that the resources there don’t greatly exceeded (per capita) the resources spent on regular kids. The difference I’m talking about is more one of choice: they choose not to try to excel at or even pass school. That is a big mistake, arguably fatal. It is this choice that divides society, as even those not gifted with intelligence or even those hampered with a lesser intellect will be able to succeed over those who don’t even try in the end. That’s the way life works.
Also, standardized testing is absolutely key. Now, it’s not the answer to everything and is definitely not enough to judge intelligence by, but it is a much needed element to judge the success of a certain area, for example, or a certain method. And it’s not the tests that are to blame for their ineffectiveness; rather, the NCLB Act’s way of treating State education agencies like little children being rewarded for good behavior–and worse, the States’ wholehearted and shamefully eager response–that have condemned the American Education system. By giving States more money for meeting benchmarks _set by the state_, NCLB was almost asking for states to reduce standards to get more money. Unfortunately, many states had no choice: to raise standards meant to put a lot of children behind, which meant less money to pull them up to the bar, which meant less improvement, which meant even less money. This vicious loop forced the hands of many agencies who were intent upon the true spirit of NCLB.
You are right, many of the people who never go beyond the place of schooling that is required by law within a state are in that situation because they choose too, but that is because of the culture we have built up. It is now cool to fail and hip to not try, and this ultimately leads to not caring. Being focused academically leads to titles such as “nerd” and “geek”, many of which stifle the intellectual drive many people have, and that is the difference between AP/IB and the regular classes.
We as a country have to instill in the minds of people that it is cool to be smart, or else they are going to continue this vicious cycle. I would like to note that I see America making steps in that direction though, with shows such as “The Big Bang Theory” and other intellectually based programs hitting it off with the American public.
As for the NCLB, that was the poor oversight of the federal government. I agree with you there, America has done a bad job financially of putting enough incentive behind each student to make raising standards worth while. Sadly, this is one of the flaws I don’t see going away anytime soon, and this is seriously going to dent the role America will play in the future once the generation hurt by the NCLB comes into roles of leadership within this country.
Yes! precisely the point. A split is already developing, one with dire consequences for our generation, and (dare I say it?) for at least 2 after.
Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to reverse the trend in the near future. It is the work of decades with any such viewpoint; ignorance is and always shall be humanities greatest flaw, exacerbated by ignorance in the midst of all the right truths. That, I believe, is the worst part. Usually, ignorance can be corrected through programs funded with that intent. However, concerning education, the programs have spanned decades and billions of dollars with little to no effect, and actually, recently, a backslide. It truly is a testament to how little we think ahead in a society of instant gratification.
No! Correcting NCLB would be an easy, easy thing: create and enforce national standards. Giving a child a dollar and telling them to spend it only if they were good will in no way improve behavior. However, keeping the dollar until proof of good behavior is greatly conducive to improvement. However, like with any other solution to any problem, there are those who oppose it–in this case, conservatives. They want to see the power over education closer to home: they want families to have as much control as possible. Allowing it to go a step further is too much federal power, and so is unacceptable. They claim that the current failures in our system lie in the fact that the education isn’t at a city or municipal level but concentrated at the state level. This is, of course, balderdash.
Great blog post! fun to read
I know right
i love the comments
love the post dude