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Turning the Tide: How US University Admissions Can Make Better World the founder of the UWC movement, and is at the heart of the IB mission, adopted by international schools around the world.
Something remarkable has happened.
But we must ask ourselves an important question. What is the good of even those higher and wider skills and qualities if all they mean is we have a few more collaborative friends in our narrow home? Should not these skill sets enable us to dive deep into the waters around us, be they clear or murky, and share, generously and humanely? And should not that sharing, which will be a two-way process as we learn from those we engage with, be recognised not as tangential but central to the university admissions process? Should we not be developing students with excellent grades, but also with a broad portfolio of meaningful service, a deep understanding of and concern for social justice and the potential to be creative and effect change?
The Harvard Graduate School of Education has issued one of the most significant and potentially powerful reports I have read on the matter of university admissions. Entitled Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions, the report sets out recommendations for University Admissions processes that are intended to adjust the focus of young people (and their parents) away from individual achievement and towards contribution to the common good. The report is signed by 80 key stakeholders in admissions from US universities (including the Ivy League universities). The following quotation from the Executive Summary encapsulates the position very clearly: Too often, today’s culture sends young people messages that emphasize personal success rather than concern for others and the common good. And too often the college admissions process ‌ contributes to this problem. As a rite of passage for many students and a major focus for many parents, the college admissions process is powerfully positioned to send different messages that help young people become more generous and humane in ways that benefit not only society but students themselves... Now my opening sentence used the word remarkable because this report does nothing less than redefine student achievement. It endorses an approach to education that has meaningful service and concern for the common good at its heart. Those of us involved in preparing students for their next steps in life are inevitably concerned with preparing them for life at university and beyond. While we know that their academic achievement is important, we are also keen to emphasise the importance of the development of those qualities and skills that will develop them as engaged global citizens. This was central to the vision of Kurt Hahn, 24 EARCOS Triannual Journal
UWCSEA East extended essay day Grade 11 UWCSEA and other IB schools have long been focused on high IB Diploma scores and developing ethical students with a bias for action. But there is still much to be done. As pressures grow on students, schools and parents, we dare to hope that US universities may be about to help release the valve. Instead of a narrow understanding of education that is confined to academic achievement, in future success and achievement might be understood as deeply connected to acts of service to others and the world around us. It seems that thinkers in America’s top universities are telling us we are journeying on the right road. There is much comfort, hope and inspiration in that. We do not change direction: we quicken our step. By Chris Edwards Head of College UWC South East Asia, Singapore
