Earlier this year, a group of nearly 100 popular colleges banded together to endorse a new college application—the Coalition App. The application promised “to improve the college application process for all students as they search for and apply to their perfect college.” But many counselors and educators have expressed strong reservations, ranging from questioning whether or not the application actually helps the kids it purports to help, to pointing out that both counselors and the applicants they serve just didn’t need yet another tectonic shift in the admissions landscape to face this year.
Many of the Coalition’s partner colleges planned to offer it as an option, rather than their sole application choice, this year. But a short list of schools went all-in and decided that they would be “Coalition Exclusive” for the 2016-17 application cycle.
One of those coalition-exclusive schools was the University of Washington. But yesterday, they changed their minds, which they announced in an email to counselors that ended with this sentiment:
“We regret any inconvenience this change may have caused you or your students. Our counselors are happy to work with you to address them or to answer any questions you may have.”
Like most admissions officers I’ve met, I’m sure the folks at UW are good people. In fact, their entire office has historically been about as kid-friendly and counselor-friendly as they come. And their reasoning for the change, which they expressed in the email, was sound—they don’t like the wording of some of the questions, and they were unsure whether or not their internal systems could handle the change in a way that wouldn’t negatively affect applicants this year. Totally reasonable.
But UW, and the other colleges reading this, please remember that decisions like this, even when they are necessary, even when they are not in your control or are handed down from your higher-ups, still affect nervous 17-year-old college applicants and the counselors who are trying to guide them. Your communication needs to reflect that.
Given that this affected dozens of students at Collegewise alone, there are likely hundreds (and hundreds) of kids interested in the University of Washington who had followed the directions on the UW website and started their Coalition Apps with the intent of submitting them as early as possible. Yes, some counselors encourage kids to start early so they can finish early. I’m one of them, and so are all of the counselors at Collegewise. But it wasn’t counselors or students who boldly announced on July 1st that the Coalition App was ready to go. Now, those students who listened, and the counselors who were helping them, have to scrap that work and start over.
As one of our counselors put it,
“This makes me look stupid. I’m frantically texting my students this morning telling them, ‘You know that app you’ve been working on? STOP!’ It’s confusing for kids, not to mention that it’s wasted hours and hours of both my time and my students’ time.”
Colleges, when you decide—or are forced to decide—to make decisions like this, please don’t “apologize for any inconvenience.” How would your admissions officers react to a student who had made a disciplinary mistake but expressed his remorse with, “I regret any inconvenience this may have caused”? Would you forgive him and offer him admission? I doubt it.
Why not write your explanation like you’d want your applicants to write their essays—in a way that sounds like you? A sincere expression, not a stiff, formal explanation that sounds contrived to impress.
We know that this is not the news you were hoping to hear, and believe me, we are not proud to share it. We were convinced that the Coalition App would help the kids who needed it the most, and that it would help us better understand the real applicants behind the grades and test scores. We think those things will be true in the long run, but we felt like we just couldn’t ignore these concerns. It came down to frustrating hundreds of kids and counselors today, or tens of thousands of you later this fall. We know that this decision will now mean that many students will need to start their applications anew, and that you, the counselors, will bear much of that burden in delivering the news and managing their anxieties as well as their applications. We’re so sorry about this. If there is anything that I or my office can do to support you in this, please reach out to me. In fact, we’d be happy to personally speak with you or any of your students, and yes, we will justifiably take the blame for all of this, because it certainly had nothing to do with you or your kids.
I can’t speak for all counselors and students. But I’d wager that had the explanation been as human as the people delivering it, UW would have frustrated fewer people. And they might have even gained some new fans.
Things happen. Sometimes we all have to make decisions we’d rather not make. Sometimes those decisions are even made for us. Nobody likes to deliver bad news.
But bad news can get better—or worse—depending on how it’s delivered.