Will the Children Go To Harvard? In a few weeks, many children in our community will find out if they got admitted to the school of their choice. Their parents are as worried if not more than the children are. Fat envelopes signal acceptance, as they are stuffed with information about dorms, financial aid, and tuition. Thin envelopes signal a disappointing rejection, with a dozen variations on how to say you did not make the cut.
There is a feeling that the deck is not evenly stacked, and that good Muslim candidates are rejected despite outstanding records because of the anti-Muslim bias at American universities. I have no way of knowing if that is true, but my gut reaction is that if there is a bias, it is of a relatively mild nature and does not prevent us from reaching the top universities. I know of one Muslim family with four children. Among them they have received degrees from Stanford, Berkeley (two), Washington University Medical School, NYU Medical, Columbia Business, and Georgetown Business. They also had two accepted to the California Institute of Technology. On the other hand, these same four were rejected by Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Northwestern, USC, Johns Hopkins, Brown, and many other universities and graduate schools.
The real problem is that there are simply too many excellent candidates applying to the top schools across the country. Every one of these institutions could fill their freshman classes twice over with straight A students scoring above 1300 on the SAT. The average SAT score at schools like Harvard and Yale is near 1400. So how can your child get into Harvard?
Obviously, high school grades are a critical foundation. Straight A's are almost a must for an elite school. But in addition, those grades have to be achieved in difficult classes such as calculus. Many schools offer “advanced placement” courses in sciences, history, and English, which teach at a college level and allow the child to sit for a national advanced placement exam. If these courses are available, the children need to take them and score well on the AP exam. If not, ask your school board or principal why they are not offered.
The SAT test is the one national test (some areas of the country emphasize a similar exam called the ACT) that allows colleges to compare candidates on the same measuring device. High schools grade in their own peculiar fashion, and so an A in a Los Angeles public school in math may not mean the same thing as an A in a private school in New England. But the SAT is the same for everyone. A perfect score is 1600, and scores less than 1300 probably reduce your chances of admission to a top ranked university. There are prep courses that help students prepare for the SAT, but they are controversial in terms of how effective they are. The SAT tests math and English only, so those subjects should always be emphasized.
Even with good grades and SAT scores, you are not guaranteed of anything. Outside activities that show how well rounded you are help tremendously, especially if they showcase a non-academic talent. These would include sports, music, or drama. Other activities such as writing or research projects could also make one a stronger candidate. If the child has overcome some sort of adversity, make sure this is explained in the application.
Finally, cast a wide net. No matter how good the candidate is, there is never a guarantee of admission. If you want to go to any Ivy League school, don't just apply to Harvard. Send an application to Princeton, Yale, and Cornell as well. It never hurts to apply to multiple places. One option that has become very popular in the last ten years is “early decision”. With this, you apply to a single school early in the last year of high school, and request early decision. The university then can reject you, defer a decision till the regular time, or accept you. If they accept you, then you must go to that school, and cannot apply to any other. Early decision students now are filling a large fraction of the freshman classes of many top universities.
If your son or daughter doesn't get into Harvard is that the end of the world? Will their lives be somehow diminished by not attending? This is a very interesting question, and several studies have looked at the impact of attending an elite university on someone's subsequent success in life. It turns out that those who graduate from these schools do very well, but it also appears that the schools themselves were not the main reason for their subsequent success. The latest research suggests that it is the person's talent and ability that is the basis of his success, and those who have talent and ability also tend to get admitted to elite schools. Their equally talented and ambitious classmates who went to less selective schools for various reasons (financial, personal choice, etc.) did just as well in later life. Harvard admits people who are going to be successful; it doesn't turn them into successful people.
So it seems your child, if he/she is sufficiently talented and able, will do just as well in life by going to a very good public school. Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, New York, Virginia, Texas, and of course California all have outstanding public universities where a first rate education can be had for a fraction of the price of a private school. The most important thing is that every Muslim child in America gets a college education. Our community's success hinges on our personal success, and the basis for that has to be advanced education.
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