In what seems to be a new low trend, students trying to get into the most selective universities have taken to anonymously trashing their competition, usually from the same school.  They send letters, emails, even post campaigns on MySpace and Facebook.

Why do students resort to this tactic?  Do they think colleges actually pay attention to anonymous trash like the writing in a bathroom stall?  If so, they can forget about a selective college.  Do they think they cannot get caught, that all this electronic behavior can be traced?  Do they think libeling someone will go unpunished?

Some say this is an indication of competition gone awry, of too much pressure to get into college.  I say this is nothing more than a culmination of culture feeding into the college application process.  What do teens see in the media, whether reality TV, magazines, fiction?  Or perhaps in the latest financial crisis news?  They see people using any means necessary to get the end — the end always justifying the means.  They see that instant gratification and “I want it, it’s mine” is the ethic of the time.  The madness must stop if character and integrity will have any meaning in the future entering classes of our great institutions of higher learning.

A modest proposal.  All colleges must have two students write evaluations for other students who apply to their college.  Sort of a secret shopper.  But the kicker is that no one knows who their secret shopper is, and everyone who is going to apply to college must be secretly shopped.  This nudge behavioral modification would encourage many students to play by the rules and be kinder to their fellow classmates, who just might be the key to ending their college hopes.  Admittedly this proposal has its weaknesses, from Big Brother tone to policing problems.  But finely tuned and widely deployed, it just might be the honor system we need to change the culture of our schools.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under For Educators, For Parents, For Students. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.