Investment Immigration to the United States Learn about American University education: The United States is a typical country that implements a comprehensive quality evaluation system for university admissions. Almost all top universities have adopted this admission system, which has been in operation for nearly a century. Every year, interested students apply to universities, and the admissions offices review their application materials and conduct a comprehensive evaluation, ultimately leading to a decision by the admissions committee to accept or reject the students. Generally speaking, this decision does not rely on any specific standard but is based on an overall judgment of the applicant, determined by voting results. For the public, what are the standards for university admissions? How are final decisions made? Although there is some scattered information and introductions from admissions consultants, overall, these are core secrets of the universities, which are neither disclosed to the public nor explained, even for public universities. This is strictly protected by federal and state laws in the United States, and with few exceptions, the public does not have a particular interest in this matter—Americans generally do not have an obsession with which university they attend. Even if a student is rejected by one university, they can choose another. In a previous article (China Youth Daily, January 5, 2015, Page 10), I detailed the origins of this admission system. So, how do universities specifically operate and implement this in practice?
Currently, top universities in the United States mainly use two application systems. One is the "Comprehensive Evaluation Application System" developed by the University of California; the other is the "Common Application" used by other universities outside of the University of California. In terms of the design of the comprehensive evaluation index system, the two systems are quite similar, mainly including: personal information, family background (especially parental education status), educational experience, courses taken and grades, entrance exam scores, extracurricular activities, and essays, among others, covering a wide range of aspects. Compared to the "Common Application," the most important feature of the University of California's "Comprehensive Evaluation System" is that, with the support of high schools, it has built a very powerful high school course information website called "Doorways." This website can also be seen as part of the University of California application system, providing students with official information on the courses required by the University of California (A-G course system) and also providing course identification and certification information for the university application system. More importantly, it has several additional functions, especially the ability to compare standardized scores of different students, greatly improving the efficiency of comprehensive evaluation for university admissions.
It is important to emphasize that although the student information provided by the application system is generally the same—depending on specific circumstances, universities may sometimes require students to submit supplementary materials—what these pieces of information represent, as well as the more detailed sub-indices under each index system, particularly the algorithms used in the subsequent stages of comprehensive evaluation, are determined and designed by each university's admissions office. In other words, each university interprets the rich content behind this information based on its own characteristics and needs for talent cultivation, thus forming a diverse and distinctive admission model among American universities. Even when faced with the same application materials from the same student, different universities may make different, even vastly different, evaluations.
Given the complexity of higher education in the United States, it is almost impossible to comprehensively interpret the comprehensive evaluation of university admissions. Based on our research on the undergraduate application and admission evaluation index system of American research universities, we can summarize that this comprehensive quality evaluation system has the following five distinct characteristics:
First, academic performance is the primary standard for university admissions. This fact contradicts the perception of many Chinese people. People often believe that American universities do not place much emphasis on academic performance. How many students with perfect SAT scores are still rejected by top universities like Harvard and Yale? Unlike Chinese universities, which fight fiercely for a few so-called "top scorers," this is actually the biggest misunderstanding of the comprehensive evaluation system of American university admissions. Top American universities do not place much emphasis on entrance exam scores—meeting a certain score standard is sufficient—but they do place great importance on the quantity, quality, and grades of the high school courses taken by students, especially Advanced Placement (AP) courses. This is because a large number of specialized empirical studies have shown that among the various factors influencing first-year college students' academic performance, the grades in high school courses and AP courses are the most important, while the correlation of entrance exam scores is relatively insignificant. In the past 20 years, the American Association of College Admissions has conducted large-scale surveys and analyses of admission evaluation indicators at selected universities each year. According to the 2010 survey results, about 95% of universities consider high school course grades to be very important or important, ranking first among all evaluation indicators, with only 1.6% of surveyed universities considering them unimportant; moreover, indicators related to high school courses—such as course combinations and overall course grades—rank second and fourth in importance, respectively, with the combined percentage of "very important" and "important" responses reaching 90%. In contrast, the importance of entrance exam scores ranks third, and its significance has been declining year by year—this is partly why the College Board is compelled to make significant reforms to the SAT exam.
Second, the connection between university admissions and secondary education is extremely close, mainly reflected in three aspects: first, students do not spend dedicated time reviewing for exams, effectively avoiding the disconnection between higher education and basic education. Due to the implementation of comprehensive quality evaluation in university admissions, coupled with the gradually decreasing influence of entrance exam scores on admissions, American high schools generally do not conduct large-scale repetitive training for exams. In the final year of high school, students primarily spend their time and energy understanding universities and their disciplines and preparing application materials—this itself is an important part of the educational process; second, the continuity of teaching and school education. Since high schools generally implement a class-switching system, teaching, especially AP course teaching, mainly adopts university teaching methods—albeit with differences in content breadth and depth—students rarely face adaptation issues when entering college, effectively ensuring the continuity between basic education and higher education; third, the student counselor system. From the first day of enrollment, students are assigned a student counselor, whose main responsibilities include guiding students in course selection, contacting parents, providing psychological counseling, and so on. An important task is to help students understand themselves and universities, guiding them to apply to suitable universities and majors. The higher the quality of the high school, the more counselors there are, and the fewer students each counselor manages. Some schools even offer specialized counseling courses weekly. Student counselors must undergo professional training and possess knowledge backgrounds in psychology, education, and related disciplines, and they are very familiar with the characteristics and situations of the students. When conducting comprehensive evaluations of students, universities place great importance on the opinions of student counselors. Many universities require that one of the recommendation letters must come from a student counselor, whose importance often surpasses that of subject teachers.
Third, it effectively achieves a unity of fairness and efficiency. Every university hopes to recruit excellent students. But what is the definition of excellence? Is it merely outstanding academic performance? American universities do not view the issue this way. A large number of empirical research results show that academic performance is often closely related to students' family backgrounds and growth environments. Some students may not perform well, not because they are not excellent, but because they lack the conditions and opportunities to learn relevant content. As long as opportunities and conditions are provided, they can also achieve excellent results, and may even outperform those from better-off families. Therefore, if universities solely rely on exam scores as the only basis for admissions, society would be replaced by hereditary and hierarchical systems. To address this issue, universities must design favorable programs for disadvantaged groups with poorer economic conditions during the admissions process. University admissions should not only consider students' grades but also understand the conditions and environments under which these grades were achieved. For example, when comparing student A, who grew up in a wealthy area and attended a high school that offered 10 AP courses but only took 5, with student B, who grew up in a poor area and attended a high school that offered 5 AP courses but took all of them, many universities are likely to admit B instead of A, as they believe B maximized all limited opportunities under difficult conditions, while A did not. Without comprehensive quality evaluation, B would not have been admitted.
Currently, the main approach in China to address this issue is through a quota system, which allocates specific admission slots for students from impoverished areas through "reverse discrimination." The quota system was briefly implemented in American university admissions but was quickly abolished. The main reason is that in a society highly sensitive to discrimination issues, the quota system can easily lead to legal disputes; on the other hand, simply allocating quotas based on region and family economic conditions without further in-depth analysis can easily lead universities to admit students who do not meet the standards, placing them in alternative and painful situations. However, with comprehensive quality evaluation, universities can more easily examine the underlying reasons for students' lower grades, allowing them to select those who are economically disadvantaged but inherently excellent. For instance, American universities place great importance on the communities and high schools students come from. It does not matter if the school is not great; what matters is whether the student maximized their potential under difficult conditions; furthermore, American universities pay close attention to whether students' parents have received undergraduate education. If a student is the first generation in their family to attend college, they often receive extra attention; additionally, American universities are very sensitive to students' interruptions in their studies, particularly the circumstances under which they interrupted and how they resumed. It should be noted that the information provided by comprehensive quality evaluation is much richer than that of a simple quota system.
Fourth, the professionalization and vocationalization of admissions staff. This may be the biggest gap between Chinese and American universities. At least so far, all admissions staff at Chinese universities are non-professional and non-vocational: non-professional means that, with few exceptions, almost no one possesses professional knowledge related to admissions and most have not received professional training; non-vocational means that admissions is merely a brief phase in the career of admissions staff, and all university admissions directors must change positions after a few years of work, with hardly anyone engaging in admissions work for life. Among all staff involved in admissions, the vast majority do not consider admissions their profession; it is merely a side job or an obligation to the university. In contrast, in the United States, admissions is an interdisciplinary field that integrates psychology, education, statistics, measurement, and evaluation, and admissions personnel must have relevant academic backgrounds. If they do not possess relevant professional knowledge, they must undergo professional training before they can take up their positions. Before each admissions season begins, top universities conduct intensive professional training for admissions staff lasting 2-3 weeks. Due to their passion for the admissions profession, many even pursue admissions as a lifelong career.
Another important manifestation of the professionalization of university admissions in the United States is that final admission decisions are generally made by professionals. Although professors play a certain role in the admissions process, the decision to admit or not often relies on the opinions of professional admissions personnel, and some universities even completely exclude professors from participation. This is because many universities believe that, unlike graduate admissions, undergraduate admissions place more emphasis on the alignment of students' and the university's values and culture, as well as their potential for future development. In this case, a professor's academic background and preferences may actually interfere with their ability to make the correct choice and decision.
Finally, essays are an important factor influencing university admissions personnel's judgments, although they are not the only decisive factor. Generally speaking, American universities require students to provide two short essays introducing themselves, and some universities also provide specific prompts. Universities can use essays to assess students' thinking and perspectives on issues, as well as to understand how students navigate real-world challenges, particularly how they overcome actual difficulties in life. Experienced admissions personnel are often adept at identifying suitable students from essays and have the ability to discern authenticity. Due to the significant role of essays in university admissions, American students begin training their ability to express independent viewpoints from a young age, resulting in relatively high levels of reading and writing skills. This is particularly worth noting for Chinese universities during admissions. Currently, the prevalent issue of Chinese students' essays being "hollow and grandiose" is deeply concerning, and the actual state of language education is worrisome, with the fundamental reason likely being that essays have not established substantial connections with their real lives.
The comprehensive quality evaluation system for university admissions in the United States has had a significant impact on the direction of basic education. Under the guidance of this admission system, high schools can generally organize educational activities according to the essential laws of education, leading to more balanced and comprehensive student development. This has particularly important implications for fundamentally correcting the "exam-oriented training" tendency in Chinese basic education. Of course, American universities also face a series of challenges in implementing comprehensive quality evaluation in admissions. In reality, it is not perfect. If we can draw beneficial experiences from it and design a university admissions comprehensive quality evaluation system with Chinese characteristics based on the actual situation of Chinese education, it will undoubtedly have a positive and far-reaching impact on the future development of education in China. This is precisely the goal and direction of the new round of examination and admissions system reform.