Will US colleges’ brand power survive falling standards?

Nike. Supreme. Ralph Lauren. Abercrombie and Fitch. Harvard and Yale. On the streets of Budapest, style-conscious teenagers have collapsed the distinction between the Ivy League and streetwear. Maybe Americans still balk at wearing the logo of schools they didn’t get into, but the market for collegiate apparel in Eastern Europe is not limited to alumni, students and ambitious high-schoolers. Even kids with no interest in (or chance of) going to Harvard are drawn by the power of its name.

Meanwhile, American higher education is being convulsed by a social-justice revolution that upends the basis of these schools’ claims to exclusivity. Will teachers, parents and students continue to endure the indignities of the college application process if coveted academic brands dilute their own product?

This question has been on my mind lately because, after a long hiatus, I’ve reacquainted myself with the college-admissions rat race. As a teacher at a Hungarian high school, most of my students opt for the far less stressful process of applying to European universities. This spares them the demands of SAT prep, recommendation letters and GPA fluffing.

For some, however, the lure of American brands is hard to resist. This year, one outstanding student (let’s call her “Anne”) decided to make her life — and mine — miserable by applying to several selective American universities. I stumbled into the role of guidance counselor, not because I possess any special talent for guidance, but because I’m American and I happened to be available. Thus began a miserable process that cost Anne considerable sleep and me considerable hair.

To the uninitiated, the rituals that govern the American college-application process are utterly bizarre

Anne, being naive and idealistic, naturally assumed that there was a correct formula for “winning” the admissions game: study for the SATs, sign up for the right extracurricular activities. Get good grades. Pore over an essay that supposedly got one teenager into all eight Ivy League schools and replicate its magic formula. Young people often think that the world is rationally ordered, but applying to a selective American university is like making offerings to a fickle pagan god.

To the uninitiated, the rituals that govern the American college-application process are utterly bizarre. Essays should subtly highlight your outstanding qualities without bragging, which would be gauche. Extracurriculars must demonstrate personal excellence and humanitarianism in equal measure. As for those grades you worked so hard for, who knows what they’re worth?

From ghostwritten essays to well-connected legacies to recommendation letters from the “right” people, college admissions have long been influenced by factors other than merit. Lately, however, the process has become even more opaque. It is an open secret that selective universities are looking for diverse applicants. The first essay option on the 2022-23 Common Application, the most widely accepted application in American higher ed, invites students to explore the issue of “identity.” But what type of diversity are these schools looking for?

By just about any standard, Anne has an interesting background: she’s Asian and moved to Budapest in the middle of high school, which forced her to learn Hungarian on the fly to keep up with her studies. (Hungarian, by the way, is one of the most difficult languages on the planet.) She also speaks excellent English and Spanish. Dear Lord, I feel like I’m rewriting my recommendation letter. If any admissions officers are reading along, please consider this an(other) enthusiastic endorsement of Anne’s academic and personal qualities.

Is this the right kind of “diversity”? Probably not

Students such as Anne are increasingly common in Eastern European cities. In the early Nineties, a wave of Chinese immigrants established Budapest’s version of Chinatown in an unfashionable suburb. Seemingly overnight, East Asian students have become a visible presence in the city’s elite high schools.

Is this the right kind of “diversity?” Probably not. Hungary, as everyone who works at a liberal arts college knows, is basically fascist. And despite high grades and excellent test scores, East Asian applicants to Ivy League schools mysteriously receive uniformly lower personality scores than do other demographic groups.

Indeed, American higher education as a whole seems to be moving away from objective criteria and toward what might be called the “whimsical deity” model. Where it was once a niche proposition, many universities now advertise their willingness to consider applications that omit standardized test scores. Spooked by the possibility of the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action, Columbia recently announced that it will no longer require applicants to take the SAT. Maybe that’s why the Columbia logo is less common on the streets of Budapest than Harvard and Yale? Then again, Harvard and Yale might soon follow suit.

These recent changes, which make the selection process even more frustratingly subjective than it already is, are an interesting experiment in the power of branding. If raw academic aptitude is no longer an important component of college admission, highly competitive universities lose one claim to their elite status. Perhaps these institutions will compensate by doubling down on academic rigor, but rampant grade inflation and the inability of Harvard undergrads to decipher The Scarlet Letter, as revealed in a recent New Yorker piece on the decline of the humanities, are not encouraging indicators.

Red Bull, one of the most successful consumer brands on the planet, famously outsources production of its signature energy drink. Rather than tinker with a winning formula, the company devotes its energies to inventive marketing campaigns, from instantly recognizable television spots to amateur flying competitions. Slowly but surely, American universities are drifting toward the Red Bull approach.

Will these brand names endure if diversity, equity and inclusion displace selectivity and academic rigor? Harvard, Yale and other top-tier universities have the resources and institutional clout to manage such a transition. Your local, moderately competitive liberal arts college, on the other hand…

As for Anne, it looks like her quest for a spot at a selective American university has inspired a few younger students. I’ll be back at it next year, burning more incense at the altar of higher education.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s May 2023 World edition.