Prepaid and Prefilled

Waived Application Fee! No Required Essay! Priority Scholarship Considerations! Quick Admission Decision!” These are not the spectacular exclamations of the newest credit card offer or online university. On the contrary, these advertisements are emblazoned on the front of University of the Pacific’s Distinctive Candidate Application. These garishly-colored papers comprise one of 30,000 such mailings sent out to high school seniors, offering students the opportunity to apply to college using a pre-filled application that doesn’t require an essay or candidate profile—just a signature. This method of applying to institutions of higher education is disturbingly detached and requires little introspection or effort on the part of students.

The traditional college admissions process impels students to self-reflect, one of the most important benefits of the often-harrowing experience. Students are given the chance to mull over their last four years of high school, discover a cohesive thread in their academic experience, and refine their interests and goals for the future. For many high school seniors, this is the first time in their lives that they have no choice but to ask themselves the question: “Who am I?”

Reducing the application to a mere signature likens the process to applying for a credit card. It eliminates the introspective experience, since students need not think about who they are or which colleges match their needs best. When universities simplify the application down to checking a box, students will naturally invest less in the college search process. The types of social opportunities, academic resources, or extracurricular activities at a particular institution become less relevant to an applicant, increasing the likelihood that they will apply to colleges where they simply will not thrive. Similarly, a signature alone does not provide colleges with the kind of information they need about a candidate to determine whether that individual will be a good fit for the school. This watered-down procedure treats students like potential consumers, not budding collegians.

However, there are certainly aspects of this new development that deserve praise. The mailings provide colleges with a novel new form of advertising, exposing students to institutions they might have otherwise ignored. Bright students might discover that great universities are not found only on the front page of U.S. News and World Report; as a result, lesser-known schools could attract more intellectually gifted students who might otherwise base college decisions on name recognition alone. Similarly, waiving the application fee attracts students who find the cost of applying to college prohibitively high, which increases the accessibility of higher education.

While the intentions behind this method of advertising colleges to students may have been laudable, the new tactic’s negative effects are troubling. Universities should strive to strike a middle ground between attracting applicants and maintaining the process of self-discovery endemic to the applicant experience. Rather than transforming college applications into a mindless chore, each school can opt to send outstanding candidates personal messages explaining that fees have been waived because the college has a particular interest in those particular students.

Regardless of how institutions choose to attract applicants, they must make the preservation of the introspective experience a priority. When applying to college requires as much thought as claiming a “Free trip to the Bahamas for two!” both universities and applicants suffer.