Career Services: Call to Duty
April 13, 2007
It’s no secret that the college admissions process is more selective than ever. With the recent delivery of acceptance and rejection letters, prestigious institutions around the country turned away thousands of qualified high school seniors. In spite of intimidating transcripts and extracurricular devotion, top universities found reason to deny admission to a record number of applicants. According to a recent New York Times article, “A Great Year for Ivy League Schools, but Not So Good for Applicants to Them,” 1,100 applicants with perfect 800 math SAT scores were rejected from Harvard, and Yale turned down several students who had scored a perfect 2,400 on the new three-part SAT. With these statistics making media waves, the college admissions process is becoming more of a crapshoot than ever before.
Although Tufts undergraduates can calmly sit back and sigh with relief now that the horrible days of applications, SATs and mail-box stalking have safely passed, the record breaking admissions figures gives a glimpse into the competitive years to come. As the Times article explains, the most elite universities continue to see yearly boosts in applicants in part because of the surge of children born to baby boomers, projected to peak next Spring, and in part because of the increasing trend for students to apply to many more reach schools than in the past. Although the number of students applying to top colleges will likely decrease with the generation trend, the impact of the competitive spirit and drive will follow students past the gates of Harvard, Stanford and Tufts into the real world. Although fewer applicants may make the Tufts Admissions office’s, job less painful, current Tufts students will graduate and embark on a world filled with more intensely qualified resumes than can be accommodated by the Ivy-league of professional positions.
As time passes in one’s collegiate experience, it is clear that the college admissions process is really only the beginning. A monumental step, but not the end. After sophomore year, the fight for internships, research grants, and summer work wreaks havoc on the confidence acquired through admission to Tufts. For seniors applying to graduate programs and jobs, the process is again a terrifying venture. Maybe the job quest is not as much of a crapshoot as college admissions, but clearly it is an uncertain and unpredictable process that often relies as much on connections and networking skills as it does on collegiate success. The Tufts brand is a powerful one, but when sent out in a sea of accomplished graduates from other competitive universities, it is clear that a stronger edge would be useful.
Without reducing the merit of the liberal arts or engineering education gained at Tufts, the pre-professional resources of the university are sadly lacking. Although Career Services runs endless workshops on resume building and professional networking, there is a serious need for improvement in the recruitment and job listings targeting the Tufts undergraduate population. Monstertrak access is insufficient in today’s competitive world. Tufts may be comparable to other elite institutions in terms of quality of education, but graduates are disadvantaged by the lack of organized recruitment trips in which students applying to top firms could gain exposure as sophomores or juniors in cities such as New York or Washington, D.C. Career services’ counselors often refer to job listings released by neighboring universities rather than Tufts specific opportunities. Although some departments, such as Communications, seem to have stronger connections and job listings available to students, others, such as Pre-Law are stuck with job listings developed by other colleges. When competing against individuals who attend schools that make it a priority to get them face time with big agencies, or even small firms, Tufts graduates may be overlooked. Campus pre-professional resources should be doing everything in its power to ease the college to real world transition by bolstering university connections to various companies and organizing trips for various professional interests to become acquainted with potential employers.
Clearly four years at Tufts is far more meaningful than a step along the long path to professional success; however, to say that undergraduates are here primarily to expand their intellectual horizons is unrealistic. Graduates from Tufts seem to fare well in the professional market, but in anticipation of the coming years of increased competition, Career Services should be taking every conceivable measure to ensure employment for graduates.
Upperclassmen may look at the admission statistics of the younger classes and privately admit they may not have gotten in when competing against this crowd. Unfortunately this younger crowd is going to cycle through the university and vie for the same internships, grants, and jobs as graduates. Admissions statistics reflect the need to score higher and work harder to gain entry to universities and professional organizations in a time when stellar resumes often are not enough.