What is an Ethical Applicant?
An ethical applicant is someone who approaches the path toward college as a call to be the best person they can be, someone with the confidence and self-awareness to articulate who they are, what they value, and what they hope for from their future college experiences. They have the wisdom to make sound, responsible decisions about what colleges would be best for them, how to apply, and how to make the most of whatever college they choose.
The Virtues of an Ethical Applicant
One the best ways to define an ethical applicant is to describe the kind of personal qualities this person has. To be an ethical applicant it is not enough to simply be a moral applicant, i.e. anyone who does not cheat or lie on their path to college. In addition to being morally good, an ethical applicant has excellent, outstanding character traits like creativity, thoughtfulness, or depth. These qualities express an ethical excellence, one that goes beyond simply doing what morality requires.
Ethical character traits like creativity and depth are what I call the "virtues" of an ethical applicant. They are the personal strengths that have allowed these applicants to thrive and succeed in their academic, personal, and extracurricular endeavors so far. These same personal strengths will empower them to thrive and succeed in college and beyond. So it should come as no surprise that colleges eagerly seek out applicants who have these qualities.
In the next section, Seven Virtues for Success, I focus on seven of these virtues: genuineness, depth, thoughtfulness, compassion, responsibility, creativity, and perseverance. In presenting this list, I begin with what college admissions deans and directors have said about the personal qualities they value in applicants. I then give a brief explanation of each virtue.
A New Era of College Admissions
In the last few years, the most significant national changes in college admissions all seem to point in the same direction, towards making college admissions more fair and ethical. As I detail in another section, many top colleges have joined initiatives like MyinTuition and the Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success as a way of increasing college access to low-income students. Perhaps the most far-reaching and impactful initiative in recent years has been the 2016 Turning the Tide report, pledging to promote a more ethical approach to admissions for both colleges and applicants. The report, a product of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, has the full title Turning the Tide: Inspiring Concern for Others and The Common Good Through College Admissions. It details the dangerous effects and unfair outcomes of the current college admissions process and makes specific recommendations for how to make it more fair, healthy, and conducive to compassionate and responsible behavior.
The report includes a pledge from almost 200 colleges, including all of the Ivies, to abide by these recommendations. These colleges have pledged to reduce the pressure over standardized tests by de-emphasizing them or making them optional, and to reward quality over quantity in AP’s and extra-curricular activities. They also pledged to reward applicants who show “ethical citizenship,” especially in their "genuine investment" in service to others that is “sustained,” “authentic,” and “meaningful.” In addition, they have pledge to reward applicants who show “ethical engagement” with family and those around them on a daily basis. Announcing that they are wary of applicants who cheat or who try to “game” the admissions system, these colleges have pledged to look for applicants who show “authenticity, confidence and honesty” in expressing themselves in their own “original voice” in their college applications.
As the title "Turning the Tide" suggests, the colleges endorsing these recommendations are hoping to bring about a new era of college admissions, one that they hope will be a specially ethical era of college admissions. Turning the Tide and other recent initiatives show that ethical values and character traits, and the ability to articulate them, have become central to discussions among colleges and their expectations for admissions. As this message continues to filter through to high schools, this emphasis on ethical character will become much more central to how applicants approach the process. Applicants who cultivate good character traits and the ability to express them will have a distinct competitive advantage, while applicants who lack these traits, or simply lack the ability to express them well, will be at a disadvantage.
Why Be an Ethical Applicant?
The fact that having the virtues of an ethical applicant will likely increase your chances of admission at selective colleges is worth considering, but it is probably the least important reason for being an ethical applicant. The best reason to be a good ethical person, at any stage of life, is simply because it is the right and good thing to do. This does not mean that there are not self-interested reasons for being a good person, or that there is anything wrong with having self-interested motivations as part of your reasons for being a good person. But even among self-interested reasons for being an ethical applicant, impressing college admissions staff with your character is not the most important. Of much greater importance is that it makes you a stronger, better person, able to handle the college admissions process and its results with resolve and dignity. Secondarily, being an ethical applicant will orient you toward whatever college you attend so that you to get the most out of your time there. This orientation may even continue to point you in the right direction as you leave college.
For many young people, choices about what colleges to apply to, how to apply to them, and what college to attend are the first major, life-shaping decisions that they will make for themselves. For most applicants, these decisions will be not only set the foundation for the next four years of their life, but will also have a significant impact throughout the rest of their lives. An ethical applicant, one who is able to face these choices with qualities like genuineness, depth, thoughtfulness, creativity, and responsibility, will be best able to work through the college admissions process in a healthy, productive, self-strengthening way.