Why It’s Time to Reinvent Selective Colleges — And How To Do It - Commentary

Jake Weissbourd, higher education strategy consultant at Verto Education, and  Rick Weissbourd, a child and family psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Kennedy School of Government, write:  Faced with a global pandemic, selective colleges — colleges that accept fewer than half of their applicants — made changes in 2020 that they wouldn’t have dreamed of implementing before. They invested heavily in online and hybrid learning, new teaching strategies and cutting-edge technologies in ways they had strongly resisted. These changes did more than address a crisis; they created new capabilities and expertise. They accelerated opportunities to better educate more — and more-diverse — students. And they revealed that even the most hidebound colleges can pivot quickly. Yet, the large majority of selective colleges have sped back to normal, and highly selective colleges continue to reject staggering numbers of qualified students.