February 5, 2015
Dear Parents and Families,
Several years ago, I stood in the wings of Cohen Auditorium with a student who told me, “Thanks for taking a chance on me.” It was the evening of Tufts’ annual Honors Convocation, and he was about to be presented with an award for the student who had improved the most between his sophomore year and senior year. His was one of the most dramatic turn-arounds I have ever seen, but not all that unusual. Like all Tufts undergraduates, he was very smart, and his high school preparation had been a good one. But, like many students, he floundered in his first year. His floundering was more severe than most: he was earning almost all D’s. However, there was an interesting pattern to his grades in his first year: his worst grades were in the introductory survey courses that are generally regarded as easiest. His highest grade that year was in an advanced course full of seniors. Over the course of the next three years, he gradually began to earn all A’s. So, what had happened? This was a case of a bright student who was bored, unfocused, and disconnected, who suddenly became engaged, focused, and motivated through his connection with an extracurricular activity.
Many students start college going to one of two extremes: they either join every club on campus, or they hold back, fearful to commit to anything beyond their academics, postponing their participation until a future date when they will feel like they have a better handle on college. You would think that the students who err on the side of caution and choose to focus entirely on their studies in their first year would end up with higher grades. Surprisingly, this is rarely the case. In the age of “big data,” some large state universities have been sifting through student data trying to identify early indicators of academic success or academic difficulty. One consistent pattern has started to emerge: students who indicate they plan to participate in several on-campus clubs, organizations, and other activities in their first year in college have significantly higher grades than students who indicate they plan to participate in no or few activities their first year. In some studies, the students’ planned level of engagement is a stronger indicator of academic performance than SAT scores.
Clearly, students who are over-committed with extracurricular activities are not going to be academic super-stars. Yet, it is easy for most students to shed or cut-back on extra-curricular activities when they need to, or to learn quickly how to better manage their time. Even heavily committed students, such as varsity athletes, learn to balance their academics, and the deans at Tufts have noticed for many years that most student athletes perform better academically when they are “in season” than when they are “off season.” It seems counter-intuitive at first, but when you think about it, a student who is engaged socially in an activity that requires self-motivation and the ability to cooperate and collaborate with others, should see some positive spill-over into Tufts courses that require exactly those same skills and attitudes.
In the case of my “Most Improved” student, he had not participated in any clubs or student organizations at all his first year. This must have been a lonely and depressing time for him, and his poor grades his first semester may have made him – and perhaps his parents – believe that it would be prudent to focus exclusively on academics in order to raise those dismal grades. But something happened his sophomore year when he volunteered to tutor a young boy in the local. In the process of helping a boy who (like himself) was struggling academically, he had to learn to be a good role model and to follow some of his own advice and encouragement. Further, my “Most Improved” student discovered something he never knew about himself: a passion for teaching.
He applied to be a Writing Fellow, a highly-selective tutoring program that I have run for several years. With his dismal first year and stuttering second year, he was a long-shot among our applicant pool, but his application essays and interviews were excellent. My co-director and I levelled with him: he was a risk. How could we be certain that the added pressures would not put him back on academic probation? In the end, he convinced us, and we admitted him to the program, but with trepidation. We need not have worried. He turned out to be the most intellectually-engaged Writing Fellow in the training seminar that year, and one of our most compassionate tutors. He was very smart, but he was the kind of student who needed a challenge in order to be motivated. And like all of us, he needed to feel like his efforts had some meaning. He ended up going on to a top-notch graduate program, with the goal of becoming a professor.
My “Most Improved” student had started Tufts like many students afraid of failure to such a degree that the fear alone prevented him from taking the necessary risks required for success. His first step was to take the social risk of trying something new (being a tutor). His second step was to take the emotional risk of actually trying in his classes. And his third step was to take the risk of asking someone else to take a chance on him, to depend on him. I am glad I did.
Sincerely,
Carmen Lowe