The Nightmare of “Dream Schools”

When I review college application essays, I hunt for clichés: overused and inapt words and phrases that are sure to grate on discerning readers’ ears. I could give you a whole list of the ones I encounter most often. But there’s one cliche that looms over “opened my eyes,” “comfort zone,” “I have always…” and all the others: the “dream school.”

Not long ago, college applicants used to have lists. They might have had first choices or early application schools. For reasons unknown to me, the past few years have been the era of the dream school.

I am all for enthusiasm. But when enthusiasm turns to idealization, it becomes the enemy of smart choices and strong applicants.

Fundamentally, “dream school” gets the math backwards. Yes, applicants will (typically) attend just one school. But that outcome doesn’t mean that you should, at the beginning of the process, winnow your hopes and dreams down to one option. Especially one that may be unattainable, or at least unpredictable.

Many proverbial “dream schools” are dreamy largely, or only, because they are ultra-selective. By definition, no matter how qualified an applicant is, rejection is the most likely outcome. What’s the point of developing a “dream school” when you know your chance of getting in is well under 50% and possibly as low as 0%? It encourages students to heap their emotions and effort on one school at the expense of all others.

The whole point of a “dream” — as in some weird adventure that your mind takes you on when you’re in the depths of sleep — is that it doesn’t come true.

What’s also silly about the dream school trope is this: how can any applicant know enough about any given college to conclude it’s their dream? Sure, it’s easy to be impressed by rankings and rumors. And it is much easier to idealize something vague and distant than something detailed and familiar. But how would any high schooler know that one school is going to be the best place for them in every class, every semester, every interaction? They don’t. Nobody does. There are more variables and unknowns in the choice of a college than there are certainties.

And, nobody needs to attend a “dream school.” There is no student on this planet, no matter what they want to study or what their background is, who can’t find happiness at plenty of colleges. Anyone smart enough to get into a “dream school” is smart enough to thrive at almost any other school. But the very idea of a dream school implies that all the other schools (including “safety schools”) are distant consolation prizes. They become places you’d attend begrudgingly while holding onto resentment that your dream school didn’t admit you. How does anyone gain from that attitude?

(To this end, I have a modest proposal: Every college should ask, “If you don’t attend our college, will you be eternally disappointed and give up on your life ambitions?” If a student answers yes, they should get rejected automatically.)

If you do get into that dream school, it is guaranteed to disappoint. If you tell yourself a place is perfect, that you’ll have perfect friends and perfect classes and get prepared for a perfect career and have perfect romantic partners, you are going to be let down. As I wrote in the introduction to my website over a year ago, “Colleges are real places, each with nuances, virtues, and drawbacks. Students who fixate on “dream schools” — or, worse, a dream school — will find that a school they once idealized is as flawed as any other worldly institution.”

I’m visiting the dream school cliché partly because of the release of journalist Jeff Selingo’s new book Dream School: Finding the College That’s Right for You. I have not read it yet, and it hadn’t been announced when I posted my website. I presume, and hope, that much of Selingo’s book offers nuance and echoes some of the same points I’m making here. But the very phrase “dream school,” however it’s used, perpetuates the idea that students can and should have one.

What I’m sure Selingo and I agree on is that the idea of a “dream school” is not just a rhetorical quirk. It is a concept that distracts from and is at odds with a healthy, productive application process. Students who wake up from the dream will be able to choose prospective colleges and assemble applications with a much clearer-eyed perspective.

Importantly, students who resist the “dream school” will be stronger applicants. Colleges do not admit applicants based on their desires. They admit based on their accomplishments, intellect, character, and ambitions. In other words, they admit based on applicants’ intrinsic traits. A fixation on an extrinsic goal reduces applicants’ ability to present their best selves.

As well, what college wants to be someone’s “dream”? Just as in romantic relationships, nobody likes desperation.

Your dream school, ultimately, is not the one you apply to. It’s not even the ones you get into. It doesn’t become your school until you enroll. Every school you apply to should be a place you’d be happy to attend. And only after you enroll — when you show up, move into your dorm, go to class, and meet people — can you begin to decide whether that school feels like a dream school.

And if it doesn’t, so what? It’s up to you to make the most of the experience: to learn, weather challenges, stay positive, make friends, and take advantage of opportunities at any of the hundreds of great colleges in the United States. That’s it.

I will end by quoting myself:

“I encourage students not to “dream” of a college they want to attend and instead to dream of the education they want to receive. Anyone who focuses on substance — ideas, facts, discovery, collaboration, relationships, curiosity, and ambition — can never be disappointed.”