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Dear Keystone Community,

I hope you and your family had a peaceful week! Last weekend I was able to ski for the first time in Beijing at the Winter Olympic Games Venue. It was amazingly fun and so cool to see (a year hence) all the massive technological and engineering feats that went into creating a world-class ski racing hill right here in Beijing!  

Back on campus, we are in full swing planning for many exciting events for students and families. We are thrilled to welcome parents back to campus early in March. Just this afternoon, our secondary school students put on an outstanding Temple Fair —an exciting return to a community vibrancy for which we have all longed.   

While the main theme of this month has been returning to campus, we are also looking forward with pride and full (if heavy) hearts to some departures. We will soon celebrate the important transition of our 12th grade students as they head off to their next educational adventures. The members of the class of 2023 will graduate from Keystone Academy in late May, less than three months away. Keystone invests a great deal in supporting our students with their process and transition to higher education: we have a remarkable college counseling team all of whom are experts in the work of advising our students of the opportunities available to them and supporting their access to the best colleges and universities around the world. And that work of nurturing the best applicants in the world begins the first day students step on to Keystone’s campus, whether they are 5 or 15 years old, and the responsibility for that belongs to every educator on campus.  

Keystone Academy is purposely built to prepare students for extraordinary lives—and that happens to create exactly the types of students that excellent colleges and universities are looking for. A Keystone education is a comprehensive constellation of experiences that has remarkable results. Today, I want to propose what might seem like a slight shift in thinking about the relationship between a Keystone education and higher education admissions: a Keystone education is not just a means to an end. You don’t go to Keystone to get into college. You go to Keystone because of what Keystone changes and nurtures in you. A Keystone education has extraordinary value in and of itself.  

Last Sunday night as the boarders were returning to campus, I sat down for dinner with some students and talked about their weekend. They had engaged in a variety of activities; some had relaxed while others had outside classes or sports commitments. A couple of the students at the table were quite passionate about their athletics, and during that discussion, another 10th grader lamented that perhaps, having lost interest in sports in middle school, she had disadvantaged herself somehow for her college admissions process. I quickly replied that you don’t need to do everything to be a strong college candidate, but just show where your passions are and told her not to use that as a reason to worry herself. She replied: “I am ALWAYS worried about college. Every day, every minute. The reason I go to Keystone is to get into a good college.”  

My heart sank. As a career-long high school educator, I know the pressure that the college admissions process puts on students. And I understand intimately the very good intentions of the adults in our students’ lives (parents, teachers, coaches, administrators, etc.) as we encourage them towards their highest levels of achievement.   

Even if this comment was hyperbolic, it was concerning. To be “always worried, every day” means that these thoughts are taking up so much cognitive load of our students that they risk not fully engaging and maximizing the experience we have designed for them here. If admission to college is the purpose and reason, one might be tempted to take short cuts of all sorts and not engage fully in our Keystone learning community.  

How might we help all students understand that getting into a “good” or “dream” college (we can leave further discussion of those problematic descriptors for another week) is a delightful byproduct of a Keystone education, and not the sole purpose? I know that for some, this would be a big shift. What if you sent your child to Keystone for what Keystone can do for them and trusted that the right educational experiences would follow? What if full engagement in Keystone education felt like enough?   

I propose this mental shift because I assure you that full engagement in Keystone is enough! Keystone offers an extraordinary range of experiences for each child; we have signature programs from which all students benefit, and we have the capacity and eagerness to support their individual journeys as well. When young people graduate from Keystone, they are already incredible—they are bilingual and multi-cultural in a way that eludes most of the world population. They have achieved great things academically, they have designed and implemented large scale events and activities for others, they have served others and they know and reflected deeply about what it means to live in meaningful and peaceful communities. And guess what? Colleges want them. Employers want them. The world needs them. They will find their next experience because of who they have become, because of what they have done here on this campus, and nothing can make us prouder.  

Warmly,

Emily McCarren