This past weekend the four semifinalists for college football’s national championship, the College Football Playoff (CFP) were selected. If you are wondering why the CFP is not named for a corporate sponsor, it’s because it has thirteen of them. Lucky 13! Michigan will meet Alabama in one semifinal game on New Year’s Day, and Washington will face Texas in the other.
The selections were not without controversy. Florida State, best known as the home of the tomahawk chop cheer but also the champion of the Atlantic Coast Conference, was left out of the field despite an undefeated regular season, largely because its star quarterback is injured and out for the season. It was the first time that an undefeated championship team from one of college football’s Power Five conferences has not been selected, and that prompted cries of unfairness from wounded and disappointed Seminole fans and other observers.
This month is not only the holiday season and the season for bowl games and the CFP, but also the season when a significant number of students will receive decisions on Early Decision and Early Action applications. Just like college football teams, some will receive good news and some will receive disappointment.
All of us who work in college admissions and college counseling are prone to find connections to other professions or areas of life. Or perhaps that’s just me. But there seem to be some similarities between the CFP and the selective college admissions process.
Could the selective college admission process serve as a metaphor (or is it analogy) for the College Football Playoff? Or is it the other way around? Inquiring ECA readers may not care or want to know, but here goes anyway.
I have never been reluctant to demonstrate my command of the obvious. The simplest connection between the CFP and selective admission is that both involve colleges.
CFP resembles selective admission in that there are not enough spots available for all the deserving candidates. Someone is going to be left out. In both cases selection is made by an admissions committee through a process that is holistic rather than formulaic, mysterious rather than transparent.
One of the debates about CFP selections is whether the committee should be selecting the best candidates or the most deserving candidates. There is a similar philosophical debate within selective admission. Should the admissions process be about rewarding past success or predicting future success?
In football the argument for Florida State is that its record this year is spotless. The argument against Florida State is that it may not be one of the best teams at the moment or during the playoffs. Should that matter, especially when it is related to something that is not their fault, a season-ending injury to their star quarterback? From an ethical standpoint we shouldn’t be punished for things we have not chosen or over which we have no control.
Balancing strength of schedule and performance is always an issue in the selective college process, and it was a consideration in picking the playoff teams as well. Florida State had a better record but a weaker strength of schedule than Alabama. Much of Alabama’s strength of schedule is tied to its required courses (its conference slate in the Southeastern Conference, or SEC, generally considered the top conference). But Alabama also chose to take easy elective courses in Middle Tennessee, South Florida, and Chattanooga in order to pad its resume. Those might be considered the college football scheduling equivalent of basket-weaving (not that there is anything wrong with basket weaving or any of those football teams). Should that be held against them?
There are other similarities between the CFP and selective college admission that raise the kinds of issues and difficult considerations that admission committees must work through.
In Michigan you have the student with the stellar record but also a suspension for cheating. Should that call into question their credentials or disqualify them as a candidate?
Alabama jumped over Florida State to earn the last admission spot despite an early blemish on its transcript and inconsistent performance. Did it, and should it, get additional consideration because it comes from the SEC, a traditional and important “feeder school” for the CFP?
Georgia failed one final exam after having had the best transcript for the past three years. It was at the top of the accept pile right up until the time that final decisions were released. Should its overall body of work outweigh the results of one assessment?
Then there’s the case of Liberty University, the highest-ranked non-Power 5 conference team and the champion of Conference USA. Liberty also finished the season unbeaten, and will be rewarded with a New Year’s Day bowl game against Oregon. Liberty is also unbeaten, and yet no one has argued that it should be included in the CFP. The selective college equivalent is how an admissions committee should evaluate a candidate with a stellar record but a weaker schedule from a weaker school. None of the Power Five conference teams want to schedule Liberty in football and lose, so should their weaker schedule be held against them.
Finally, there’s the fairness issue. We talk a lot about equity as a guiding principle in college admission, but can either the College Football Playoffs or the selective admissions process be truly fair and equitable? Fairness is in the eye of the beholder, and may look different in Tallahassee, Florida than in places like Seattle, Austin, Ann Arbor, and Tuscaloosa where the home teams weren’t excluded. College football fans would do well to consider the wisdom of legendary Harvard admission dean Bill Fitzsimmons, who I have heard say, “The selective admissions process is rational, but not necessarily fair.”
Let the games, both football and admission, begin. As as you celebrate the holidays, whether Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or even Festivus, remember the words of Tiny Tim (the Dickens character, not the 1960s ukelele-playing novelty singer), “May God bless us, every one.”