PHILADELPHIA - What do Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Spielberg and Microsoft co-founder Paul Gardner have in common? They all have a first-class education from a state-run university.

I dig this out of my dean of students' file in mid-December when our high school seniors start hearing back from their early decision schools.

In many early decision programs, students start their senior year ready to choose the one college they would most like to attend. Students are permitted to make only one application, and it is usually due at the college in mid-November. College admissions officers then have about a month to deliberate and respond.

For a fortunate few, thick envelopes arrive in the mail beginning in mid-December, rolling out the red carpet to the college of their choice (complete with a binding contract so that students and their families can't wait for more suitable - or cheaper - offers). For everyone else, it's the thin letter and back into the pot with the rest of the regular applications, or worse, rejection.

I've witnessed tears of joy and jubilation, or real grief, in the halls during my 11 years as an educator. I've seen couples break up, students break down, friendships on the rocks. You'd think that getting into a preferred university was a life-or-death situation.

For those who get in early, an acceptance letter seems to confirm what they already know about themselves: that they are bright, motivated students, with lots of promise. (Usually, this confirmation is followed almost immediately by a marked decline in the amount of homework being performed, which continues to decline over the next six months.)

For those who don't get in, it's back to the grinding wheel and the waiting game, which is new this time because the wait is accompanied by the vague sense that they weren't quite good enough the first time.

Who is responsible for this ludicrous situation may surprise you: some top-flight universities and you.

Many use early decision to improve their overall yields, the average SAT score of their accepted students and their selectivity ratings - all of which have positive effects in any popular ranking system. That includes the pervasive and powerful U.S. News & World Report rating.

Any college president who says he or she doesn't care about this report would be lying.

Students, of course, don't know that they are being manipulated and dramatically affected by a system that is all about marketing, money and power, which have little to do with getting a good education.

Students don't really put much stock in the college rankings, but their parents do. By the time the senior year rolls around, increasingly more parents have whipped up such a frenzy over the college admissions process that many kids think that the rest of their lives, and indeed, their present self-worth, hinge on where they plan to spend 36 months out of their next 48. Early decision fans the flames of an already intense fire.

The college admissions process, writes Michael Thompson in a recent popular essay, "can make normal [parents] act nutty, and nutty [parents] act quite crazy."

I've heard outrageous stories of admissions officers being offered fruit baskets and stock options - all this to gain entry to an attractive middle school. I can only imagine what is being proffered at the college level.

Where are high school teachers on the issue of college admissions? We're on the sidelines, of course, watching a game that has changed markedly over the years. College used to be about a few wonderful professors, a whole lot of books and great friends.

In November, Yale and Stanford altered their binding early decision programs. They'll still make early offers, but students will no longer be obligated to enroll if accepted.

It's time for more colleges and universities to end their binding early decision programs, for U.S. News & World Report (and the like) to stop listing colleges with numerals next to them and for parents to lessen their anxiety about the whole college decision process.

Any teacher worth his or her shiny apple knows that a student can get all A's, go to the highest ranked schools and still fail life. Every child knows that it never mattered where his mother went to college.

Why do parents, who were once children and always teachers, forget this wisdom when they need it most?

Mark Franek is dean of students and an English teacher at the William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia.