As the class of 2007 prepares to embark on adventures outside the Dartmouth bubble, many students are finding the career hunt daunting and highly competitive. If they aren’t going through the exhausting corporate recruiting process, they’re applying to medical schools, law schools, and other graduate programs. But in recent years a new trend has erupted. Many grads-to-be now explore service work as an altruistic alternative to the corporate bandwagon, or as a two-year break between Dartmouth and higher education. While service lacks much of the allure of high-profile careers in investment banking and consulting, many find this path no less competitive than employment at a firm like Goldman Sachs.

One such service organization, Teach for America, has increasingly grown into a recruiting giant on college campuses, aiming for the same slice of the student body - the best and the brightest - as an elite graduate school or corporation. The organization, modeled on founder Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis at Princeton, trains recent college graduates to teach in some of the nation’s most underprivileged schools for two years, with a salary between $25,000 to $44,000, depending on location. Compared to the earnings of a starting analyst at a major investment bank, these numbers look paltry. And yet, in recent years, TFA’s application numbers have soared. Just last year, almost 19,000 graduating seniors applied to TFA, from which less than 20% were accepted. More than 10% of Dartmouth’s class of 2006 applied to the program.

With such startling statistics, no avalanche of hype would be unexpected. But not all TFA rumors pundits like the institution’s methods. The organization’s critics have warily examined how TFA runs both its recruitment and its overall teaching program. But are their concerns valid?

One major criticism concerns TFA’s elite image. In 1996, Wendy Kopp noted that she’d like for “people to someday talk about TFA the way they talk about the Rhodes Scholarship.” J.P Morgan has formed a recruiting partnership with TFA, holding joint events at many schools around the country. Rumor has it that Goldman Sachs is looking to do something similar. Such firms offer job deferrals to seniors accepted to the program. Many of the nation’s top graduate programs also offer deferrals, in addition to waiving application fees and, in some cases, offering scholarship grants. Teach for America recruits aggressively, building prestige on the basis of selectivity and causing top firms and schools to create these types of partnerships.

TFA corps members are deigned the best of the best. Those admitted to the program are some the nation’s brightest, and after an intense interview process designed to discover whether they can handle TFA’s challenging mission, they are lauded as some of the most capable. After completing two years in the field, corps members have a rather unique leadership background, along with other skills, that turns them into top applicants for almost any career. Sharon Melville of Career Development Services in Rochester, NY told USA Today in 2006, “Potential employers view veterans of service programs as resourceful and self-motivated. A volunteer’s… commitment to service [is] attractive to employers.” According to Justin Pope, writing for the Boston Globe last June, critics worry that TFA is “geared more toward the experience of the teachers than that of the students.”

No doubt Teach for America looks great on a resume. But do applicants really consider these benefits when deciding to participate in the program? Some do. An AmeriCorps member told USA Today last July that service programs like his are, “pretty much helping out your community and helping others while helping yourself.” Applicants to these types of programs are usually aware of the benefits. In deciding whether or not to devote a couple years to this type of work, it is comforting to know that rather than being behind in the job market afterwards, Teach for America participants might actually be ahead.

However, the criticisms that TFA is just a career stepping-stone, a resume builder, or a status symbol are far too harsh. As Dartmouth ’05 and TFA corps member Delano Brissett comments, “Stepping-stone or not, being part of a community through TFA changes the individual and the community. The immediate impact is huge.” Brissett, who will soon be finishing his second year teaching in Brooklyn, knows a number of TFA corps members who plan to either teach for another year or stay involved with education in some other way. Another TFA teacher in the Bay Area commented that, when he graduated in 2006, the people he knew heading off to the program were in it for the service, or for teaching, whether or not that would be their ultimate career path. He also had some comments about the organization’s “elite” reputation. Agreeing that prestige is a program goal, he commented that such a reputation is not necessarily a bad thing. He observed that if such an image allows TFA to hire the best, most enthusiastic, most driven individuals who might be considering another path, then that image is beneficial in improving the program.

Others criticize Teach for America’s two year commitment as being too short a period of time for such a program. How great a teacher could someone with no experience be? And by the time a teacher has gained the vital experience, two years of the program have already passed. Furthermore, does the program not add instability to the lives of underprivileged students, who watch teachers from TFA just come and go? Only about 1/3 of teachers continue teaching beyond the set two years.

Brissett, reflecting on his experience in Brooklyn, asserts that the two-year period is “enough to have a significant impact.” He comments that the experience of working in a low-income school district stays with corps members forever, whether they go into the private sector or head off to law school. In fact, one of TFA’s goals is to spread the movement through alumni who head into various different fields and, drawing on their experience, advocate for change in education policy. The TFA member interviewed in the Bay Area grants that the two-year teaching program is not a long-term solution to the country’s education problems. “But there are always short-term and long-term solutions to every problem,” He says. “You need both. You need action right now for those who need it.”

Teach for America is, indeed, organized and run very much like other major corporations competing to recruit our top students. Its competitive, selective nature is certainly unfortunate in that many enthusiastic, bright, and capable individuals get turned away from a program in which they would, very likely, thrive. TFA is also, without a doubt, a short-term solution to a big, long-term problem facing this country. Closing the achievement gap will take more than a two-year commitment from college graduates, especially since many go into other fields after the program. But overall, TFA very much deserves the attention, the thousands of applications, and the donations it has received over the past few years. “Speak to the principals, to the parents, and to the students,” Brissett insists, “You’ll get a picture that will dwarf the criticisms… TFA has made incredible change over time.”