Comments
A sliver of fun, nonetheless
As a former Ivy admissions officer, this looks like a fun read. I lived it. In my tiny neck of the heartland, there are some who would read and recognize. But, as the author recognizes, most folks outside Bethesda, Chappaqua, Brookline, Winnetka, Palo Alto, and Beverly Hills would wonder what all the fuss is about.</p>
<p>A. G. Rud, Purdue University, at 8:31 am EST on March 9, 2007
The only thing worse than the absurd college admissions process is talking about the absurd college admissions process.</p>
<p>Larry, at 9:00 am EST on March 9, 2007
Missing the history
Larry is missing the history.</p>
<p>The history of college admissions is as fascinating as it is contradictory. The initial goal of the college admissions process was to prevent unwanted students from gaining access. This did not align with rising American meritocractic and egalitarian ideals, so college entrance exams were used to mediate access in a more (ostensibly) class-free manner.</p>
<p>The present situation is only an iteration of this rich and contradictory past.</p>
<p>For more on this fascinating past, Harold S. Wechsler, The Qualified Student: A History of Selective College Admission in America (Wiley, 1977)</p>
<p>Glen McGhee, at 9:30 am EST on March 9, 2007
Mr. McGhee, I don?t really have any objection to the historical analysis that you provide. However, I think there is a fair amount of silliness in the so-called soul-searching that these books are doing.</p>
<p>First of all, everyone wants their kids to be successful. Most people (especially in the middle and upper classes) will do anything (including stretching the bounds of ethics) to help their kids succeed. They will lie, cheat, steal, threaten, cajole, or hire consultants.</p>
<p>Strangely, there exists a large group of people who delight in telling others that there are ?many definitions of success.? Usually this means not getting into their first choice of school. Granted, the undergraduate institution people attend doesn?t necessarily determine whether you will get into the graduate school of your choice, but, quite frankly, it is a big factor. Whatever the case, when people scream ?don?t concentrate so much on [USN] rank? it rings hollow with parents who want their kids to succeed in as objective a way as possible.</p>
<p>While people will claim that they want an ?objective? admissions process, they will generally do whatever they want to help their kin look ?objectively? better. They may go so far as to stretch the bounds of morality.</p>
<p>Even stranger still is the fact that most admissions decisions are no longer made by professors. Instead, they are made by ?counselors? that are quite disconnected from any academic discourse going on amongst professors and instead concentrate on statistics and some vague criteria of how ?devoted? or ?interested? the students are which usually means ?whether the counselor would party with the student.?</p>
<p>Is there something wrong with this? I don?t think so. I think it is a normal part of human development and competition. Maybe we should just be more honest about it.</p>
<p>Larry, at 10:50 am EST on March 9, 2007
Chill
Larry ? Chill dude.</p>
<p>It?s a novel. A work of fiction meant to entertain. It?s not a treatise on the state of admissions in the United States.</p>
<p>(At least it?s not the movie ?Accepted? or that horrible ?reality? admissions show from a few years back.)</p>
<p>Grumpy Much?, at 5:35 pm EST on March 9, 2007
?Usually this means not getting into their first choice of school. Granted, the undergraduate institution people attend doesn?t necessarily determine whether you will get into the graduate school of your choice, but, quite frankly, it is a big factor. Whatever the case, when people scream ?don?t concentrate so much on [USN] rank? it rings hollow with parents who want their kids to succeed in as objective a way as possible.?</p>
<p>Sorry, no, I disagree completely. If you said graduate school, I?d agree with you, but the importance of getting into a top undergraduate school is vastly overrated. From my personal experience, I can write with respect to getting into law school. Undergraduate career services offices at most schools collect the stats for what the avg. LSAT/avg. GPA numbers are for students who get admitted to specific school. When I applied?for the hell of it, I examined what the differences were at a number of colleges. At most, a student coming from a place like Yale had a one or two point advantage on the LSAT. If you were going strictly by these numbers, you?d conclude they were actually at a disadvantage at a couple schools.</p>
<p>The benefit of attending an elite undergrad was at its highest when an infinitesimal fraction of the people went to college and (I hate to say it, but…) when these schools were a lot more nepotistic. If you attended F. Scott Fitzgerald?s Princeton, and you knew what you were doing, you could count on being plugged into a large old boys network. Today?..sure, they?re affluent, and there a lot of stories about students coming from $100-200k per year families, but those people are hardly going to be able to get you a job or make sure you?re admitted to the right schools.</p>
<p>I keep getting the impression reading this sort of thing that a lot of the parents chasing an elite undergrad are chasing the Harvard, Yale, etc. that existed 100 years ago. They?re chasing a past that there are just relics of at these places today.</p>
<p>Also, when you say:</p>
<p>?Most people (especially in the middle and upper classes) will do anything (including stretching the bounds of ethics) to help their kids succeed. They will lie, cheat, steal, threaten, cajole, or hire consultants.?</p>
<p>No. I didn?t. My parents didn?t. (For the record, that didn?t prevent me from going to a top five law school after I applied.) I?d also have to think long and hard to come up with any of my friends that did any of that (it?s a pretty thin slice of the population that even hires consultants).</p>
<p>ASD, at 9:01 am EST on March 10, 2007
I think the idea for the book is great, and it sounds hilarious. I was doing the admissions game in the early nineties. It was ridiculous then, and sems only to have gotten (exponentially) more so. I have two young children, so I?m starting now with trying to formulate my hands-off approach and to figure out what my general philosophy should be regarding my kids and their college education.</p>
<p>I have a really hard time keeping a straight face (and keeping my eyes from rolling back in my head) when I watch hyper and entirely too involved parents drag their kids through the college admissions process. I would love it if the kids would realize that where they go to college and what they major in is not going to make or break their futures. And please won?t someone tell the insane parents of these stressed-out kids that their kids? achievements and success holds no bearing on the amazingness of the parents? Leave the kids alone and let them find their own way. Crushing your children until they?re tiny little diamonds of carbon perfection that you can show off to your friends and co-workers doesn?t make you cool; it just makes everyone miserable.</p>
<p>alexa harrington, at 6:15 am EDT on March 11, 2007
ASD, I generally was not referring to law schools. However, having direct experience with the law school admissions process (i.e. having been a victim of it, and having served on a committee), I can say that the name of the school does matter.</p>
<p>However, I think that the ?belief? in ?name? schools is bigger than you think it is. Some people think that the education at ?better? schools is superior. Other people know that looking ?better? at ?better? schools is easier due to 1) grade inflation; and 2) professors that might be more willing to go to bad for students.</p>
<p>Alexa, For better or worse, parents want what they think is best for their parents.</p>
<p>Larry, at 6:46 pm EDT on March 11, 2007
asd wrote:</p>
<p>The benefit of attending an elite undergrad was at its highest when an infinitesimal fraction of the people went to college and (I hate to say it, but…) when these schools were a lot more nepotistic. If you attended F. Scott Fitzgerald?s Princeton, and you knew what you were doing, you could count on being plugged into a large old boys network. Today? Sure, they?re affluent, and there a lot of stories about students coming from $100-200k per year families, but those people are hardly going to be able to get you a job or make sure you?re admitted to the right schools.</p>
<p>Both asd and Larry are right that this whole ludicrous dance matters to only a thin sliver of the American population as a whole, but that sliver includes a disproportionate share of the people who shape our national conversation through the things they write about in newspapers and magazines and talk about on TV programs and the ?Net. (Talk radio belongs to that bigger sliver of the population that doesn?t give a hoot about all this.)</p>
<p>The fact is, even though this class got there through largely meritocratic means, most of its members want the same thing that the old aristocratic elites enjoyed at these same few schools: Inside connections that will give them (or their children) a leg up in the race for the glittering prizes. But since the meritocratic facade must be maintained in order for this drive to recast the Four Hundred as the Four Hundred Thousand to succeed, we get comedies such as this one to remind us what?s really going on.</p>
<p>I suspect that a lot of the kids who are being pushed towards the Ivy-Stanford-MIT-Duke-Chicago-Caltech-Public Ivy axis by anxious parents would in all likelihood be much happier at a school such as the one I work for, whose alumni are very well represented in the middle and upper management strata of companies and institutions throughout its home region and do keep their ties with one another and their alma mater strong. This is exactly the sort of thing those overanxious parents are looking for, only on a local rather than a national stage, and they and their kids don?t have to go through all sorts of contortions to plug into it.</p>
<p>Full disclosure: I am a graduate of one of those national elite schools (Harvard class of 1980), but was fortunate enough to apply for admission before the parents of affluence went bonkers about their brand names.</p>
<p>MarketStEl, Writer/Reporter at Widener University, at 10:51 am EDT on March 12, 2007