Aspirations, rejections, and resetting it all...

antonioray
Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:12:00 +0000

My whole philosophy behind why Ivy leagues exist and whatnot is that those kinds of schools are excellent if you’re planning to start working immediately after college

I’d think that it depends on your concentration and/or desired profession. For example, a friend of mine enrolled in a PhD program in philosophy at Princeton almost immediately after he graduated from undergrad.

On the other hand, most MBA programs require 3 years of working experience. I have not done enough research to determine whether jobs held whilst one is in school can count towards that 3 year requirement, but my guess is that if they were to be considered, the job(s) would have to be somewhat related to the business profession.

That being said, it should be noted that graduate programs are far from homogeneous in that they are comprised of students from top colleges and them alone.

doesn’t really matter all that much.

My teacher once said that the biggest difference between attending a school like Princeton and another, ‘lesser’ institution is that at Princeton, one would only have to be in the top 50% of one’s graduating class to be recruited, while one would have to be in the top 10% or even top 5% to be looked at if one attended schools that are not comparable to Princeton.

In many ways, that statement is extremely cogent. Pure logic tells me that since the number of students attending schools that are below Princeton in ‘caliber’ is much larger than the number of kids enrolled in the Ivy League and its equivalents (simply because the Ivy League and its equivalents make up such a small percentages of all the colleges available), a student at an institution like UCI or UCR would have to work that much harder to distance himself or herself from the rest of the pack. Being in the top 5% is never easy at any place–you’re right, there are very few schools where one can achieve a 4.0 just by showing up. However, being in the top 50% in Princeton isn’t exactly a cakewalk either.

drawing, doing various arts, film-making, sewing

If the conception that colleges consider some extracirriculars(not prestigous awards) more spectacular than others, then I’d be the first to oppose it.

didn’t matter at all

However, I disagree with your line of thinking that the activities you devoted yourself to didn’t matter if you didn’t have an acceptance letter to show for it. That you took the time to pursue them should be a reward in its own right.

It’s okay to dream, but it’s like that cliche goes, the bigger they are, the harder they fall…

An interesting way to use that adage. I would disagree though; the scope and degree of unlikelihood of a dream should not act as a deterrent.

Otherwise, why dream at all?