Did I make the wrong college choice?

TopTier
Tue, 10 Feb 2015 22:32:09 +0000

@gearmom‌ (re post #38):

I fundamentally disagree with your post, due to one immensely critical flaw: basically, it’s entirely untrue. You virtually premise that almost all “prestige” institution graduates are sure to be “a tad arrogant,” that they are unable to “peacefully coexist” with a wide range of people, that they are not “fluent” with “mere mortals,” that they are almost certain to “tick off” the guys on the shop floor, and so on and so forth. It’s all very cute and enjoyable to read. However, the fundamental problem is it’s essentially baseless and derogatory stereotyping, just as false, unjustified, and prejudiced as racial, religious, or ethnic categorizations.

Certainly, there are lots of jokes and maxims about “Harvard men” (etc.), much as there are about Poles, or Italians, or Afro-Americans, or Jews. However, they are ALL as malicious and as they are inaccurate.

I’d believe I attended a “prestige” university for both my Bachelor’s and my MBA degrees. I was able to do so ONLY because I competitively won Navy scholarships that paid for everything (and compensated me for attending, as well). Incidentally, I repaid America’s taxpayers with decades of tough, demanding service at sea, overseas, in combat, and in truly challenging and unpleasant – 80 hour weeks were absolutely routine – jobs in DC.

My family was decidedly middle class (if that). My father (born in 1915) was an FBI Special Agent and my mother (born in 1921) was a public elementary school teacher (I mention these years simply becuase civil service salaries are considerbale greater now), money was always a SERIOUS issue, and my brother and I were the first in our family to attend non-commuter colleges that charged us tuition (my dad received degrees from NYU on a full baseball scholarship and my mom attended CCNY with no costs). The fact is – whether or not you choose to believe it – I’ve always done VERY well in “peacefully coexisting,” in “fluency with mere mortals,” in getting along very well with the guys on the shop floor (or the classroom, the ship’s deck, the Marine’s Barracks , the athletic field, the barroom, the engineering “bullpen,” the Boardroom, or the . . . ). This has been a true forte for 50+ years.

Far more important, I was pretty much typical in college and professional school; the people you lampoon and disparage were the distinct minority. Of the, perhaps, 15 percent who – at that time, and we were all VERY young – may have conformed to your stereotype, I’d wager that probably 80 percent had their arrogance deflated within a couple years of graduation . . . life certainly works that way. But I suggest that those 15 percent and 80 percent estimates are not too removed from what one would find at 90+ percent of America’s four-year colleges. The fact is, a LOT of kids are darn cocky, conceited, egotistical and self-centered. One does not have to be enrolled in (or to have graduated from) a USN&WR top-fifty National Research University or LAC to be quite Narcissistic and vain.

Well, you’ve had your fun. However, the overriding questions from post #36 remain:

Were there no major, pervasive and widely-acknowledged advantages to matriculating at the most-competitive universities, wouldn’t everyone simply attend East Swampy: it’s easier to be admitted, it’s less expensive, it’s less academically difficult and competitive, and it just may be more fun?

Yet, generation after generation, very bright individuals (and their families) work diligently and make profound sacrifices to attend the most demanding and selective institutions (not to suggest that some equally intelligent people do not opt for other higher educational alternatives). Why do they do so?

Could it be that America’s long history has generally demonstrated that enduring, tangible, and extremely significant benefits accrue from their decisions to do so?*