IMO it seems neither colleges nor students would support a system that limits apps, whether in total, or to sub 20% schools, or something else. So, not sure who would drive that change. But, maybe I am being too cynical?
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Not just the virtual world of CC, but the very real world of some regions, such as the Bay Area. Thereâs a reason hustle culture thrives here - in part, itâs competition for scarce resources. In a world where there are no homes under $1 million and a one room apartment can run several thousand dollars and the competition even at those prices is fierce, itâs no wonder kids graduate from high school hungry for the opportunities that they see as elite enough to allow them to remain in the cities where they grew up. If you slack, you get forced out. Very literally. For some, that may not be a bad thing in the end, but for others, this is their home and theyâd like to stay. But you just canât without a better hustle than those around you who are competing for the same resources.
Maybe this will start to change as tech companies move elsewhere. But so far, we havenât seen much relief.
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I am seeing some of this where I live too. Plenty of friends with kids around 30 years old, who are getting married, wanting to start families and feeling/realizing they arenât going to have the same life they had growing up, or even be able to live in the same town. And the people Iâm thinking of do have professional jobs and many donât have any educational debt.
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The phenomenon is so noticeable to me because I am NOT a hustler. I have always been one of those âdo what you love and donât worry about getting richâ kind of people. I am fortunate that I moved here long enough ago and into a rent-controlled apartment that I can still afford to live here (if I ever lost this apartment, Iâd almost definitely be forced outâŠ).
But I have seen D grow up here and she is like one of the students right out of the linked article. She hustles. I also thought things would ease up after college applications - silly me! Sheâs more over-scheduled than ever now that sheâs a college student. Between classes and internships and meetings (endless meetings!), she easily puts in 12 hours a day on most days - and thatâs without homework and studying. Weekends arenât much better. And then she expresses fears that sheâs not doing enough! Itâs nuts to me and actually a bit sad. But she doesnât see it that way - she likes the hustle. Itâs all she knows. And she wants to make bank eventually, in part because she knows that, if she wants to stay here, she has to.
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I feel like the article would have been significantly more relevant if it addressed kids that didnât know what an âelevator pitchâ is, no clue that âknowledge workersâ exist, got rejected from their state flagship and were struggling to pay their way through college. If you canât open as many doors as you think you deserve because the gold bars youâre carrying make it difficult, you kind of lose me.
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I actually have a whole theory about how the ârealâ unhooked admissions rate to the most selective colleges is probably still in the 15-20% range. Quick version, a variety of these colleges have suggested they have started doing some sort of initial quick review of the applications to sort out which are competitive enough to merit a full review. Reading between the lines a bit, I think after that step they are likely in that range, meaning something like 15-20% of the unhooked applicants who made it to full review are going to be accepted.
If true, this means there is a communication problem where a lot of people are applying to these colleges despite not having a realistic chance. A matching system would be one way around this, and I also think you are right that at least cutting down on the allowed number of such applications would be another. A whackier idea is to eventually have colleges make available a sort of NPC-style AI-driven initial review estimator. It would not guarantee anything, but its output would be something like, âBased on the uploaded application you have a X% chance of not passing initial review.â
Combine that with a limit, and that might REALLY deter uncompetitive applications. Like it wouldnât make much sense to use your five spots all on colleges where it said you had a 99% chance of not passing initial review.
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Boomers (especially the earlier ones) grew up in a US where most of them did better than their parents economically.
This is no longer true.
Parents often want their kids to do better than they did, and kids want to do better than their parents did. But it is more competitive now to be in the group that does better than their parents did, compared to boomers.
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I am very sympathetic to the Bay Area predicament; I grew up in a Northeastern suburb which used to have âregular peopleâ. My parents were teachers, for example. I know that many of my growing up neighbors, friends, etc. couldnât afford to live there now. I never wanted to- so problem solved for meâŠ
So I get it. But is this a societal tragedy-- or just one more decision adults need to make in their lives? Itâs got a lot of emotional resonance-- "Joanne grew up in Greenwich CT but even though she wanted to teach French at Greenwich HS when she graduated from college, sheâd have had a one hour commute each way so sheâs now teaching French at a HS in Milford or Branford or West Haven or Stratford (fill in the blanks- many leafy shoreline towns in CT which are cheaper than Greenwich, one of the priciest housing markets in the Northeast).
It just seems like âmission creepâ if as a society we need to make sure that everyone can live in every single locale doing every single type of employment or otherwise we are failing as a country.
Do we lose sleep over the people who canât afford a Mercedes so they buy a used Subaru? Why does the notion that Joanne canât afford a house in a pricey suburb have greater resonance??? And simple solution of course-- donât become a French teacher if you WANT to return to Greenwich. Dermatology, anyone?
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Is this our new national religion? Iâm the child of a refugee. It was enough to hope or know that your kid wasnât getting kicked out of school and all your property confiscated by the state, and then shuttled off in the middle of the night into a concentration camp. The notion of âdoing betterâ seems VERY skewed to a certain segment of our population- certainly not universal.
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But that doesnât solve the issue that SOMEONE needs to teach French at Greenwich HS and they need to make enough to be able to afford to live within a reasonable commute distance.
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Agreed. Itâs odd that they are so surprised that it is hard to get into competitive clubs at their colleges, and then hard to get jobs when the people at the most elite colleges are applying for the same super competitive jobs as them. Itâs as if they forgot that 95%± of applicants to those elite colleges got rejected in the first place.
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This of course is a real thing, and part of the problem is various housing and land use policies that have kept housing supply from meeting housing demand in a variety of popular metros.
That said, it is a sort of truism of industrialized market-capitalist economies that frequently kids have to move away from home to get the best economic opportunities. Of course this happened on a mass scale during the industrialization of agriculture. But the way firms and industries and labor markets and such tend to develop and evolve and be âcreatively destroyedâ and so on also means your particular talents and interests will likely lead you to a different locale than whatever made sense for your parents.
And that is particularly true of family-less young college graduates, who have a big advantage in terms of being able to go into whatever career paths currently look most promising wherever that might be . . . but they have to be willing to do that.
And of course people have always complained about the fact that the area of their birth may not be the best place for them to make their own life (or for their kids to make their lives, or so on). Indeed, there are still people basically complaining about the implications of the industrialization of agriculture (whether they would put it in those exact terms or not).
But this is one of those areas where I think it would be useful for more adults to be giving kids the message that college-driven economic opportunities and geographic mobility tend to go together. That is just how our sorts of economy tend to work.
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Yes- and many of those someoneâs live in Bridgeport and Yonkers and Mount Vernon (closer in suburbs-- and not as âchi-chiâ as Greenwich) and Iâll bet they donât consider themselves failures. Itâs not as though there isnât a single town where a teacher can live within commuting distance of Greenwich. But do they have a Saks on the main drag or just a CVS and an ice cream store? Portchester NY is a ten minute drive from Greenwich HS (depending on traffic).
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Life is tough, and we donât all have parents who will subsidize the lifestyle we want. Heck, I experienced that way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Today, what people âneedâ is more than what my generation âneeded.â Unlimited cell phone plan, streaming services, big screen tv, huge house (if in the group that is able to seriously ponder home ownership), new car lease as opposed to used car, organic food as opposed to whatever store brand is on sale, making coffee at home & bringing it to work in a thermos ⊠you get the idea.
My H blames everything on participation trophies. Thatâs simplistic, but the general point is valid ⊠a lot of kids are given a lot, they expect it to come to them, and they are not comfortable with less. Many of their parents donât want to disappoint them by telling them that they need to figure it out on their own. It is not fair to the young people, because they eventually do have to figure out how to make their own way in a world that very often seems unfair.
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There is this notion that has been termed âThe American Dream.â Itâs not a new idea, and it may not even be a valid idea, but it is an idea that persists in various segments of our society and, for many, seems increasingly out of reach. That doesnât mean that is MUST be within reach, but I think many people grew up in the US being assured that, if they worked hard, it would be within reach - a belief that seemed justified when looking at previous generations who were able to buy homes and cars - even if modest ones - on lower-middle-class salaries. Again, that doesnât necessarily mean itâs a valid belief or should be, but it surely is an idea that has been widely sold to many people.
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Americans Less Optimistic About Next Generation's Future indicates that the pessimism about kids doing better is widespread, rather than just being limited to upper middle class parents and their kids trying to move into the upper class.
Of course, when the economy is seen as zero or negative sum, that can bring out more hypercompetitive behavior and other ugliness.
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Aaah⊠but does âdoing betterâ ONLY mean financially?
We canât be proud of the kid who is working a public service job if it means they donât make as much as litigator mommy or banker daddy? What if your kid goes to divinity school and becomes a religious leader?
As a first generation American I love the âAmerican Dreamâ as much as anyone. But not because it means I have more toys than my parents did.
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Hereâs the thing: Iâm willing to bet there are plenty of people who were born in Bridgeport who have been priced out of Bridgeport. I guess they wind up in White Plains?
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It doesnât, butâŠ
The above appears to be a minority or outlier viewpoint in the US, for whatever reason. In addition, some people who may have wanted to do such things chose otherwise because the pay was too low.
Of course, if the parents were merely middle income and just getting by on that, they (and their kids) may be well aware that the buffer between middle income and poor is less than it is for those with high income.
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I agree with Kelsmom about the participation trophies and sheltering kids from disappointment. IMO we are not teaching, nor modeling, resiliency. Grade inflation contributes to that too. For most of us, failure is what spurs the moments of the biggest growth not ongoing success.
And maybe because Iâm the child of immigrants, but the whole concept of staying in your home town is completely foreign to me. We have always gone where the jobs were, and we always took into account cost of living when doing our assessment. My H turned down a job in a very pricey area/desirable part of New England for a similar position in terms of responsibility and salary in the midwest. In NE we would have had to rent a small apartment or have a very very long commute (and we had a baby at the time so work/life balance was important). In the midwest, we could afford a 5 bedroom/3 bath/3000 sq ft house 7 minutes from work. We also moved 9 times in our marriage for career advancement.
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