Seattle Times: Should Learning Be its Own Reward?

BusinessGuy
Wed, 22 Nov 2006 02:28:13 +0000

It’s easy to say that there are thousands of great colleges, but it is really dependent on the career which a student wishes to pursue. The way I think of it is - if I walk into an office to ask for an internship, job, or something to that effect, by having the Harvard prestige behind me, I have a significantly better chance of getting somewhere than if I had gone to any one of those thousands of great schools.

I’m not attending an Ivy, and neither do I think that it’s necessary or the right choice in all situations to attend an Ivy; however, if one works their entire scholastic career, and puts in the effort outside of class, it’s reasonable to assume that the student would expect, or at least like some sort of reward. Admission into a college that anyone can get into isn’t exactly the type of reward most overachievers expect.

It’s simply ignorant to discount the enormous advantages to an Ivy education, and it’s also very common to use admission into HYP to represent the fulfillment of a dream; I don’t see where the opinion that either of those schools is the be-all, end-all comes up.

I really don’t see much reason to argue this point though; it’s inconsequential to the overall idea. Just pretend that HYP is your son’s dream school.