<p>If you look at American poets in the 20th Century, the vast majority of famous ones had elite educations. Stevens, Eliot, Cummings, Lowell, and Ashbery went to Harvard (Lowell dropping out, and resurfacing at Kenyon), Hughes, Berryman and Ginsberg went to Columbia. Pound, H.D., and Williams went to Penn. Stein, Kumin and Rich went to Radcliffe, Sylvia Plath to Smith, Elizabeth Bishop to Vassar. Gary Snyder went to Reed. Randall Jarrell to Vanderbilt. </p>
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MIT used to have a question on the form the teachers filled out that got at that question - something like “Did they get the grade from brilliance vs working hard” There used to be a lot of angst that teachers would not know what the “right” answer was.) </p>
<p>In any event, I think that there are a lot of kids at Harvard like that. They are excelling at academics with plenty of time to dream, go camping and do ECs both at school and in the community. I do think Vendler is correct though that Harvard could go looking for a few more of the poets and artists, I feel like there are many, many more future investment bankers and pre-meds than there were in my time. However, maybe that’s just a function of who I knew. Through *The Advocate<a href=“Harvard’s%20literary%20magazine”>/i</a> and my major, I probably knew more of the poets and artists of my time at Harvard than most people. Some of them are now publishing in the New Yorker, or showing in galleries. At least one got a McArthur genius grant. Harvard says they want those people too, but I’m not sure they really know how to identify them at 18. Especially since they don’t want the ones who blow off academics. At least not from my observations.</p>
<p>JHS, the point is, would those poets have been admitted to those schools today? Would those schools accept those students, bright but unproven? I rather doubt it. I’m not arguing for a revamp of the existing system, but regretting that the existing system leaves so little space for the nonconformist. The number of fabulous kids with a claim on fabulous schools simply means that kids whose fabulousity is yet to be expressed are left out, and I think that’s a shame. I guess I just don’t know those super-brilliant kids who are beyond normal measure; I have known a fair number of very smart kids. Given that you have a group of very smart kids, some will be performers and some will be reflectors, and it seems that in today’s market, performers have more traction than reflectors. I speak for the reflectors.</p>
<p>I wonder, then, if what we’re really talking about isn’t a change in who is getting admitted so much as a much larger cultural shift: is the issue that Harvard isn’t admitting as many future poets, or that more or the people who once might have become poets are becoming I-bankers and consultants instead?</p>
<p>Although, in fairness I must mention, since he came up in JHS’s last post, that Wallace Stevens spent his entire adult life as an insurance executive, and still managed to win a Pulitzer!</p>
<p>^And William Carlos Williams was a doctor.</p>
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<p>There’s been a lot of digital pixels being expended by both critics of Ivy/peer elite college admissions and those who inhabit those very hallowed halls, including Profs of those very institutions expressing serious disquiet over whether the critical mass numbers of graduates going into Ibanking and consulting could be undermining the very educational mission and values of these institutions. </p>
<p>While I find they sometimes take their arguments to extremes, their point about the increasing attention to high prestige/highly lucrative jobs at the expense of other less lucrative, but arguably more socially helpful jobs by a critical mass of graduates is fair food for thought. </p>
<p>This is probably one reason why Ivy…and to be fair many other elite college students attending institutions which send a high critical mass of graduates into such fields are stereotyped as “resume builders”, however unfair it may be. </p>
<p>That, and the seeming fear-driven idea by parents and potential applicants that college admissions…especially elite college admissions has become such an intensive “arms race” that with few exceptions, students need to curtail or even give up a reasonably normal paced childhood and/or part-time/weekend jobs because they aren’t going to dazzle the adcoms. </p>
<p>The over-the-top contests over “my elite college is better than your elite because our admission percentage is closer to absolute zero” is the epitome of this…and one which I felt was idiotic even back in HS. </p>
<p>If a given college has admission figures closer to absolute zero but doesn’t offer academic programs I’m interested in, has a campus culture not congenial to what I feel is a college experience, or have any other detracting factors…not interested. </p>
<p>And having former alums of such institutions making snide remarks on the basis of such contests actually further undermines whatever respect I may have had for such alums and to some extent their alma mater. </p>
<p>I just did a quick Google search of writing and poetry contest for HS students. There were pages of them. Formerly, I only knew of one, which my son’s teacher encouraged him to submit a paper to. I don’t know which of these contests carry weight, but winning at this level sets a budding writer or poet apart.</p>
<p>Harvard can’t do anything about career aspirations, but yk nothing prevents them from limiting on campus interviewing. </p>
<p>I’d like to start the university for smart kids of the type that marysidney described on April 9 . . . which will surprise no one who has read a lot of my posts. Now, all I need is the start-up funding. :)</p>
<p>Not sure how one thinks they’d identify the next generation of poets and writers based on hs interest. I think many will again go back to contests which really don’t predict. </p>
<p>And how many kids are really headed for IB? </p>
<p>Hmmm…some interesting points here re. the merits and hidden potential of the unremarkable 17 year old. Maybe the administration at OP’s private school are right and there are steps in place to employ AAA (affirmative action for the average) measures at the Ivies, etc. J/K…but wouldn’t that make some posters on CC go nuts! </p>
<p>And, pending funding for University of @QuantMech (not a bad idea either!), I do think there are lots of excellent places for the dreamers that we’re talking about. Like Reed College, for example…you know, Steve Jobs’ almost alma mater. He did pretty well for himself, and he was likely the kind of kid I have in my mind when I’m reading all of this. My guess is that if Steve Jobs had prepared for and gone to the Harvard of today, it would be likely that we could have one more billionaire hedge-fund manager and no IPads. </p>
<p>There are a lot of dreamer type kids at Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Hampshire, Reed, Grinnell, Goucher. I don’t know that the solution is to start yet another college, given that the demographic trends suggest so many small colleges going belly-up in the next few years. (Antioch anyone? a dreamer college par excellence). Maybe the solution is encourage the dreamer type kid to resist the societal pressure to major in accounting or engineering to satisfy the critics who claim that a kid majoring in a humanities subject is doomed to minimum wage forever (a new thread started today on this very subject. And the predictable folks weighing in, “I don’t know ANY unemployed engineering grads-” which to me just proves that they don’t know many engineering grads!</p>
<p><a href=“Antioch%20anyone?%20a%20dreamer%20college%20par%20excellence”>quote</a>.
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<p>There are different types of dreamers, too. Antioch, like my LAC, tend to fit dreamers who tend to be passionate about political activism and demonstrate it through public protests if it’s perceived to be necessary. </p>
<p>While a budding literary writer can find a home there, it’s not exactly the idyllic bucolic environment one often thinks of when seeking out congenial surroundings for contemplative writers…especially poets unless it’s of the slam/political protest kind. :)</p>
<p>As for Antioch’s closure, that was due to the trustees’ allocating too many resources to the Antioch University branch campuses offering more pre-professionally oriented fields of study at the expense of the parent college as reported in regional and national MSM. One illustration of this was how those branch campuses mostly remained open while the college was closed such as the ones in California and Seattle. </p>
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<p>Obviously they missed or decided to ignore the dotcom crash of 2001 or the widespread reports in tech media about possible age discrimination against those who reach 40+. :p</p>
<p>While I agree that there are schools that are more likely to attract the creative types, I do think it is important not to romanticize the LAC either. LACs get some kids that the Ivies don’t - but they also don’t attract plenty of kids that Ivies do, and not just the budding investment bankers. Any change in admissions priorities or campus culture means that there are going to be some very desirable students you get who you otherwise wouldn’t, but also some very desirable students you otherwise might have but now won’t. </p>
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Unless the dreamy idealists play the viola and their parents are from Ghana.</p>
<p>^Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.</p>
<p><a href=“JAWS ON VIOLA - YouTube”>JAWS ON VIOLA - YouTube;
<p>The bottom line is that until you have serious intellectuals reading the applications, admissions won’t favor that type of candidate or even IMO evaluate them equally with other types of candidates. </p>
<p>Admissions will always be slanted toward candidates that remind the adcoms of themselves. From my own alma mater, when Marilee Jones took over MIT admissions, all of a sudden zany, capricious people with academic bents got admitted. I think the guy is great in general, but when Stu Schmill took over MIT admissions, all of a sudden MIT started breaking its athletic records left and right. Stu was formerly a coxswain and coached the MIT rowing team for more than a decade. </p>
<p>I’d like to see what would happen if Jorie Graham or Steve Pinker were reading apps, but they likely don’t have time for that. And the few profs who do participate in admissions are too much in the minority to really shift the culture.</p>
<p>I am usually all for criticizing the culture and social contribution of Harvard, Princeton et al., but here I feel compelled to defend those universities, or more specifically Harvard.</p>
<p>I think of all the most selective universities, Harvard is the one most willing to take a chance on a weaker applicant who shows some unquantifiable kind of creative promise or–which is more likely in high school–sensibility. My admittedly limited exposure to Harvard’s admission practices has led me to believe that, should its adcom come across a talented writer or poet or a keen thinker whose application reveals greater emotional/intellectual depth than what could be expected of a high-school student, Harvard is more likely to overlook that student’s underwhelming grades, class rank or extracurriculars and accept him or her than Stanford, Princeton or Yale (or a bunch of other universities).</p>
<p>The truth is, not many of those students apply to Harvard–or exist at all. I think a lot of people who complain about how inaccessible Harvard is to the genius dreamy poetry type overestimate the number of dreamy poetry geniuses who come along in a year, or a decade. I don’t think the most selective universities have lost the ability to recognize these students; I think they simply don’t see such applicants very often–and, apart from Harvard, UChicago and maaaybe Yale, they don’t make it an institutional priority to have them on campus. Stanford, UPenn and Dartmouth certainly don’t.</p>
<p>Folks should remember “creative promise” doesn’t just jump off the average top hs kid’s page. You all may be thinking about some extreme, some true next great name or a kid who’s oddball in a fantastic, leading way that will affect popular culture. But that’s still rare, not most high school kids who “say” they are budding writers or poets or that they love to draw. Or you are thinking of our kids and their friends who have a purported “passion.” </p>
<p>Some get as far as several entries in their high school lit magazine or a local contest- and again, being best in your own high school (or even your award pool) is no magic signal about the quality, how they will stick with it- or that there’s any true competitive quality there. </p>
<p>This isn’t as simple as tippy top adcoms should be more intellectual or art-sensitive (as if they are lunks.) There’s a big difference, eg, between saying, “I did Novel Writing Month” (write 50k words, any words) or “I self-published” or “I won a Gold” and some higher level of vetted quality. </p>
<p>Actually, self-publishing doesn’t involve being vetted, just having money. And I think doing NANOWRIMO is a pretty big accomplishment for anyone, let alone a highschooler (especially in November, when so much else is going on).</p>
<p>Say you have two very academically talented kids, essentially equivalent quite high stats–3.9+ GPA, 2250+ SAT. One is a real go-getter in school, maybe editor-in-chief of the yearbook and a captain of a sports team, something like that–a leader. The other is a poet, someone who’s had work published in the school literary magazine, or maybe won the school’s best award for poetry, but nothing national; her English teacher thinks she’s great. Neither can claim “major awards,” like Siemens or whatever. Is either or both still a candidate for HYPSM@#$%? If not, top twenty? Top forty? How significant, in the end, are ECs, given a baseline academic excellence? </p>