I learned about your writings from a dear friend who has been an early childhood educator for half a century. Wonderful post.
As an academic physician who entered the US medical system after med school in Germany, I would like to add an observation which underlines your points made: ON AVERAGE, I have found German med students -who are selected based on high school performance but have nowhere near the brutal selectivity pressure US students have- to be better residents and attending physicians than US counterparts. From a ROI perspective on TECHNOCRATIC SKILL, which is related yet different from your points made here, this observation of mine is a disastrous indictment of our current US system.
If the German system produces equal if not better doctors, then why are we putting so much effort (and $$) into our system? My answer is that our current system serves the institutions, not the students.
And you touch on this here, yet in my view it deserves to be elevated even more: The 'lack of slack' in our current system produces this oddly manicured candidate. As a faculty member at an Ivy League teaching hospital, I have interviewed 'highly competitive' candidates for many years, and their CVs bore me to death. They are so generic, as if AI had created their life story! The rare truly authentic candidate -rare because most are filtered out long before I get to see any resumes- is a delight precisely because "the application sings" and doesn't just check all the boxes.
I'm so grateful to see a spotlight turned on this issue. That pressure begins in early childhood, undermining everything we know about true and sustainable learning, and creating a bereft value system. The sense of community, the desire to be part of it and serve the common good gets supplanted by the need for personal gain. My heart breaks for the kids who get sucked into this heartless competitive world. Thank you Peter for shouting into the wilderness all these years. New voices are finding you. There's hope for change!
Yeah this is the point of view I hold as well. College grades are correlated with SAT scores. Why not just use that? Whatever criteria you use for admissions is going to be gamed to hell and back. Why not use only the things kids are trying to excel at anyway, like high school grades or SAT scores?
The problem here is universities want to meet their diversity goals, so they keep changing criteria every now and then in a very opaque way to make that happen. But there's a much better way of going about this as well. India has figured it out. They have percentage quotas for different communities, some of which is mandated by the government, some of which is set by the institution's goals itself (i.e. for the upliftment of a certain group). But it's quite clear and transparent ahead of time. And it's competitive by grades/test scores within each group.
It might not be possible to do exactly this in the US for a variety of reasons, but it's worth paying attention to.
I agree with you Lila, that there are many interesting ways to rethink college admissions. I am not an expert in this matter, but I like the idea of colleges being allowed to set a certain aptitude threshold (be that a SAT, ACT, school GPA, or any other objective metric) but then -and this is key- use a lottery! Yes, you heard right: a lottery. I heard this argument first advanced by the philosopher Michael Sandel, although I am sure he was not the first to make it.
Why is a lottery among a pool of qualified candidates a great idea?
For a number of reasons.
(1) An applicant who passes the transparent threshold knows "they are in the mix", with an equal chance as any other applicant in the pool. No gaming the system, no future 'college admissions scandal', no legacy admissions nonsense. As a result: massive stress reduction!
(2) An applicant accepted at a given school feels much less "chosen" for brilliance - and those around him or her do not, either. Instead, there will be a "I won the lottery" feeling (literally!), which is an immensely healthy way to judge merit within oneself or within a loved one. I consider this a key strength of this system - a de-Brahmin-ification in the Thomas Picketty sense.
Imagine that the only letter your child gets, after submitting applications, is a "The lottery has chosen school XYZ for you". No rejection letters! Just one acceptance letter.
(3) Over time -a few lottery cycles- our artificial college admission landscape...the entire 'US News & World Report' landscape...will fall apart. A lottery eliminates 'selectivity' - a critical goal of any reform. But it ensures high quality students at all these schools due to the up-front threshold - only the fake selectivity world of our modern college system is eliminated
(4) "Affirmative action" becomes much less of a need, as the lottery does not artificially bias against rural high schools or other disadvantaged geographies or ethnicities. Once you make the cut, you are in the mix! Harvard gets a random sample, not a highly manicured one.
(5) Relatively soon this will have beneficial effects all the way down to pre-school: The crazy rat race for a "competitive CV" will end.
I am sure there are other immediate as well as long-term benefits, but I stop here. Now - who doesn't like this idea? Tens of thousands of college admissions officers who have a job simply because colleges have created this ridiculous structure. The leadership of Ivy Plus colleges as their entire business model -including the alum system- is built on exclusivity and low acceptance rates.
But lottery or not, the key insight is to reintroduce "slack" into the system of education. Gap years, random play, unstructured play - all of that is good for the young mind, and ultimately good for a healthy society.
I agree with a lot of what you said. Though in the end when you mentioned gap years, it brought up a thought I'd had recently - how long before gap years get gamified as well? Prestigious internships, organized travel, planned charity events.
Slack comes of things that aren't used to evaluate your admissibility to college. I think if admissions in the US stop using slack things to admit kids to college, like extracurriculars that aren't directly related to the program at hand, we can have childhood bacl.
Gap years are already 'gamified', Lila! 100% correct. There is an entire cottage industry out there to "make you more competitive" during your gap year. You can "grow your mind" while studying French and also learning deep sea fishing...usually for about $5-10k a month in fees and costs of living.
What I meant is a true service year - something analogous to the various 'national service year' initiatives which people like McCrystal and others have proposed. A great way to drag young people out of their socioeconomic bubbles! And to create cohesion among future generations.
Great article. Several points to make here. For context: I'm 59 y/o, went to U of MD for undergrad and got degree in Underwater cinematography from the Individual Studies Program. Not terribly practical but...I actually got a great education. Zoology and marine biology classes, film production and studies classes, a bunch of general studies classes that resonate to this day, (On Death and Dying, and Controlling Stress and Tension). One advisor was Dr. Eugene Clark, a world famous shark biologist, and another the Individual Studies adviser Dr. Lasota, who was supportive and encouraging. My biggest mistake was not listening when he told me to take Spanish! LOL. I have siblings who went to MIT, Cornell, and U of Chicago. Prior to college I thought I was dumb and was so burned out that I didn't want go. I went with the goal of just taking classes that interested me. This helped me to rekindle my love of learning and curiosity about the world. I also learned that I was smart enough and capable enough to do what I wanted.
Opening the mind of a student to the world of ideas, crafts, arts, etc. is really what I feel the primary goal of college should be. It's about broadening your world. Deepening your ability to bring insight into life. Giving you a deeper level of understanding of things around you.
After a few years of trying different jobs, (education department at an aquarium, physical therapy aide in a nursing home, etc.) I went back to school at Cal State Hayward. It has no reputation for anything in particular, but had great teachers and classes. I took courses for getting into physician assistant programs. Applied to 50 programs and got into 2. One of the newest and and least know schools and also one of the best in country. The good school was good, but I don't think it is the reason I've gotten any of the jobs I've had. In fact the first thing I get asked in an interview is "So tell me about underwater cinematography?!" It's actually a great door opener, and once I'm in the door I can fly on my skills.
Now this may all sound a bit roundabout to you, but I came from a rather troubled background and at one point was ready to ditch college completely. Many people do not have a direct path to careers. Exposure to the world of ideas can come from many colleges. But a lot of kids today are burned out and have been taught the goal is to jump through hoops. SATs, AP classes, extracurriculars etc. I think it is the love of learning that lets a student excel or even do well enough, regardless of location.
About 15 yrs ago I saw an article in a magazine, (Forbes maybe?) that looked at the schooling of the CEO's of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies. Only one went to Dartmouth, the rest went to state schools. And frankly I've never had the goal of being the CEO of a big company.
I have 14 y/o twins. I've never bought into the Ivy League, top school stuff, and in fact work hard to keep the pressure off my kids and keep the love of learning going. This has involved a lot of searching and moving of schools. Fortunately, I found a project-based-learning public school where my kids are thriving. But the older they get, the more I get hit by parents spouting the full pressure "must get into the best school" thing. That fear and panic is truly out there and parents are sharing it around. You have to be quite confident to resist it.
A video entitled, "5 simple (and kinda weird) Dutch habits to simplify your life."
Vera relates the Dutch concept of "the rule of 6's." Apparently, one is encouraged in school to maintain a 6 out of 10 in studies and tests. Striving too much higher than a 6 leads to concerns that the student is not allowing themselves enough time to balance their life with rest, fun, hobbies, friends etc. Apparently this is widely supported by parents and students alike. Not because they don't value skills and knowledge but because they value a person taking and building a balanced life. This is further facilitated by the fact that "6's" are entirely enough to get you into college which is also heavily subsidized by the government. And don't forget, the Dutch are a productive and educated people with loads of tech and engineering.
Now that I think about it, most of my friends are "educated white-collar professionals" and all went to state schools. No one talks about their "alma mater" or GPA!
Also, we forget to talk about the "disadvantages" of Ivy League schools. Lack of diversity, "inbred intellectual thoughts" poor understanding of less well off or first in family college students, potentially a narrow "rich" view of the world.
My eldest daughter was an excellent student; straight A's her entire school career, AP classes in high school, etc.. However, I was fully aware that she was not going to get into an Ivy, because she went to a small-town high school vs. a prestigious private school or highly-ranked public high school; she was not an interesting ethnic group; and she wasn't a "well-rounded" student (i.e., the only extracurricular she did was music; she didn't play a sport and she spent her summers working at teenager-type jobs as we aren't the type of people who could find her an impressive-sounding "internship"). Also, we are not rich.
Her teachers would gushingly say "she's so bright and so good at languages! She should apply to Middlebury! (or Swarthmore, or Smith, or Pomona, or Hamilton, etc.)" After looking up the tuition at those highly-selective liberal arts schools, and realizing we are in the category of people who don't qualify for much in the way of financial aid, but also don't have any extra $50K per year lying around, I was interested to see if attending a school like that had any actual advantage in terms of career.
I researched a bit on the subject and came to the conclusion that if it is not an Ivy, there is no strong advantage to attending a highly-selective liberal arts college vs. a state university. For example, one of the admin assistants at my previous job had a degree from Mount Holyoke; but we had others in similar positions with degrees from community college or none at all. Now, I did recall that when I lived in South Carolina, I worked at a company founded by Clemson grads, and they definitely had a *slight* preference for hiring other Clemson grads - but even they were willing to hire a U. of SC Gamecock if he/she had the right qualifications. I worked in HR for a number of years, and remembered that when we screened resumes we didn't particularly care what college a candidate had gone to, as long as they had the required degree.
At the time, my daughter's career choice necessitated a master's degree anyway; so my advice to her was to go to the state university and save the money for her graduate degree.
Some of my daughter's friends attended highly-selective liberal arts colleges; and I would concede that the support and personal attention for students were definitely much better at those schools. Once you get in, they are very, very intent on making sure you don't drop out. While most state schools also have a lot of resources for tutoring, mental health, etc., it is more on the student to seek out what they need and it is much easier to fall through the cracks.
In my daughter's case, I think it was beneficial for her to attend a state university. She met people from all sorts of economic and cultural backgrounds; vs. being with predominantly upper-middle class and wealthy peers; and academically she was one of the top students, vs. being a middle-of-the-pack student at a more selective school. As she is prone to anxiety and perfectionism, I think she would have gone a bit off the deep end if she was in an environment where *everyone* was above-average; it helped her confidence a good bit to be in a more diverse (in terms of IQ) milieu.
While it is true that the expensive private schools can offer larger scholarships and financial aid packages, they are still pretty expensive. A $30K per year scholarship sounds great, but when applied to a $75K per year tuition you're still forking out a big chunk of change. Some state universities are quite stingy with academic scholarships (UMass, I'm looking at you) but other states are quite generous (Maine, for example, offers a flagship match tuition for out-of-state students, plus academic scholarships).
I attended Ivy(+) for undergrad and grad school, and I've taught at Ivy+ and state schools. There's a big difference in the amount of resources available between the two schools. At the Ivy+ level, class sizes are much smaller, and it's easier for students to build meaningful connections with faculty and get involved in research. At state schools, especially if the major is a popular one, it can be challenging for students to get into the classes they need or find an open spot to work in a lab or get a professor who knows them well enough to write a good rec letter.
Wealthier schools also have more support resources available, which can be especially valuable when students are in crisis. They also have more funding for enriching experiences like supporting summer activities, hosting guest speakers or conferences, etc.
That said, students who would be able to get into an elite school but choose to go to a state school probably have underlying characteristics that will help them succeed wherever they are - but that path to success is likely easier to tread at the elite school.
DrK mentioned that high IQ students are in fact special needs because a common trope is that they get along fine with low effort, while those who had to learn to work eventually overtake them. All of this extra help rich kids get could explain what's going on, when high IQ kids actually learn to work, they can be put almost anywhere and do fine. We know SAT prep barely impacts scores at all, therefore something else is being acquired in those classes, discipline perhaps?
I remember hearing Thomas Sowell speaking against affirmative action in elite colleges, that the drop out rate or switching to an easier major was very common. My thought when I heard that was mostly "Oh, so the teaching quality is bad. You have to have a high enough IQ such that bad teaching doesn't stop you from learning".
Thus, having the luxury, and I love that word here, the luxury to choose your students means you can actually get away with low teacher quality.
I recall something very similar from a New York Times podcast where they spoke to white parents who sent their kids to private schools after integration. I heard the same story, energy was directed at helping the kids who needed it more and everybody suffered from lower standards.
In every such story I hear, it seems like almost no school is any good at teaching. What we are good at I suppose is sorting kids according to their pre-existing abilities and taking credit for their successes and blaming them or their parents for their failures. What kind of school can take in ANYBODY and get a good result?
It might sound hypocritical (my daughter & are MIT grads, blah, blah, blah ...) that I believe that too many young lives are channeled onto tracks that lead their hearts & minds far from their true potentials into sterile cubicles. A process that starts with pre-pre-kindergarten & the anxiety of parental obsession with performance at this precocious age.
Thank you for your continuing efforts to bring joy & sanity into childhood.
I went to college at a less prestigious institution, as a scholarship holder. I had no means of supporting myself. However, just as you show us, I had teachers who placed me in academic opportunities that helped me follow a successful journey, improve my life from a socioeconomic point of view and understand that yes, I was successful! Interestingly, none of my college class (non-scholarship students and those with better economic conditions) embarked on a successful professional journey. None of them, for example, reached a senior level in their jobs. I emphasize that my reality is influenced by factors very different from those in the USA, since I am a Latin American, born in Brazil and working as a basic education manager.
I suggest you read the book Paying For The Party. It follows a set of girls through their years in a flagship state college.
The relevant findings:
* children of very involved parents did well at college in the professional track.
* girls whose parents weren't so involved got caught up in the party scene, socialized with wealthy girls and downgraded to less serious majors and had difficulty finding a job later and ended up doing minimum wage jobs.
* the problem with state schools is they don't have any social opportunities beyond the Greek scene. In contrast, ivy universities have a variety of social opportunities that don't involve partying which can keep students engaged with academics
* scholarships, internships and personal attention from teachers are more scarce in public universities. As are job prep, exam prep and alumni help.
Comparing ivy leagues to top flagship state universities isn't saying that much, because most kids who are aiming for Ivies are also aiming for these other universities and admissions are just as competitive. In the bay area where I am, Asian kids trying to get into computer science programs can't even hope to get into a UC and now go to some of the lower ranked Cal Polys when a similar resume would have got them into a UC just a few years prior. What does the research say about MIT vs Cal Poly?
The source of stress here isn't that they are applying to the Ivies. It's that admission criteria keeps getting changed in such a way that objective criteria like grades or SATs keep getting downgraded or removed and subjective criteria are on the rise. The subjective criteria like extracurriculars or sob story essays are like Pokémon- gotta catch em all. And you don't know where you stand until you actually hear back from the universities. Previously you needed to get decent grades and be competent at coursework, maybe honors classes, then they changed it so you need to be in the top 10 of your class. So if you switched to a school with less focused kids in your senior year, that gives you a better chance lol. And then they decided to not consider SATs all of a sudden.
If there's primarily objective, or at least transparent criteria for getting into university, you know by high school what you can realistically aim for. If it's one or two criteria, you can focus on those temporarily. But if it's a multitude of stuff, some of which you have no control over, like your school district or what race you are, or what size you were at age 6 which determined how your sports career went or what internships your father's friends can get you, then it becomes a battle of optimizing every aspect of your life from birth on in the hope of winning the lottery.
Most kids I see aren't trying to be ivy league or bust. It's more of a "if you shoot for the moon you'll end up among the stars" thing. And what they really want is to avoid being underemployed and poor. When even admissions to Cal Poly are competitive now, it feels like there are few options other than to grind.
In the end, people just need to be useful, helpful. Those things don't cost money.
If you want to do X for money then you are stuck with whatever the industry demands, reasonable or not. However, if you actually care about X, and not just the money X can make you, then this is where hobbies come in to maybe pay off beyond enjoyment maybe.
Almost everytime I hear someone complain about how hard it is to get into an industry I just come back with "why do you even care then?" Most actors make diddly squat from acting, they just do other things too. Arnold Schwarzeneggar took acting classes while working construction. Joe Rogan has talked about how unhappy actors are when all they do is worry about their image, their billing. Talking about the News Radio cast he used to say "last time I checked, we're on TV!", but even that wasn't enough for some of them.
Yes its hard to work your way into an apparently more desirable socio-economic class, but you don't actually have to do that. Even Starbucks workers have started unionizing... There is no "need" to break into a specific career field. Human talents vary and are needed all over the place. The goal should be to help student's get connected to where their talents are most appreciated. As for the underappreciated, I think organized labor is the answer there.
You need skills to useful and learning those skills well costs money and is gatekept by stuff like college admissions. Acting has a low entry barrier which is every kid in LA is enrolled in acting classes so they can be the next Macaulay Culkin. Even if you want to do something low paid and selfless like social work, you need to get a college degree.
But most people don't have a passion at 17. They just know want to be financially independent and spend time with nice people. Now to do that without busting your knees by age 40, you need a college degree. The passion for the career develops with expertise and skill.
Parents want their kids to get a degree when they can still financially support them. Sure, Arnold worked in construction while trying to bodybuild (not act, that came later), but he did develop the skills for construction on someone else's dime, he didn't come out of the womb knowing to build houses.
Oh my… This is truly a HUGE Duh?!?!? I’ve never met one single person, in my 65 year, urban life, that ever considered “elite” colleges a goal!! And for crying out loud, let’s get rid of that word???
They are rich, period.. Just as flawed as the rest of us.. Sorry, I skipped over most of your post, cause anything about “elite” & “colleges” I avoid. Signed - A successful, no-college, conservative, self-taught proud female.
Good morning Peter!
I learned about your writings from a dear friend who has been an early childhood educator for half a century. Wonderful post.
As an academic physician who entered the US medical system after med school in Germany, I would like to add an observation which underlines your points made: ON AVERAGE, I have found German med students -who are selected based on high school performance but have nowhere near the brutal selectivity pressure US students have- to be better residents and attending physicians than US counterparts. From a ROI perspective on TECHNOCRATIC SKILL, which is related yet different from your points made here, this observation of mine is a disastrous indictment of our current US system.
If the German system produces equal if not better doctors, then why are we putting so much effort (and $$) into our system? My answer is that our current system serves the institutions, not the students.
And you touch on this here, yet in my view it deserves to be elevated even more: The 'lack of slack' in our current system produces this oddly manicured candidate. As a faculty member at an Ivy League teaching hospital, I have interviewed 'highly competitive' candidates for many years, and their CVs bore me to death. They are so generic, as if AI had created their life story! The rare truly authentic candidate -rare because most are filtered out long before I get to see any resumes- is a delight precisely because "the application sings" and doesn't just check all the boxes.
Thanks for a great article, and for all you do.
I'm so grateful to see a spotlight turned on this issue. That pressure begins in early childhood, undermining everything we know about true and sustainable learning, and creating a bereft value system. The sense of community, the desire to be part of it and serve the common good gets supplanted by the need for personal gain. My heart breaks for the kids who get sucked into this heartless competitive world. Thank you Peter for shouting into the wilderness all these years. New voices are finding you. There's hope for change!
Yeah this is the point of view I hold as well. College grades are correlated with SAT scores. Why not just use that? Whatever criteria you use for admissions is going to be gamed to hell and back. Why not use only the things kids are trying to excel at anyway, like high school grades or SAT scores?
The problem here is universities want to meet their diversity goals, so they keep changing criteria every now and then in a very opaque way to make that happen. But there's a much better way of going about this as well. India has figured it out. They have percentage quotas for different communities, some of which is mandated by the government, some of which is set by the institution's goals itself (i.e. for the upliftment of a certain group). But it's quite clear and transparent ahead of time. And it's competitive by grades/test scores within each group.
It might not be possible to do exactly this in the US for a variety of reasons, but it's worth paying attention to.
I agree with you Lila, that there are many interesting ways to rethink college admissions. I am not an expert in this matter, but I like the idea of colleges being allowed to set a certain aptitude threshold (be that a SAT, ACT, school GPA, or any other objective metric) but then -and this is key- use a lottery! Yes, you heard right: a lottery. I heard this argument first advanced by the philosopher Michael Sandel, although I am sure he was not the first to make it.
Why is a lottery among a pool of qualified candidates a great idea?
For a number of reasons.
(1) An applicant who passes the transparent threshold knows "they are in the mix", with an equal chance as any other applicant in the pool. No gaming the system, no future 'college admissions scandal', no legacy admissions nonsense. As a result: massive stress reduction!
(2) An applicant accepted at a given school feels much less "chosen" for brilliance - and those around him or her do not, either. Instead, there will be a "I won the lottery" feeling (literally!), which is an immensely healthy way to judge merit within oneself or within a loved one. I consider this a key strength of this system - a de-Brahmin-ification in the Thomas Picketty sense.
Imagine that the only letter your child gets, after submitting applications, is a "The lottery has chosen school XYZ for you". No rejection letters! Just one acceptance letter.
(3) Over time -a few lottery cycles- our artificial college admission landscape...the entire 'US News & World Report' landscape...will fall apart. A lottery eliminates 'selectivity' - a critical goal of any reform. But it ensures high quality students at all these schools due to the up-front threshold - only the fake selectivity world of our modern college system is eliminated
(4) "Affirmative action" becomes much less of a need, as the lottery does not artificially bias against rural high schools or other disadvantaged geographies or ethnicities. Once you make the cut, you are in the mix! Harvard gets a random sample, not a highly manicured one.
(5) Relatively soon this will have beneficial effects all the way down to pre-school: The crazy rat race for a "competitive CV" will end.
I am sure there are other immediate as well as long-term benefits, but I stop here. Now - who doesn't like this idea? Tens of thousands of college admissions officers who have a job simply because colleges have created this ridiculous structure. The leadership of Ivy Plus colleges as their entire business model -including the alum system- is built on exclusivity and low acceptance rates.
But lottery or not, the key insight is to reintroduce "slack" into the system of education. Gap years, random play, unstructured play - all of that is good for the young mind, and ultimately good for a healthy society.
I agree with a lot of what you said. Though in the end when you mentioned gap years, it brought up a thought I'd had recently - how long before gap years get gamified as well? Prestigious internships, organized travel, planned charity events.
Slack comes of things that aren't used to evaluate your admissibility to college. I think if admissions in the US stop using slack things to admit kids to college, like extracurriculars that aren't directly related to the program at hand, we can have childhood bacl.
Gap years are already 'gamified', Lila! 100% correct. There is an entire cottage industry out there to "make you more competitive" during your gap year. You can "grow your mind" while studying French and also learning deep sea fishing...usually for about $5-10k a month in fees and costs of living.
What I meant is a true service year - something analogous to the various 'national service year' initiatives which people like McCrystal and others have proposed. A great way to drag young people out of their socioeconomic bubbles! And to create cohesion among future generations.
Omg not surprised, but it's awful lol. But a year where you can deeply go into non-academic things is pretty cool if you can afford it.
Great article. Several points to make here. For context: I'm 59 y/o, went to U of MD for undergrad and got degree in Underwater cinematography from the Individual Studies Program. Not terribly practical but...I actually got a great education. Zoology and marine biology classes, film production and studies classes, a bunch of general studies classes that resonate to this day, (On Death and Dying, and Controlling Stress and Tension). One advisor was Dr. Eugene Clark, a world famous shark biologist, and another the Individual Studies adviser Dr. Lasota, who was supportive and encouraging. My biggest mistake was not listening when he told me to take Spanish! LOL. I have siblings who went to MIT, Cornell, and U of Chicago. Prior to college I thought I was dumb and was so burned out that I didn't want go. I went with the goal of just taking classes that interested me. This helped me to rekindle my love of learning and curiosity about the world. I also learned that I was smart enough and capable enough to do what I wanted.
Opening the mind of a student to the world of ideas, crafts, arts, etc. is really what I feel the primary goal of college should be. It's about broadening your world. Deepening your ability to bring insight into life. Giving you a deeper level of understanding of things around you.
After a few years of trying different jobs, (education department at an aquarium, physical therapy aide in a nursing home, etc.) I went back to school at Cal State Hayward. It has no reputation for anything in particular, but had great teachers and classes. I took courses for getting into physician assistant programs. Applied to 50 programs and got into 2. One of the newest and and least know schools and also one of the best in country. The good school was good, but I don't think it is the reason I've gotten any of the jobs I've had. In fact the first thing I get asked in an interview is "So tell me about underwater cinematography?!" It's actually a great door opener, and once I'm in the door I can fly on my skills.
Now this may all sound a bit roundabout to you, but I came from a rather troubled background and at one point was ready to ditch college completely. Many people do not have a direct path to careers. Exposure to the world of ideas can come from many colleges. But a lot of kids today are burned out and have been taught the goal is to jump through hoops. SATs, AP classes, extracurriculars etc. I think it is the love of learning that lets a student excel or even do well enough, regardless of location.
About 15 yrs ago I saw an article in a magazine, (Forbes maybe?) that looked at the schooling of the CEO's of the top 10 Fortune 500 companies. Only one went to Dartmouth, the rest went to state schools. And frankly I've never had the goal of being the CEO of a big company.
I have 14 y/o twins. I've never bought into the Ivy League, top school stuff, and in fact work hard to keep the pressure off my kids and keep the love of learning going. This has involved a lot of searching and moving of schools. Fortunately, I found a project-based-learning public school where my kids are thriving. But the older they get, the more I get hit by parents spouting the full pressure "must get into the best school" thing. That fear and panic is truly out there and parents are sharing it around. You have to be quite confident to resist it.
One more thought in this over long post. Linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpoGhrDQaCc
A video entitled, "5 simple (and kinda weird) Dutch habits to simplify your life."
Vera relates the Dutch concept of "the rule of 6's." Apparently, one is encouraged in school to maintain a 6 out of 10 in studies and tests. Striving too much higher than a 6 leads to concerns that the student is not allowing themselves enough time to balance their life with rest, fun, hobbies, friends etc. Apparently this is widely supported by parents and students alike. Not because they don't value skills and knowledge but because they value a person taking and building a balanced life. This is further facilitated by the fact that "6's" are entirely enough to get you into college which is also heavily subsidized by the government. And don't forget, the Dutch are a productive and educated people with loads of tech and engineering.
Now that I think about it, most of my friends are "educated white-collar professionals" and all went to state schools. No one talks about their "alma mater" or GPA!
Also, we forget to talk about the "disadvantages" of Ivy League schools. Lack of diversity, "inbred intellectual thoughts" poor understanding of less well off or first in family college students, potentially a narrow "rich" view of the world.
My eldest daughter was an excellent student; straight A's her entire school career, AP classes in high school, etc.. However, I was fully aware that she was not going to get into an Ivy, because she went to a small-town high school vs. a prestigious private school or highly-ranked public high school; she was not an interesting ethnic group; and she wasn't a "well-rounded" student (i.e., the only extracurricular she did was music; she didn't play a sport and she spent her summers working at teenager-type jobs as we aren't the type of people who could find her an impressive-sounding "internship"). Also, we are not rich.
Her teachers would gushingly say "she's so bright and so good at languages! She should apply to Middlebury! (or Swarthmore, or Smith, or Pomona, or Hamilton, etc.)" After looking up the tuition at those highly-selective liberal arts schools, and realizing we are in the category of people who don't qualify for much in the way of financial aid, but also don't have any extra $50K per year lying around, I was interested to see if attending a school like that had any actual advantage in terms of career.
I researched a bit on the subject and came to the conclusion that if it is not an Ivy, there is no strong advantage to attending a highly-selective liberal arts college vs. a state university. For example, one of the admin assistants at my previous job had a degree from Mount Holyoke; but we had others in similar positions with degrees from community college or none at all. Now, I did recall that when I lived in South Carolina, I worked at a company founded by Clemson grads, and they definitely had a *slight* preference for hiring other Clemson grads - but even they were willing to hire a U. of SC Gamecock if he/she had the right qualifications. I worked in HR for a number of years, and remembered that when we screened resumes we didn't particularly care what college a candidate had gone to, as long as they had the required degree.
At the time, my daughter's career choice necessitated a master's degree anyway; so my advice to her was to go to the state university and save the money for her graduate degree.
Some of my daughter's friends attended highly-selective liberal arts colleges; and I would concede that the support and personal attention for students were definitely much better at those schools. Once you get in, they are very, very intent on making sure you don't drop out. While most state schools also have a lot of resources for tutoring, mental health, etc., it is more on the student to seek out what they need and it is much easier to fall through the cracks.
In my daughter's case, I think it was beneficial for her to attend a state university. She met people from all sorts of economic and cultural backgrounds; vs. being with predominantly upper-middle class and wealthy peers; and academically she was one of the top students, vs. being a middle-of-the-pack student at a more selective school. As she is prone to anxiety and perfectionism, I think she would have gone a bit off the deep end if she was in an environment where *everyone* was above-average; it helped her confidence a good bit to be in a more diverse (in terms of IQ) milieu.
While it is true that the expensive private schools can offer larger scholarships and financial aid packages, they are still pretty expensive. A $30K per year scholarship sounds great, but when applied to a $75K per year tuition you're still forking out a big chunk of change. Some state universities are quite stingy with academic scholarships (UMass, I'm looking at you) but other states are quite generous (Maine, for example, offers a flagship match tuition for out-of-state students, plus academic scholarships).
I attended Ivy(+) for undergrad and grad school, and I've taught at Ivy+ and state schools. There's a big difference in the amount of resources available between the two schools. At the Ivy+ level, class sizes are much smaller, and it's easier for students to build meaningful connections with faculty and get involved in research. At state schools, especially if the major is a popular one, it can be challenging for students to get into the classes they need or find an open spot to work in a lab or get a professor who knows them well enough to write a good rec letter.
Wealthier schools also have more support resources available, which can be especially valuable when students are in crisis. They also have more funding for enriching experiences like supporting summer activities, hosting guest speakers or conferences, etc.
That said, students who would be able to get into an elite school but choose to go to a state school probably have underlying characteristics that will help them succeed wherever they are - but that path to success is likely easier to tread at the elite school.
DrK mentioned that high IQ students are in fact special needs because a common trope is that they get along fine with low effort, while those who had to learn to work eventually overtake them. All of this extra help rich kids get could explain what's going on, when high IQ kids actually learn to work, they can be put almost anywhere and do fine. We know SAT prep barely impacts scores at all, therefore something else is being acquired in those classes, discipline perhaps?
I remember hearing Thomas Sowell speaking against affirmative action in elite colleges, that the drop out rate or switching to an easier major was very common. My thought when I heard that was mostly "Oh, so the teaching quality is bad. You have to have a high enough IQ such that bad teaching doesn't stop you from learning".
Thus, having the luxury, and I love that word here, the luxury to choose your students means you can actually get away with low teacher quality.
I recall something very similar from a New York Times podcast where they spoke to white parents who sent their kids to private schools after integration. I heard the same story, energy was directed at helping the kids who needed it more and everybody suffered from lower standards.
In every such story I hear, it seems like almost no school is any good at teaching. What we are good at I suppose is sorting kids according to their pre-existing abilities and taking credit for their successes and blaming them or their parents for their failures. What kind of school can take in ANYBODY and get a good result?
Great article.
It might sound hypocritical (my daughter & are MIT grads, blah, blah, blah ...) that I believe that too many young lives are channeled onto tracks that lead their hearts & minds far from their true potentials into sterile cubicles. A process that starts with pre-pre-kindergarten & the anxiety of parental obsession with performance at this precocious age.
Thank you for your continuing efforts to bring joy & sanity into childhood.
. «Scholastic Chimera»
5 Dec 2024
Flour Bluff, Texas
÷%◆♥︎◆%÷
For a myth, we sacrifice childhood,
& Grow bitter hearts to adulthood.
What purpose our vision,
If life lacks illusion, —
& Molded mind's, just brittle bentwood?
I went to college at a less prestigious institution, as a scholarship holder. I had no means of supporting myself. However, just as you show us, I had teachers who placed me in academic opportunities that helped me follow a successful journey, improve my life from a socioeconomic point of view and understand that yes, I was successful! Interestingly, none of my college class (non-scholarship students and those with better economic conditions) embarked on a successful professional journey. None of them, for example, reached a senior level in their jobs. I emphasize that my reality is influenced by factors very different from those in the USA, since I am a Latin American, born in Brazil and working as a basic education manager.
I suggest you read the book Paying For The Party. It follows a set of girls through their years in a flagship state college.
The relevant findings:
* children of very involved parents did well at college in the professional track.
* girls whose parents weren't so involved got caught up in the party scene, socialized with wealthy girls and downgraded to less serious majors and had difficulty finding a job later and ended up doing minimum wage jobs.
* the problem with state schools is they don't have any social opportunities beyond the Greek scene. In contrast, ivy universities have a variety of social opportunities that don't involve partying which can keep students engaged with academics
* scholarships, internships and personal attention from teachers are more scarce in public universities. As are job prep, exam prep and alumni help.
Comparing ivy leagues to top flagship state universities isn't saying that much, because most kids who are aiming for Ivies are also aiming for these other universities and admissions are just as competitive. In the bay area where I am, Asian kids trying to get into computer science programs can't even hope to get into a UC and now go to some of the lower ranked Cal Polys when a similar resume would have got them into a UC just a few years prior. What does the research say about MIT vs Cal Poly?
The source of stress here isn't that they are applying to the Ivies. It's that admission criteria keeps getting changed in such a way that objective criteria like grades or SATs keep getting downgraded or removed and subjective criteria are on the rise. The subjective criteria like extracurriculars or sob story essays are like Pokémon- gotta catch em all. And you don't know where you stand until you actually hear back from the universities. Previously you needed to get decent grades and be competent at coursework, maybe honors classes, then they changed it so you need to be in the top 10 of your class. So if you switched to a school with less focused kids in your senior year, that gives you a better chance lol. And then they decided to not consider SATs all of a sudden.
If there's primarily objective, or at least transparent criteria for getting into university, you know by high school what you can realistically aim for. If it's one or two criteria, you can focus on those temporarily. But if it's a multitude of stuff, some of which you have no control over, like your school district or what race you are, or what size you were at age 6 which determined how your sports career went or what internships your father's friends can get you, then it becomes a battle of optimizing every aspect of your life from birth on in the hope of winning the lottery.
Most kids I see aren't trying to be ivy league or bust. It's more of a "if you shoot for the moon you'll end up among the stars" thing. And what they really want is to avoid being underemployed and poor. When even admissions to Cal Poly are competitive now, it feels like there are few options other than to grind.
In the end, people just need to be useful, helpful. Those things don't cost money.
If you want to do X for money then you are stuck with whatever the industry demands, reasonable or not. However, if you actually care about X, and not just the money X can make you, then this is where hobbies come in to maybe pay off beyond enjoyment maybe.
Almost everytime I hear someone complain about how hard it is to get into an industry I just come back with "why do you even care then?" Most actors make diddly squat from acting, they just do other things too. Arnold Schwarzeneggar took acting classes while working construction. Joe Rogan has talked about how unhappy actors are when all they do is worry about their image, their billing. Talking about the News Radio cast he used to say "last time I checked, we're on TV!", but even that wasn't enough for some of them.
Yes its hard to work your way into an apparently more desirable socio-economic class, but you don't actually have to do that. Even Starbucks workers have started unionizing... There is no "need" to break into a specific career field. Human talents vary and are needed all over the place. The goal should be to help student's get connected to where their talents are most appreciated. As for the underappreciated, I think organized labor is the answer there.
You need skills to useful and learning those skills well costs money and is gatekept by stuff like college admissions. Acting has a low entry barrier which is every kid in LA is enrolled in acting classes so they can be the next Macaulay Culkin. Even if you want to do something low paid and selfless like social work, you need to get a college degree.
But most people don't have a passion at 17. They just know want to be financially independent and spend time with nice people. Now to do that without busting your knees by age 40, you need a college degree. The passion for the career develops with expertise and skill.
Parents want their kids to get a degree when they can still financially support them. Sure, Arnold worked in construction while trying to bodybuild (not act, that came later), but he did develop the skills for construction on someone else's dime, he didn't come out of the womb knowing to build houses.
Do you know anybody in construction?
Yes, my husband's parents' entire generation in their family. All the kids went into tech.
Those jobs often pay for you to learn because you learn on the job. Many trades are like that aren't they? Which ones are different?
Oh my… This is truly a HUGE Duh?!?!? I’ve never met one single person, in my 65 year, urban life, that ever considered “elite” colleges a goal!! And for crying out loud, let’s get rid of that word???
They are rich, period.. Just as flawed as the rest of us.. Sorry, I skipped over most of your post, cause anything about “elite” & “colleges” I avoid. Signed - A successful, no-college, conservative, self-taught proud female.