I don’t know that William Deresiewicz really made the case that Ivy League schools are overrated, but he did raise a lot of interesting issues. Having grown up in Princeton, I can be a little sensitive about how Ivy Leaguers are perceived, but I know them first hand and I know all about entitled little shits. Back in the 1980’s when I was cavorting around Princeton’s campus and socializing with the student body, things were not quite as competitive as they are today. But they were competitive enough.
One thing that happens to you when you come from an Ivy League town is that you get to hear anecdotes from people who are not from Ivy League towns. The most common anecdote we are treated to is about the Ivy League guy they knew at work who was totally incompetent at his job. I have heard this anecdote hundreds of times. It may be that the Ivy League produces legions of incompetents, but I don’t think so. I think people expect Ivy Leaguers to be superhuman, and when they’re average people judge them harshly.
Today’s Ivy Leaguers are all super-achievers, not only in their grades and test scores, but in their extracurricular activities. They all have an absurd work ethic. At least until they arrive on campus, they’ve racked up an unblemished string of successes. These people are exceptionally bright. But they’ve also had every advantage. They’ve gone to the best schools, gotten the best tutors, and been sent around the globe to gain experiences and do “good works” that will pad their applications. Most of them are well-rounded, but I don’t think we should expect most of them to be well-adjusted. Mostly, they’re basket cases who are terrified of failure. They’re also so goal-oriented that they can become unglued if no one is pointing them to the next goal. And maybe there aren’t enough different goals. Med School, Law School, a job in finance. Beyond that, what?
These schools are self-consciously trying to educate the people who they expect to be the leaders of the country, but only the highest classes have the resources to invest in their kids that will win them entry.
I am very aware of what I’d have to do if I want my four year old son to go to an Ivy League school, and I would consider it a form of torture to inflict that kind of regimen on him. Can you go to Michigan State and still be a leader in this country?
You can, but it’s harder. Take a look sometime at where the people who serve in the Obama administration went to school. There aren’t a whole lot of public university degrees in the bunch, and those are likely to be elite schools like Cal-Berkeley, Virginia, or Michigan.
Mr. Deresiewicz has some good suggestions for how to make the admissions process better at our elite private universities. Probably the best suggestion for our kid’s sake is to limit how many extracurriculars you can list. If kids know they can’t list more than five, they won’t feel so pressured to do a million things and they might have some time to just be kids once in a while.
