Comment by dibstern
9 years ago
These aren't the disadvantages of an elite education, it's the disadvantages of not having sufficient breadth of experiences with people from a sufficient breadth of social-economic backgrounds.
Get your kids to do extracurriculars where they'll meet kids from lower-income households. It'll make them able to relate to them and understand them better.
Yup. I go to an ivy and many of my best friends are construction workers or service workers who will likely never attend college. It's because I wasn't sheltered (nor particularly wealthy as a kid).
And when you're there, talk to people. Not just ones who will help you climb the social ladder in whatever elite clubs and orgs you want to join. People of all stripes. It's a much more diverse group in every way than the author describes.
Honestly it sounds like the author was elitist and sheltered as a kid. And now they've realised this, but have decided to blame it on their university rather than deal with the fact that it was their own personal fault.
As with many things I feel the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
I spent my 20s working in STEM and living in between MIT and Harvard which meant that a large portion of my social circle was drawn from those schools. I see where both sides are coming from here. On one hand you're right in that there were also plenty of people in our circle who came from very different backgrounds. By and large these were normal people and not the sort of socially awkward weirdos the article describes.
On the other hand the article rings true at times. The bit about worrying about their occupation due to the 20 year reunion, I heard that exact thing countless times. The lack of recognition of the second chances to succeed or that they have a ridiculous social network that others do not was also a big thing. And through it all there was always a certain baseline, well, elitism. It was almost never direct but it was always there. It wouldn't be directed at the rest of us but you'd hear it amongst themselves, "I can't believe a Harvard graduate is doing that" when "that" is something that their good friend also does. That sort of thing.
You are missing: in order to gain access to these institutions, many people apparently have to forgoe those extracurriculars and focus only on their studies.
No, to gain access to these institutions you are basically required to have half a dozen extracurriculars on your resume. They receive applications from so many white straight-A/4.0 students that extracurriculars are the only differentiating factor. Few high schools (in California, at least) would even let you graduate without 50-100 hours of community service.
Whether these extracurriculars would expose you to different ethnicities and world views is dependant on demographics.
It's also based on access, I remember feeling initially impressed when a fellow applicant on College Confidential that applied to the same top school as myself did community service abroad in South America, when I then realized that it was very costly to do so, and that I couldn't have done anything so "impressive" only because my parents couldn't have covered the cost.
I've always found it bizarre that people respond to an admissions system intended to reward the acceptibly unique by being the same as each other.
"Few high schools (in California, at least) would even let you graduate without 50-100 hours of community service."
I have never heard of community service as a requirement to graduate high school. (No school in my district had this requirement.)
Granted, I understand your overall point. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be accepted by "elite" colleges. In fact, I had applied to nearly 12 colleges that were highly respected in Computer Science and was rejected from all of them.
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I agree. These aren't disadvantages and shouldn't be characterized that way. This is in no way to imply that rich/elite people don't have problems. Instead of not having access to quality education or food or etc., kids of the rich/elite have massive expectations thrust on them.
But everything in life is a choice and if the author is so self aware of this "disadvantage", they have simple paths to fix it. Instead of people making more home food delivery start-ups, create one to help underprivileged get access to education or healthcare, etc.
The key take away for me is that if you decide to live your life based on someone else's terms, you'll never be truly happy. Create your own path on your journey.