The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
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The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
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Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#2I've felt for years that school was run by those who were, when young, good at school. Its inbred and to a certain degree, pointless.
There was nowhere in my life more bounded by ceremony and tradition. And now that I'm out of it, and know for a certainty that precious little of it did me the slightest good, I recommend to all young people who will listen: "You are paying for schooling. Get out of it exactly what you find valuable, ignore the rest. An ounce of passion is worth oceans of rote work"
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#3[deleted]
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#4I read this article a while ago, and I had a reaction that I think has gelled a little more since then. I think I take issue with the notion that elite = ivy league (or similar institutions). It's true that ivies dominate the top spots of the us news and world report undergraduate college rankings (where no public university cracks the top 20) and tend to do well on rankings of top professional school programs (especially mba and law), but interestingly, they don't dominate the list of top graduate schools to the same extent (where public universities do quite well), and they show up even less often on rankings of top engineering schools.
In short, I think it's time we redefined what an elite college really is. The question the writer poses is a very interesting one: are students at elite colleges out of touch with the rest of society? But I'd like to see the same question asked about the graduates of UC Berkeley, UCLA, Texas, Michigan, Illinois, CMU, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and other universities with top engineering schools.
It's an open question, I'll admit. There probably is a reasonable case to be made that the large public research institutions that have such excellent engineering programs just aren't elite by the standards of the US (this isn't China or France, after all). And I suppose you could also say that graduates of these schools are every bit as out of touch (and as snobby as the author implies) as grads of the top ivies...
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#5Great article. I think he puts downs, "The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring" a bit too much though. People who are very busy with various projects tend to also be more introspective, in my experience. Good grades can just be indicative of good time management and brightness, which are important in anyone who wants to change the world.
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#6It must be this year's phrasing, but every time I hear the phrase "I can't / we failed to communicate", it really means I don't think the person so far under my station would understand.
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#7Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people.
That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true.
Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly who is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Beethoven is worth more than some bum on a street corner) but shy away from discussing it in any further detail lest we wind up obliged to cut that bum up to give his organs to someone else.
I don't have a problem with this as a thing we all pretend is true, but I do have a problem with the assertion that it's genuinely true.
(Unfortunately in order to even have this discussion I have to put on my Nietzsche moustache and step outside the boundaries of polite society.)
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#8Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true. Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly who is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Bee…
I imagine the author genuinely believed that being a graduate of an elite school no longer means as much.
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#9I read this article a while ago, and I had a reaction that I think has gelled a little more since then. I think I take issue with the notion that elite = ivy league (or similar institutions). It's true that ivies dominate the top spots of the us news and world report undergraduate college rankings (where no public university cracks the top 20) and tend to do well on rankings of top professional school programs (espec…
The author doesn't mean Elite in the sense of "good" or "high quality". The Elite he's referring to is the Upper Class.
The culture at the top Ivies is nothing like that at any of the schools that you listed. State and tech schools have a lot more class diversity, and while Stanford isn't state or tech, it seems to value diversity more than the Ivies.
. . . so the author isn't saying you get a better education (almost the opposite) at an Elite University, just that you'll be surrounded by entitled children of the wealthy, and coddled as such.
Re: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education (2008)
#10Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. That's a common enough platitude, but I'm not convinced that it's true. Or rather, it's the sort of thing we like to pretend is true for the sake of a functioning society (since nobody likes to discuss exactly who is worth more than whom) and everybody goes along with it. We'll admit extreme cases (like Bee…
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