
The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - nreece
http://www.theamericanscholar.org/su08/elite-deresiewicz.html
======
smanek
That was surprisingly good.

Although, I think it paints with too fine a brush sometimes (narrowing its
conclusions to the Ivy Leagues).

For example, I've definitely noticed a loss of solitude and way too much over
specialization too early. A lot of the people I know in Ivy League schools
began competing and winning in contests in their chosen field by middle
school. I understand that a University would rather admit a USAMO or Intel
Science Fair Winner - but the competition there is so intense it forces
students aiming high to begin specializing before they're even teenagers.

Frankly I've taken more math courses than anyone ever should, and there are
still some USAMO problems that I couldn't solve given unlimited time. Take a
look: [http://www.unl.edu/amc/a-activities/a7-problems/USAMO-
IMO/q-...](http://www.unl.edu/amc/a-activities/a7-problems/USAMO-
IMO/q-usamo/-pdf/usamo2008.pdf) And they expect 16 year olds to do that!

Hell, I've personally seen a few high school science fair projects that are
essentially graduate level work involving genetic engineering and monte carlo
simulations.

Although, to be fair, a lot of these kids also try to see the bigger picture
and recognize the role of their formal education (they are usually the ones
who end up as quants or traders ;-)).

~~~
cperciva
_USAMO problems... Take a look_

Ok, it's wildly unfair for a Putnam fellow to be looking at these, but since
you asked... I _think_ I can see how to solve problem 6, but I'd have to take
a few minutes to make sure that my solution works. The other 5 problems took
me about 30 seconds each.

 _Hell, I've personally seen a few high school science fair projects that are
essentially graduate level work involving genetic engineering and monte carlo
simulations._

Funny, I was about to say that I've seen far too many graduate students doing
work which is essentially high school science fair material.

~~~
smanek
<irony> wow ... that just makes me feel bad about myself. </irony>

Even so, that's very impressive. After looking through, I only see likely
solutions to 3 of the 6, and I would still have a fair amount of work to even
verify those 3.

 _goes and mopes in the corner_

~~~
gambling8nt
The ability to do these sorts of competitions is a learned skill like any
other. Certainly, it is a learned skill that has some relation to research
ability within mathematics, but neither tests, nor grades, nor classes are the
be-all or end-all of skill measurement tools. If you can solve half the
questions, you have enough logical ability to accomplish anything short of
beating cperciva at a math competition. The true mark of skill is to go use
that to create something new--anything else is just practice.

~~~
timr
Someone needed to say this. Glorifying the Putnam is a perfect example of what
the author of the essay was discussing as a "false sense of self-worth" that's
based in numeric metrics.

The world is filled with brilliant, respected people who never did well on a
math test.

------
swombat
_The problem begins when students are encouraged to forget this truth, when
academic excellence becomes excellence in some absolute sense, when “better at
X” becomes simply “better.”_

Interesting... I found the opposite. I went to Oxford University (as elite as
it gets), with a head big as a balloon, and clearly thinking myself better
than everyone. Four years in the presence of people whose intellect crushed me
like an insignificant cockroach taught me humility. Since I still needed to
believe that I wasn't... you know... just plainly inferior, that forced me to
re-rationalise what it means to be "better", and to come to the conclusion
that intellectual prowess has nothing to do with being a better person.

 _It forgot that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers._

I also disagree with this, to an extent. My time in Oxford made me a more
rounded person, intellectually, inter-personally, and emotionally. And I think
that was the right result - that's certainly what my parents hoped when I went
in. I think the purpose of education is to make people - not just minds or
careers. A person is a combination of many different things, including mind,
network of connections, desires, abilities, and a myriad other things.

Mind you, Oxford might just be different from Yale... perhaps Yale should take
a leaf ;-)

~~~
cperciva
Oxford taught me that I'm a better computer scientist than I am a
mathematician (or at least, that I'm better at algorithms than at algebraic
number theory), but it didn't teach me humility.

I realized that intelligence has nothing to do with being a better person when
I came up against the apparent contradiction that all of the fascinating
people I enjoyed talking to were far less intelligent than myself. :-)

~~~
whacked_new
How do far less intelligent people fascinate you? Is it because they know
something that you don't, and/or are able to see things in ways that are new
to you? Or perhaps they are less concerned about evaluating the level (in
anything) of the other party?

If I was sitting next to Tiger Woods I would probably talk very little about
golf, knowing that we share little in common in that area and would make for a
very one-way conversation. Perhaps, then, it would appear that I have
interesting things to say, although the whole time I am a golf idiot (or
sports idiot, or math idiot, whatever).

Or is it something different?

~~~
mechanical_fish
_If I was sitting next to Tiger Woods I would probably talk very little about
golf..._

If I sat next to Tiger Woods I would talk about the weather and the menu for a
minute or two, but then I'd certainly _introduce_ the topic of golf and see
what happened. It could be that Tiger loves nothing more than to talk about
golf. He is _freakishly obsessed with golf_ , after all.

The result might turn out to be a "one-way conversation". So what? People
really like to talk about the things they love. If you listen intently and ask
questions that indicate you're following along, they'll love you for it, even
if the questions are basic.

The secret is to be alert for signs that your conversation partner is trying
to change the subject. If I ask Tiger about golf and he responds with a few
quick sentences and then asks about the music that's playing on the radio it's
probably time to talk about something else.

~~~
whacked_new
Touche.

I was drawing an analogy though, to pick on cperciva's post. It isn't so hard
to see that the contradiction he writes about isn't so much of a
contradiction, which is surprising to read from someone who is obviously very
intelligent.

------
Spyckie
_They didn’t get straight A’s because they couldn’t be bothered to give
everything in every class. They concentrated on the ones that meant the most
to them or on a single strong extracurricular passion or on projects that had
nothing to do with school or even with looking good on a college application.
Maybe they just sat in their room, reading a lot and writing in their journal.
These are the kinds of kids who are likely, once they get to college, to be
more interested in the human spirit than in school spirit, and to think about
leaving college bearing questions, not resumés._

Anyone else feel like they're in this boat?

~~~
krschultz
Probably most of the people here, we're the people who are actually interested
in learning and doing not getting affirmation (a degree) of our worth. I am
going to college, but to actually learn something and not for a piece of
paper.

Interestingly I have heard from my friends at Harvard & Columbia that they are
disappointed with the kids there, i.e. no one is actually an intellectual and
everyone just seems to be legacy.

------
aston
MIT probably counts as one of the "elites," Ivy or not. But I would say my
experience there runs counter to a lot of the points in this article.

The diversity at MIT is not only geographical and racial, but also cultural,
socioeconomic, sexual, and anything else you'd care to measure. The culture is
not at all self-affirming; most students come in wondering how they got in and
leave glad to have made it to a degree. Engineering's obviously well-
respected, but it's clearly not a glamorous profession, so that chase for
social status and immeasurable wealth is really downplayed since most good
engineers won't get there. And MIT students say they went to school in Boston
(rather than Cambridge) not out of noblesse oblige, but because lots of people
think it's in Michigan.

I guess the "mind _and_ hands" ethic grounds you a little.

~~~
rcoder
> ... that chase for social status and immeasurable wealth is really
> downplayed since most good engineers won't get there

I think that this is an excellent observation, but I also think it's worth
noting that many good engineers _don't care_ if they get "there". If you're
naturally inclined to find reward in problem-solving, then trained in how to
solve progressively more complicated (and therefore rewarding) problems, the
value comes from that activity, rather than in accumulating wealth.

Many engineers I've known are anything but "grounded," especially when it
comes to their opinion of their own technical prowess, but that doesn't
necessarily make them money-motivated.

------
bokonist
I agree with most of his criticisms, but disagree strongly with his
conclusion. My main beef with the Ivy League is that it neither trains people
to be productive nor broadens minds. I don't really don't think it's possible
for a government funded institution to broaden minds ( and yes, even the Ivy's
have massive amounts of government subsidies). The professors in the
humanities and social sciences act much more like an insular priesthood than
purveyors of free thought ( which is not surprising considering the origins of
the university and the selection process of professors). Comments on news.yc
show far more free thought than I found in sections at Yale. I also do not
think Joe carpenters' tax dollars should be subsidizing Yalie English
literature majors. It's amazing how professors advocate that the government
should do more to tax the rich and give to the poor, while never realizing
that state funding for higher education is among the most regressive
government spending that exists.

The university functions essentially as a gatekeeper to various credentialized
professions ( scientist, professor, doctor, lawyer, civil service). As
gatekeeper, it really does not need to educate you. Students have been
selected for high enough IQ that they will learn what they need in grad school
or on the job. The school's main job is to teach you to love the school, that
the school is responsible for everything good in your life, and that the
school makes you special. That way, when you end up making money, you will be
sure to send money back to the school that was responsible for such happy
times.

------
sspencer
Spot-on.

I used to date a girl who went to Brandeis, which aspires to the Ivy League at
every opportunity. In fact, by her admission it was the safety school of many
who applied to Ivy League schools but were denied entry in the end. The
students essentially had all the (sometimes subconscious) elitism of the Ivy
Leaguers, combined with a massive chip on their shoulders due to their
supposition that they were Ivy League material that mistakenly ended up at
Brandeis. It was fascinating to read this article since she (and many of her
colleagues) have many of the exact traits he describes, especially that "I
have arrived" mentality.

Great submission!

------
mattchew
I second the "surprisingly good" comment. I have one friend who managed to get
into the Ivy League and come out with a law degree. A lot of what was said in
the article reminds me of him.

Having excessively high expectations for his kids (or, you could say,
excessively narrow) is the worst of it. I want to tell him, you have three
kids, odds are they are not _all_ going to be Ivy League scholars. But he
can't imagine any other future for them. Going to be rough on him and his kids
alike, I'm afraid.

------
nostrademons
"Getting through the gate is very difficult, but once you’re in, there’s
almost nothing you can do to get kicked out."

That is so true. At Amherst, practically the only way to not get an Amherst
degree is to finish your 4 years and not complete a major. (Guess how I found
that out... ;-)) Steal an ambulance, drive it around the freshman quad, and
crash it into a tree, and you get a 1-year suspension. Embezzle $13,000 from
the school newspaper and you get a 4-year suspension. Both of those are real
incidents, and their perpetrators are either Amherst alums or back at school
now.

------
mynameishere
What were the disadvantages again? The students are 32 flavors of vanilla?
Something like that. I went to a poor school and the students were 32 flavors
of shit. So think about that the next time you open your mouth to complain.

~~~
adrianwaj
Despite the disadvantages, the author "taught English at Yale University from
1998 to 2008." Additionally, right now, his homepage states he is on a break.
So, at the end of the day, where would the author rather be? Would he rather
send his kids somewhere else? I doubt it, but internally he may have a streak
of contempt while living and working in this environment.

I visited Stanford for a few hours while travelling through California and
even the bookshop clerk pretended I was some sort of king. Maybe she took
acting classes, or denies the fact were she not employed by Stanford, many of
the students wouldn't give her much more than the time of day.

I have nothing against Standford or the people that attend, and the article
rang true with my experience passing through the school and my experience with
people in that 'sphere' of influence. I don't associate myself with any
sphere, and I aim to look at everyone's humanity. Furthermore, I went to a top
univeristy (in Australia), but was one of the 'searchers,' so perhaps you can
go to an Ivy league school but obtain the benefits on your own terms. When I
got to university, I realized that not only had I not 'arrived,' but that I
had barely even started. It really depends how deep you want your journey to
go.

Says the article: "There’s no point in excluding people unless they know
they’ve been excluded."

Social exclusion as practiced by the 'elites' (or anyone with any modicum of
power) has its usefulness - it's a way to get ahead and stay ahead with that
power. As such, people that are excluded shouldn't take it personally when
they realize that the person or people who are excluding them overtly or
covertly have designated them as their worst enemy, biggest rival, and their
greatest fear. Ironically, for those not truly confronting their fears, the
greatest power is deflected.

~~~
hugh
_Furthermore, I went to a top univeristy (in Australia), but was one of the
'searchers,' so perhaps you can go to an Ivy league school but obtain the
benefits on your own terms._

Well, a top university in Australia is very different to a top university in
the US. Not because they aren't good -- Australia's top unis are probably
better at least than the Ivy League's worst -- but because they don't have
nearly the same sense of elitism. I guess this is mostly because of the way
selection is done by course rather than by university -- it's far easier to
get into the least selective courses at Sydney or Melbourne than it is to get
into the most selective courses at Southern Cross or Charles Sturt.

(Full disclosure: I went to Sydney, and now I work at a not-elite-but-not-bad
university in the US)

------
rams
"But social intelligence and emotional intelligence and creative ability, to
name just three other forms, are not distributed preferentially among the
educational elite."

I used to wonder about the creativity bit at my previous startup job. The guy
was a serial entrepreneur, very clued in technically, was a great
communicator, had a great sense of humour etc, etc, Heck, he even threatened
to write code once. Wharton, HBS, Blah, Blah. Like I said technically
qualified and clued in as well. But I couldn't understand why he had zero
interest in doing anything original and was hell bent on chasing tail lights.
All he was interested in was in making the right noises, adding features that
would send out the right signals, etc. At that time,the area we were competing
wide open and there were several gaps that could have filled in very
creatively. Add to that, entirely clueless competition.

That's when I decided that Ivy league folks are not all that creative. They
are very tribal in ways that you and I may not realise immediately.

~~~
timr
The premise is good, but the conclusion is flawed.

There are Ivy-league alumni who are creative and inspired, just as there are
public school alumni who are insipid and shallow. The interesting question is,
how could someone go through all of that high-quality education, and not gain
the capacity for introspection that would allow him to be more original?

------
coglethorpe
One thing I've learned is that there are many people like the plumber
mentioned in the article that do better than many Ivy League grads
financially. I know one person who has a two-year degree, worked as an
electrician, and built his business to where he's one of the wealthiest people
I personally know. Another sold his junk yard (which made him good money for
years) for over a million. According to the book "The Millionaire Mind"
there's plenty of folks like that and just as many graduates of big schools
who live paycheck to paycheck to show how "rich" they are.

~~~
xiaoma
The richest guy I've met never had any post-secondary schooling except
Hamburger U. He owns 12 McDonald's franchises and each clears about 1.5
million a year.

~~~
Herring
The plural of anecdote is not data. There will always be exceptions to any
rule.

~~~
krschultz
But data shows that small business owners are some of the better off in the
country. Maybe not as good as the average Ivy League lawyer, but better than
most college grads.

------
geebee
I enjoyed the article as well, very insightful. However, I wish the writer had
commented a bit more on the sharp divide between top publics and ivy-type
institutions. The differences between a UCLA student and a Yale student are
also very stark, but in a way that is different from the distinctions drawn in
this article.

As a product of UC's (UC San Diego Math/English major followed by MS in
Engineering at Berkeley), I know my experience was utterly different from an
Ivy, mainly because I attended Columbia Law school for one semester before
dropping out to get the MS in Engineering. I learned that you can absolutely
sit on your thumb and get through an elite law school at an Ivy. Berkeley
engineering was as brutal and uncaring as Math at UCSD: one mistake, and your
ass is out.

I'd say that students at top public universities aren't coddled like Ivy
Leaguers, and they're more acutely are aware of the possibility of failure,
but still have the opportunity to succeed on the highest level and work with
the top researchers in their fields (this isn't just true of Berkeley, it's
true of many large, research oriented publics, like Texas, Washington,
Michigan, Illinois, as well as UCLA, UCSD, etc...) Check out rankings for PhD
programs and you'll see a heavy representation of these schools, especially in
Engineering and the Sciences.

Overall, I'd say that the danger isn't an elite education, its a culture of
entitlement. Nobody leaves Berkeley feeling entitled to a damn thing, and
almost everyone feels like they got knocked around a bit. Part of the reason
is the sheer number of undergrads at these publics. Berkeley may have a great
faculty, but you have to compete with four-five times the number of undergrads
to get there. No wonder Berkeley is a little more willing to grade hard and
kick people to the gutter. You just can't coddle 24,000 undergrads. You have
to start shedding them.

And there's the problem - Berkeley may be, uh, character building, but does
that sound like a fun way to spend years 18-22? You have a better chance of
making your Venture Capital connections at Stanford or Harvard. Kinda sucks,
but membership does have its privileges, and honestly, doesn't it sound better
to go to a school that won't give you a C in physics and deny you entry to the
CS major?

------
justokay
Having done my undergrad at an Ivy League institution, I can say without a
doubt that everything mentioned in the article is absolutely true. I would
even go so far as to say that most of my peers were for the most part semi-
competent (on good days), driven individuals with either the skill and
nurturing to game the system. The result is a fairly disappointing group of
people who care more about a Wall St./Big Consulting job, but honestly,
admissions officials care little to change the system, so this is the result.
That said, however, many of the undergrads I have TAed for at Berkeley have
the same mindset, with the exception that the Wall St. job is now a job at
Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, etc.

To a certain extent, we shouldn't care about Ivy League institutions, because
in the end, they are just a name, right? What is sad, though, is that there
are brilliant professors at these universities having to teach these pathetic
students, and not those who actually care and have some skill in a particular
subject. What is sad is that parents, employers and institutions themselves
proclaim that these students are the best and the brightest and we believe
them. What is sad is that the resources of the Ivy League institutions are
widening compared to strong public/private universities, but the "elite"
institutions are not giving these resources to those who can best take
advantage of them (I think what should have been more carefully scrutinized
was Harvard President Drew Faust's comments a few months ago that Ivy League
institutions will have the best scientific research because they have the most
money/best profs, and that other institutions with fewer resources should work
on "smaller problems" - the most disgusting thing I have heard in a long
time). In short, the whole system is powerful, yet completely broken.

If, by some luck of lottery (at least in my case), you are someone who really
cares in this "elite" environment, once you get past the disappointment of not
relating to your peers, you have a great opportunity to do research for
professors who are not only brilliant, but also very helpful since you are one
of very few who care. I just hope that the many others like me who did not win
the lottery get the same chances I do. I know at Berkeley, the grad students
are given tremendous opportunities with respect to research (with probably
only slightly more money concerns than places like Stanford/MIT), but it's
very tough for an undergrad to get the same opportunities. I know I wouldn't
have survived as an ugrad here, but I'm not sure if other institutions have
similar environments.

------
SwellJoe
"An elite education gives you the chance to be rich—which is, after all, what
we’re talking about—but it takes away the chance not to be. Yet the
opportunity not to be rich is one of the greatest opportunities with which
young Americans have been blessed."

How awful! Those miserable Ivy League kids and all that they miss out on. I
never knew they had it so rough. We really should do something for those poor
kids going into these schools. A warning or something. Maybe we should start
some sort of charity to help them.

~~~
Herring
The entire article reads like satire. He can't talk to a plumber, the poor
chap. Maybe he should publish a few thousand words in some "venerable but
lively quarterly magazine".

------
yef
_My education taught me to believe that people who didn’t go to an Ivy League
or equivalent school weren’t worth talking to, regardless of their class._

I didn't go to an ivy league school, but is this generally accepted as true?
Is this other people's experience, or is the author's opinion more of an
outlier?

~~~
nostrademons
It's true but incomplete, in the way that so many written articles on the web
are.

If you explicitly went up to an Ivy League or top liberal arts student with
the above quote, most of them would be disgusted. It's not like people walk
around campus all day talking about how everyone else is inferior to them.
Someone like that would probably be considered an antisocial boor.

But the point about not having anything to talk about with people who didn't
go to an Ivy or other top college is true. One of the selling points of Ivies
& top liberal arts colleges is that they "teach you how to think"; well, if
they teach you how to think, how do you relate to other people that think
differently? There's a shared depth of experience that going to a top college
gives you, like the close relationships with professors, chance to talk to
well-known public speakers, hanging out on a lush green quad in the middle of
a city, or being able to break lots of rules without the administration
caring. People who went to state schools, community colleges, or no college at
all often didn't have that experience, so what's there to talk about?

This is ameliorated somewhat depending on what you choose to do after college.
I went into computers, where many of the best programmers went to no-name
colleges or dropped out of high school, so a.) I can always talk tech with
other people in the computer field and b.) I found out pretty soon that where
you went to school isn't a good proxy for ability. Some of my friends are
bakers or teachers or secretaries, and they're sitting firmly in the real
world. But the financial system and top law schools are populated with huge
proportions of alums from top colleges, so the "Amherst bubble" (which
includes Harvard & Yale & Columbia & Brown & Dartmouth & Swarthmore & Williams
too, except they undoubtedly call it by their own school name) extends over it
too.

~~~
yef
I dunno. Something doesn't quite add up to me. There are certain topics that
all people like to talk about, regardless of how they think. Knowing those
topics reveals certain tricks to talking to different people. "Ask the
expert", where you compliment someone on their skill or knowledge (plumbing,
say) and then ask them for more details, showing genuine interest as they
talk. People who have kids or pets are also pretty easy to talk to, because
they're proud and love to talk about them. Humor, sports, and local news also
tend to break the ice.

So I'm truly curious what's at work behind this inability or unwillingness to
talk to "the masses", as it were.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_So I'm truly curious what's at work behind this inability or unwillingness to
talk to "the masses", as it were._

Class consciousness. The problem has nothing to do with the _content_ of the
conversation, but everything to do with the _subtext_ : You're interacting
with someone from a completely different social group and you may not even be
sure what social cues you _want_ to send, let alone exactly how to send them.

What is the proper relationship between you and your plumber? Master and
servant? Master and slave? Contract employer and contract employee? Genial
boss and long-term employee? Two friends trading with each other? Fellow
members of a communal society? Friendly rivalry? Unfriendly rivalry?

How does this change if the plumber turns out to be the cousin of your sister-
in-law? If the plumber belongs to your church? If the plumber lives next door?

If the plumber recommends an electrician friend, how important is it to hire
that friend? Why is the plumber telling you this tale about the draconian
local house inspector -- is this a standard plumber gripe, the plumbing
equivalent of complaining about the weather, or is he trying to excuse the
fact that his work might not pass inspection? When the plumber asks to be paid
up-front, is that a standard practice or could he be planning to get drunk and
then skip town?

(Regarding that last one: The books suggest that you never pay construction
subcontractors in advance, but only as the work is completed. Unfortunately,
the books don't tell you the precise words to use to inform your subcon that,
no, you were not born yesterday. That part is up to you, and it's one of those
things that they can't teach in an Ivy League class.)

Obviously, the problem of conversation has nothing to do with the _topic_ or
your knowledge of it. Thanks to the web, we know that people can happily spend
hours discussing topics that they know absolutely nothing about. And there are
probably very few topics that you're afraid to discuss with your peers,
because you know how to navigate their social world: you know the slang, you
know the legends, you know the taboos, you know when you're being insulted and
how to give insult in return, and you know how to change the subject. Most
importantly, you know the social order. If I log on here and write "Arc is
Blub", everyone knows that I'm either issuing a (crude) challenge or being a
clueless noob -- the authors of Arc have high social status here. If I write
"VBScript is Blub", everyone knows that it's the news.yc/Slashdot/Digg
equivalent of talking about the weather. ;)

~~~
yef
Cool. So, class consciousness is a lot of work. What, exactly, is the benefit?

~~~
Herring
You get to boast to your friends about that one time you went slumming and
actually talked to a plumber.

------
Prrometheus
I've had a few Harvard and Princeton friends, and we related to each other
just fine. They were just normal people that had a good education. They had no
problem hitting on bartenders, talking about sports, rubbing elbows for jobs,
or doing any of the other things that normal people do.

Methinks the English prof likes to be dramatic.

------
Frocer
I agree with many things said in this article, but there are many plus sides
of "elite" education that shouldn't be overlooked.

For instance, I am going to generalize here, but most people I know coming out
of these "elite" schools are more driven. My only explanation is that drive is
what got them into these school in the first place. And being surrounded by
driven and smart people who aren't afraid to challenge conventional wisdom is
by far the biggest advantage in my opinion

Disclaimer: I went to a public university for a year before I transferred to
an Ivy League school.

~~~
run4yourlives
I wouldn't say they're more driven, but that they realize that their lot in
life has no limits, whereas a standard university grad imposes limits on
themselves - their dreams become hobbies, and work becomes work.

------
run4yourlives
>"The political implications should be clear. As John Ruskin told an older
elite, grabbing what you can get isn’t any less wicked when you grab it with
the power of your brains than with the power of your fists."

That's probably the most profound argument against our society that I have yet
seen in a one liner.

~~~
newt0311
Since when dud "grabbing what you can get" become wicked especially once long
term implications are accounted for?

~~~
run4yourlives
Last time I checked, our society frowns on me beating up old ladies for their
money.

The comment addresses the seeming contradiction between our views on beating
up old ladies, and outwitting dumb people. For example, witness the practices
of many payday loan operations.

I'm not taking a stance one way or the other at this point, but I found the
comment compelling.

------
keefe
I went to a borderline elite school, Notre Dame. Many of the students had this
sort of an elitist attitude. However, I noticed that those students who
aspired to true greatness - who saw Einstein, Newton etc. as setting the bar -
often had a more humble attitude. I think that this is because such an
attitude is a hindrance imho, a waste of energy.

------
sethg
Can I get reality checks here from some people who actually attended Ivy-
league schools? The author's description of Yale doesn't match my experience
with MIT very well, but of course, MIT isn't one of the Ivies.

~~~
neodude
I go to an Ivy League school, but not Yale - one of the lesser well-known
ones. There are certainly people here who have "arrived", and are skating
across, partying, until they get their job at Wall Street, but there are some
genuinely interesting, 'searcher'-type people here as well. They do expel
people here; the school administration is pretty harsh, actually. The
academics aren't easy; sure, you can pick easy classes and get your A-, but
your major classes are unlikely to not require some serious work, and you have
to do a major. There's definitely a sense of severe detachment with the real
world, but that may be more about the isolated location than the prestige.

MIT sounds awesome, actually - people in touch with reality! Humble people!
People who don't expect it to be easy, and hence complain about things being
so hard! Maybe I should have applied, but apparently their financial aid isn't
too good.

When I visited Yale, their sense of entitlement was very, very stifling. From
anecdotal comparisons, Yale seems way relaxed, academically, as well.

~~~
akd
> apparently their financial aid isn't too good

nonsense. Harvard, MIT, and Princeton have the best financial aid in the
country (besides of course Olin, Cooper Union, and the military academies...)

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cap4life
I went to an Ivy League school and based on my experience, I found the
author's comments to be exaggerated. How in the world could he not find
anything to speak to the plumber about? Furthermore, why should he blame it on
class differences when it was probably more of a case of social inadequacy?
Although there are many ivy leaguers who major in econ or finance in order to
work at an i-banking or big consulting firm in nyc, there are others who have
different goals. My friends consisted of the latter and we created our own
space within our school while still feeling very much a part of campus life.

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davi
For the "searchers" there are other, better schools than those of the Ivy
League. I still wish I had gone to one of them.

Less seriously, but maybe relatedly: Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed; Bill
Gates dropped out of Harvard.

~~~
rcoder
As another Reed dropout, I can say with some confidence that we're more
numerous (at least relative to the student body size) than those who leave
Harvard early. At one point, Reed's graduation rate within six years of
matriculation was substantially lower than the four-year rate of most of its
peer institutions, though those numbers have come up a lot in the last 5-6
years.

Reed has many of the intellectual trappings of an Ivy, but little of the
opportunity to rub elbows with the rich & powerful. Jobs excepted, most of the
college's famous alumni found their success in academia and the arts, not the
business world.

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daveambrose
This was a great article.

I actually just wrote about this last night:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=224729>

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gunderson
Great article. Even better news.yc comments.

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kingkongrevenge
Blowhard nerd with an ego wonders why he only gets along with nerds. What else
is new.

And correlation is not causation. He never stops to ask whether the brats he's
complaining about are simply drawn to elite education and not at all produced
by it. The idea that college fundamentally changes people seems far fetched to
me.

