Elite Education vs Ivy League Education

“Disadvantages of Elite Education”

In this paper, William Deresiewicz writes about how horrible it is to have an elite education. To name a few things:

• Can’t talk to ‘dumb’ or real people; (Gives example of his plumber)
• Academic intelligence isn’t the only kind of intelligence.
• False sense of self worth “My GPA/SAT is higher. I’m better.”
• “There are due dates and attendance requirements at places like Yale, but no one takes them very seriously. Extensions are available for the asking; threats to deduct credit for missed classes are rarely, if ever, carried out. ” Anyone doing their work thinks they DESERVE an A.
• Inflation teaches you to expect underserved good treatment/corruption in real world.
• BUSH HAD AN ELITE EDUCATION!!!
• Education forgot that it’s job is to make minds, not careers.

Finally:

The world that produced John Kerry and George Bush is indeed giving us our next generation of leaders. The kid who’s loading up on AP courses junior year or editing three campus publications while double-majoring, the kid whom everyone wants at their college or law school but no one wants in their classroom, the kid who doesn’t have a minute to breathe, let alone think, will soon be running a corporation or an institution or a government. She will have many achievements but little experience, great success but no vision. The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have.

I agree with a lot of what he says. And yet, I am still very proud to be going to MIT. There are many aspects of this elite education that he describes that just aren’t present at MIT. Perhaps a better title would have been, “The Disadvantages of an Ivy Education.” Are we ridiculously proud (I will admit, sometimes more than we should be) of our grades and academic prowess? Yes. Are there students who believe that the fact that they were National Merit Scholars and got 2400 on their SATs (Yes, I’m young) makes them better? Yes.

But when is the last time we expected to get an A, just by doing satisfactory work, were randomly excused from not attending ‘attendance mandatory’ classes, or given As unfairly? I can’t recall such a time. The last time I checked, I worked my ass off (pardon my language) for the A’s I got, and the average grade in classes is indeed a B or C. Heck, this semester I had to fight for an A- in one of my classes because even though the calculated grade came out to an A-, the professor had decided to give me a B+ (it matters @ MIT because on official transcripts there are no plusses or minuses, so A- is an A, B+ is B). Hell, as uncommon as my example might be, isn’t it an example of rounding DOWN?

The reason many of us are so proud all the time, is that we need to have something keeping us going. If we were killing ourselves for nothing, what’s the point? On the contrary to Deresiewicz’s point about expecting an easy life after an easy college life, many MIT alumns say that life at MIT was often so academically tumultuous and challenging, that ‘real life’ seemed like a break from MIT. Also, one of the things many of the most competitive companies say about MIT students is that we learn how to think, and how to work, and that’s why they want us.

If some of us [us = MIT students] can’t talk to real people, that’s our own problem (and often, it is because these people are so nerdy they can’t talk much to any people ). It is by no means encouraged. There are numerous programs at MIT for students to help less educated members of community, etc.

As far as getting into MIT, it is vastly different from the process of getting into Ivy Leagues. As a technical university, MIT seeks out technically-minded indivuduals. I haven’t met any atheletic scholarship students, and no legacies. A good (aka Rich) high school education will most definitely not guarantee you a place at MIT. In fact, there are many brilliant (academically) people who not only have the grades to show it, but early interest in science and research, many awards in their areas of interest, etc. who still don’t get into MIT. I will not pretend that there are no injustices here, or that the most ‘deserving’ people always get in. But the ratio of those who get in to those who get in at Ivy League universities is very different.

I’m sorry Mr. Deresiewicz, but I think you’ve made an unjust generalization by calling out ‘elite’ education, as opposed to ivy league education. I think Caltech would agree.

~ by norachka on July 1, 2008.