The flava:
Clearly, seniors did not apply to college from a level playing field – but many think they did. In the dozens of interviews I’ve done with students who make it to elite colleges, I’ve found that most students who make it to top universities believe the college admissions process is a meritocracy in which the objectively “best” high school seniors have made it to their campus. They believe that they and their peers have made it because they worked hard and were smart. “Everyone that gets in deserves to be here,” as one Harvard student put it.
But this narrative is wrong.
The rest:
This was an interesting article. I wanted to just throw that in there. I was reading it, Saturday afternoon, amid myriad distractions, and feeling out of sorts and full of half articulated responses which I did not ever get time to flesh out.
ReplyDeleteBut. Also, I love Zooze! What a wonderful horse zhe is! Zooze, if I am ever in Lamar, I'm bringing you sugar cubes, oats, blankets and apples.
The duck was and is a great duck. A damn fine looking duck, too. We've all said it! We all agree to that; I know this!
But Zooze. Zooze is an entity unto zherself, and not many of us might have thought that possible!
My own kids buy into this because my husband and I work a lot and don't have tons of cash. Never mind that we work a lot IN higher education. Never mind that as the oldest is going through this now, I am constantly telling him "Do your FAFSA... that doesn't matter you have to do it anyway... but you don't want to quit your job, right? that's what you insisted - so how are you going to... no it doesn't work like that - it's not a timed trial and you get done in 4 years... no it doesn't work like that... no... because you have to - I know it doesn't make any sense, that's why I'm TELLING you..."
ReplyDeleteHow do first generation college students whose parents don't have time for this **** stand a chance?
My kids have no ability to see their own advantages. They basically have higher-ed sherpas but they think because we lived in a trailer for a couple of years, yay American-Dream-Pie for Everyone!
Higher Ed Sherpas... what a brilliant way to sum up the knowledge which those of us blessed with parents who know how to work the system were blessed with. My father had worked for a while in admissions at a small selective college, and he told me in 9th grade EXACTLY what the committees would be looking for. He laid out the point system used, and he showed me what an admissions essay should do. I got into my first (selective) choice school. I know I was phenomenally lucky to have that knowledge. I wish more people were willing to share this kind of information. I also wish that the system were less Byzantine, so that one COULD navigate it without a sherpa.
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