[altosburg]

To preempt the requests for a summary, I'm providing a hilarious autosummary:

an Elite Education
Our best universities have forgotten
The advantages of an elite education are indeed undeniable. Before, after, and around the elite college classroom, a constellation of values is ceaselessly inculcated. With respect to class, these schools are largely—indeed increasingly—homogeneous. 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 never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.

I have a friend who went to an Ivy League college after graduating from a typically mediocre public high school. Some people are smart in the elite-college way, some are smart in other ways, and some aren’t smart at all. The second disadvantage, implicit in what I’ve been saying, is that an elite education inculcates a false sense of self-worth. Getting to an elite college, being at an elite college, and going on from an elite college—all involve numerical rankings: SAT, GPA, GRE. When people say that students at elite schools have a strong sense of entitlement, they mean that those students think they deserve more than other people because their sat scores are higher.

Elite colleges are walled domains guarded by locked gates, with admission granted only to the elect. Graduates of elite schools are not more valuable than stupid people, or talentless people, or even lazy people. Students at places like Cleveland State also don’t get A-’s just for doing the work. At a school like Yale, students who come to class and work hard expect nothing less than an A-. At places like Yale, of course, it’s the reverse. Elite schools nurture excellence, but they also nurture what a former Yale graduate student I know calls “entitled mediocrity.” If Al Gore and John Kerry represent one of the characteristic products of an elite education, George W. Bush represents another. Because students from elite schools expect success, and expect it now. Aren’t kids at elite schools the smartest ones around, at least in the narrow academic sense? A friend who teaches at the University of Connecticut once complained to me that his students don’t think for themselves. I’ve had many wonderful students at Yale and Columbia, bright, thoughtful, creative kids whom it’s been a pleasure to talk with and learn from. Places like Yale are simply not set up to help students ask the big questions. If students want a conversion experience, they’re better off at a liberal arts college.

We are slouching, even at elite schools, toward a glorified form of vocational training.

There’s a reason elite schools speak of training leaders, not thinkers—holders of power, not its critics. As another friend, a third-generation Yalie, says, the purpose of Yale College is to manufacture Yale alumni. Some students end up at second-tier schools because they’re exactly like students at Harvard or Yale, only less gifted or driven. The most elite schools have become places of a narrow and suffocating normalcy. The disadvantage of an elite education is that it’s given us the elite we have, and the elite we’re going to have.

[johnstylet]

Thankfully, I'm not going for teh education

[ReginaPerss]

Posted by the compsci major who works at Microsoft and sneers at artsies?

Is this a conversion asher?

[LarryRda]

I read the article. It is Asher claiming that because he went to a retarded school he can relate to his hot gay plumber who "cleans his pipes" every two weeks. University of Canada Harvard

[Pheboasmabs]

fixes his sink ---> cleans his pipes. It makes more sense

GWB went to Harvard and Yale so eat my ****.

[adolfadsermens]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
GWB went to Harvard and Yale so eat my ****. Own goal.

[Petrushkaukrop]

A good read. All too true. Very obvious to many of us, but still nice to see it acknowledged by one who lives amid the so-called elites.

Thanks for posting, Asher.

[Zhgrlpil]

I don't work at Microsoft and you clearly didn't read the post. The same person that sneered at my rinky-dink school.

You should practice what you preach Asher. This is a total OWN GOAL.

[AXGreg]

Originally posted by Asher


The point of the article, as ably demonstrated by your lack of intelligence :PMS: , is just because you go to Yale or Harvard it doesn't automatically make you smart. Smart people can be found everywhere.

GWB is a prime example. The man is a complete tool. GWB is an exception you imbecile, this is quite obvious -- he has connections, but most have none whatsoever. If you're at an elite school there's essentially a guarantee of intelligence.

[lorryuncori]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


GWB is an exception you imbecile, this is quite obvious -- he has connections, but most have none whatsoever. If you're at an elite school there's essentially a guarantee of intelligence. So you admit GWB doesn't have intelligence?

[russmodel]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
He does, but he probably would not have gotten into Yale without connections. So what? I think you underestimate how many people get into Yale based on connections or SAT prep courses, which do not measure intelligence but how many times they wish to take the SAT and how much money they can spend ensuring they do well on it.

[PebydataFeents]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
SAT prep courses are completely useless. Completely and utterly useless. I'm tired of these loser hippy types who complain the test is culturally biased or not fair or whatever. It's actually a very, very basic math and verbal test, and if you bomb it, it's on you.

Also these universities give you huge benefits for working, minority, etc that essentially add 200 pts to the score anyway.

Plenty of legacies get into Yale and Harvard but this is because they're quite bright because obviously they're kids of bright people. What school did you go to Wiggy?

[bestbyV]

Originally posted by Asher


What school did you go to Wiggy? What does this matter?

Washington University in St Louis
UVA
Georgetown

Suck my ****

[KevinDonae]

Originally posted by Wiglaf


What does this matter?

Washington University in St Louis
UVA
Georgetown

Suck my **** You failed out of which two and finally passed at which one?

[popillio]

You never did understand the concept of a graduate course you nimb cocked lunatic.

Low smog levels

[Indian Butt Magic]

No, two are undergrad. Tricked you. **** face. Perhaps when you are done jerking it off to my impressive educational resume we can get back to how I'm destroying you in this thread. If you ever wanted to have kids, you might want to check your nuts, for I think I have destroyed them here today.

[aliceingoogs]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Plenty of legacies get into Yale and Harvard but this is because they're quite bright because obviously they're kids of bright people.

Actually, I went to an Ivy, and every time I met someone who didn't seem quite bright enough to be there, it turned out he or she was a legacy.

(Of course, Bush's Yale degree should be proof enough of Wiggie's fallacious reasoning there, but I thought I'd throw in my own $0.02.)

[Kingerix]

Geographically confused? What the **** DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. You probably didn't even go to a ****ing school and just blew every professor wearing bermuda shorts.

Good to know you think everyone gets into Harvard because of their daddy though. If it makes you feel better for going to stanley cup University or the school of fantasy hockey, so be it, just don't bother this shitty site with your fantasies about my twinkie.

[incizarry]

I just realized I forgot the link. Added.

The author was an English prof for 10 years at Yale.

[yWleIJm4]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Geographically confused? What the **** DOES THAT EVEN MEAN. Having a University of Washington in St Louis. It's just all kinds of ****ed up.

You probably didn't even go to a ****ing school and just blew every professor wearing bermuda shorts. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: My school had an annual "bermuda shorts day" (BSD) that was my favourite day of the year.

Good to know you think everyone gets into Harvard because of their daddy though. If it makes you feel better for going to stanley cup University or the school of fantasy hockey, so be it, just don't bother this shitty site with your fantasies about my twinkie. That's the other thing, Yale and Harvard have crap hockey teams. They're too busy ****ing eachother and reciting pretentious poetry to eachother instead of playing the game.