For the past few years all that I've seen regarding collegiate admissions are flawless children; exceptionally privileged young Americans, raised in a white house with a picket fence and a two car garage. They attend private schools, overload on extracurriculars and AP courses, and stay up until the early hours researching Kant and Rousseau.
Though their wallets are more than adequate in size, theirs is a world that consists of a handful of possibilities: Harvard. Yale. Brown. Dartmouth. Georgetown. Cornell. A semester abroad at Oxford, perhaps, before the first job at Morgan Stanley and the daily commute made easier by the Audi S4 procured as a graduation gift.
On the outside, this looks like a great life. A charmed life, certainly; full of the Ivy League, summers spent on Martha's Vineyard, winter breaks snuggled up next to a fire in Aspen, starting salaries of $80k the day after graduation.
But what about on the inside?
The pressure that these exceptional students feel to succeed are pressures that never touched me in my solidly middle class family living in a lower class community. Of course, there was never a question of continuing my education after high school - but there was a question of where and for what.
State school for art or education?
The private institution for communications and english literature?
My parents supported whichever decision I made, regardless of their actual views on the subject. I never had to worry that by pursuing the arts I would be disappointing my parents and branding myself as the "free spirit" (re: disappointment) of the family.
For perhaps the first time I can see just how easy I have it.
2 comments:
i find your observations to be some what flawed MAK. i went to one of those schools and i assure you most of the students i knew were high achievers, yes, but not the maniacs you assume and definitely not as wealthy as you assume. beyond that most of my friends chose non-profits over the business world. i know you like to use hyperbole but really, this is over the top. it's good you didn't feel pressured to choose a certain way, but the truth is neither did i. i went to the school i thought best suited my academic goals. my parents would have been happy no matter what. perhaps you don't believe that, a lot of people don't. i guess i just don't understand your absolute distaste for the schools you list.
I don't have an absolute distaste for the universities listed or their student bodies.
The commentary isn't even based on the mentioned institutions - its a based on the state that many of the children highlighted in the news lately - some of the children who attend prep schools such as Exeter - exist in.
They're, for all intents and purposes, flawless children who are being groomed for a certain way of life. For these children, options are limited - for you and many others that attend(ed) these universities, options were endless - you had the freedom of choice.
These are kids that exist in a pressure cooker, not necessarily of their own design and they are, it seems, denied that choice by stature and legacy. That's what I'm talking about (or trying to talk about, albeit apparently not very clearly) in the entry - not the universities themselves.
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