a final warning to high school students in the college admissions game

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting this! Now I know where my child (a junior at a high school) has his impression that Princeton is toxic, but Duke is cool....

Look all of this is the confirmation bias of the individual speaking...but it is useful to hear validation that there are many different places where one can get a quality education outside of the "elite" colleges .... I get the sense that there are probably also kids at those non-elite colleges that are unhappy...but it is worth hearing from a student that we shouldn't torture our kids with pressure to get in somewhere, especially if they are not psyched about applying to a certain elite school....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do know you can transfer - right? I do not feel bad for anyone who just whines and doesn't try to do anything about it.

If you watch this kid’s YouTube video on where he got in, you will see he is the child of immigrants with a very low income. I don’t think transferring is easy for kids that are on large amounts of financial aid. He was a questbridge finalist or something, so under $65,000 HHI

Wonder if part of his problem is meeting kids there who have immense family wealth and he’s being eaten up with jealousy. It’s one thing to know that billionaires exist, it’s another to meet one and think “why him and not me?”

May not be jealousy- but even if others are trotting to include him he would be excluded.

Kind of hard to not have any spending money and get asked to go to the Witherspoon grill for dinner and be expected to drop a min of $100.

Or get asked to go to someone’s ski house in Utah, and forget about not having $ for the flight but having to rent skis, get clothing, having $ for going out.

I am sure being around so many with $ is an issue - but I would not perceive it as jealousy but honestly not being able to fit in with Ben if others are not intentionally excluding him. He cannot easily live in their world unless they foot the bill for him - that’s a fact.

It may not be jealousy but simply being aware that the world of rich people exists and you're not in it (and never will be) cannot fail to affect your attitude towards those people and the place where you encountered them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

Do you often compare fictional dramas to real life situations? Come back to reality.

Exactly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

I read Sonia Sotomayor's memoir some years ago and remember that her descriptions of transitioning to life at Princeton made it sound really rough for someone who didn't have a privileged background.

No doubt, but she also went there about 50 years ago. There are a lot more women and minorities there now than in 1976.

You are not going to be particularly aware of students who come from very rich families, because university life revolves around activities that are largely paid for and university-centered. If you can't afford the occasional off-campus extras, that will become more noticeable - both for you and for others.

What's tough is that there's a sink or swim ethos that survives to this day. If admission to a school what Princeton is what validates you, struggling at a school that admitted you de-legitimizes you. That can mess with your head. Of course, it's about finding the right balance between being challenged and being overwhelmed.

I am having a hard time agreeing with this. I mean you know which Eating Clubs attract the rich crowd and you see the parties. You make conversations with people in your classes, and when they say they and a group are spending the weekend in NYC...well, they probably aren't staying at the youth hostel or in outer-Queens. Sometimes your roommate is pretty darn wealthy, so it's unavoidable.

I suppose if you just seek out other QB kids and that's where you spend all your time...but kids get the lay of the land pretty darn quick. Honestly, it may be misguided, but 1/2 the reason some people seek out these schools is that they hope they connect with Bezos' kid (believe he transferred to MIT) or someone similar.

I went there, and I'm just sharing my perspective. I didn't have that much of a sense as to which kids were from super wealthy families. I did have a sense as to which kids couldn't splurge on occasional outings because they were working part-time or didn't have the extra money for a day trip to NYC, etc.

Maybe things have changed, and everything is far more extreme now. Or perhaps my perspective is skewed because I conquered the beast - came from a middle-class family, went to a public school, had never been outside the country before college, turned up my own nose at the most elite eating clubs, and still graduated Phi Beta Kappa (top 10%) with good friends who are some of the best people I've ever met. I made the place my own, and in turn it provided opportunities and opened doors for years to come. Overall, it was a great experience. and I feel sorry for kids who've ended up studying something that doesn't really interest them or somehow decided that they are there under duress.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for posting this! Now I know where my child (a junior at a high school) has his impression that Princeton is toxic, but Duke is cool....

Look all of this is the confirmation bias of the individual speaking...but it is useful to hear validation that there are many different places where one can get a quality education outside of the "elite" colleges .... I get the sense that there are probably also kids at those non-elite colleges that are unhappy...but it is worth hearing from a student that we shouldn't torture our kids with pressure to get in somewhere, especially if they are not psyched about applying to a certain elite school....

If you want to disabuse your kid of the notion that Duke is "cool," look at the Cameron Crazies shouting death threats at a UNC basketball player (RJ Davis) last weekend and then throwing water and cans at the UNC players at the end of the game, which Duke lost. It's like someone offered to pay them for being obnoxious and they offered to do it for free instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Imagine what it takes to get into Princeton as an unhooked student. Imagine what those kids are like. Then put all those kids together in one school. Let the horror movie begin.

And combine them with the hooked kids, especially the ones from wealthy backgrounds, who have jobs waiting, regardless of major or performance, and that’s where it gets interesting…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine what it takes to get into Princeton as an unhooked student. Imagine what those kids are like. Then put all those kids together in one school. Let the horror movie begin.

And combine them with the hooked kids, especially the ones from wealthy backgrounds, who have jobs waiting, regardless of major or performance, and that’s where it gets interesting…

As someone who was the epitome of an "unhooked kid" and more than held their own, this made me laugh. At their best, schools like Princeton routinely narrow what you seem to think is some predetermined chasm, not magnify the gap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Imagine what it takes to get into Princeton as an unhooked student. Imagine what those kids are like. Then put all those kids together in one school. Let the horror movie begin.

And combine them with the hooked kids, especially the ones from wealthy backgrounds, who have jobs waiting, regardless of major or performance, and that’s where it gets interesting…

Good lord, this is just life. Give these kids some credit, they know this. We all knew this. No matter how much social engineering or free rides and North Face jackets you give out, some will always have more and do better. This is an ok lesson to learn and shouldn’t push them into nervous collapse.

[Anonymous]

Having attended Princeton, I think the mix of eating clubs and administrators/professors obsessed with "rigor" can make for a unusually rough environment, even compared to other T10s.

In my opinion, eating clubs are are just a more pretentious cousin of Frats and Sororities. They become an obsession for a lot of people and define a lot of students' social identities. The participation rates are really high, something like 70% of upperclassmen. On party nights and even party days, Princeton felt like a Greek Life school for the mega rich.

"Rigor"- at least in STEM - generally translates into raising the difficulty until it's clear that a majority of people are struggling to keep afloat. If the majority aren't struggling hard, the professor must raise the rigor. This can really quickly kill the joy of learning for at least half the class.

HOWEVER, if you can master the rigor and the Greek Life, the school can open the doors to absolutely unbelievable opportunities(I know people who had seven figure incomes at top hedge funds by their late twenties). The Eating Clubs(i.e. Greek Life) make for incredible networking opportunities. Those same rich students that may make some Questbridge kids feel alienated can also open the doors to incredible opportunities in IB and PE for those same kids if they learn to fit in. The same academic rigor that may make most STEM kids begin to hate learning and gives most STEM students unattractive GPAs can also allow the top performers to truly stand out from the crowd - and subsequently get recruited by the top quant hedge funds.

Princeton enables the "winners" to win greatly. However it also convinces a lot of people that they are "losers". Both socially and academically the road to "winning" is an absolute dogfight. There isn't time or energy to care about other people or personal growth outside of the dogfight. I suspect that with the shift towards STEM and more preprofessional types than ever before, the "dogfight" is probably more central to the student experience than it was in the past. I also imagine people are too busy with the "dogfight" to show much concern for others or make time for genuine connections. I suspect this is a big part of what bothered Quon so much.

[Anonymous]

This is truly very eye opening and sad. I went to Columbia and maybe it’s the NYC factor, so you could see the bigger picture and find your place in many different circles, but even as a poor first gen kid, I never felt this way. Have elite schools changed that much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Having attended Princeton, I think the mix of eating clubs and administrators/professors obsessed with "rigor" can make for a unusually rough environment, even compared to other T10s.

In my opinion, eating clubs are are just a more pretentious cousin of Frats and Sororities. They become an obsession for a lot of people and define a lot of students' social identities. The participation rates are really high, something like 70% of upperclassmen. On party nights and even party days, Princeton felt like a Greek Life school for the mega rich.

"Rigor"- at least in STEM - generally translates into raising the difficulty until it's clear that a majority of people are struggling to keep afloat. If the majority aren't struggling hard, the professor must raise the rigor. This can really quickly kill the joy of learning for at least half the class.

HOWEVER, if you can master the rigor and the Greek Life, the school can open the doors to absolutely unbelievable opportunities(I know people who had seven figure incomes at top hedge funds by their late twenties). The Eating Clubs(i.e. Greek Life) make for incredible networking opportunities. Those same rich students that may make some Questbridge kids feel alienated can also open the doors to incredible opportunities in IB and PE for those same kids if they learn to fit in. The same academic rigor that may make most STEM kids begin to hate learning and gives most STEM students unattractive GPAs can also allow the top performers to truly stand out from the crowd - and subsequently get recruited by the top quant hedge funds.

Princeton enables the "winners" to win greatly. However it also convinces a lot of people that they are "losers". Both socially and academically the road to "winning" is an absolute dogfight. There isn't time or energy to care about other people or personal growth outside of the dogfight. I suspect that with the shift towards STEM and more preprofessional types than ever before, the "dogfight" is probably more central to the student experience than it was in the past. I also imagine people are too busy with the "dogfight" to show much concern for others or make time for genuine connections. I suspect this is a big part of what bothered Quon so much.

A Princeton degree can open a lot of doors without a student devoting their undergraduate years to networking with the wealthiest students at the school. The wealthiest students often are not as academically motivated as the kids from public schools and/or less wealthy families that have something left to prove. There are also many rewarding careers besides working in a STEM field or for a quant fund.

So much of this feels like Pogo - "we have met the enemy and it is us."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is truly very eye opening and sad. I went to Columbia and maybe it’s the NYC factor, so you could see the bigger picture and find your place in many different circles, but even as a poor first gen kid, I never felt this way. Have elite schools changed that much?

I have a degree from Columbia, and have been on many campuses, and the undergraduates at Columbia looked about as alienated as any group I ever encountered. But they tend to wear it on their sleeve, as compared to the more buttoned-down variety of angst.

[Anonymous]

A Princeton degree can open a lot of doors without a student devoting their undergraduate years to networking with the wealthiest students at the school. The wealthiest students often are not as academically motivated as the kids from public schools and/or less wealthy families that have something left to prove. There are also many rewarding careers besides working in a STEM field or for a quant fund.

So much of this feels like Pogo - "we have met the enemy and it is us."

Either way, "rigor" and Greek Life(eating clubs) are still central to the student experience. The kinds of people who typically get into Princeton are "hoop jumpers". When presented with the new hoops of intensely rigorous courses and Greek Life, they'll naturally rush to start jumping through the hoops and if they don't do it well it can break their sense of self. Some schools like to set the hoops higher than others and Princeton is one of them.

The hyper-focus on the hoop jumping can cause people to lose touch with the more "human" aspects of themselves like the need for close relationships or the desire to be a caring and compassionate person. Also, I think the compulsion to jump through hoops is stronger in Gen Z than in prior generations. Not entirely sure why, but for what it's worth, I suspect social media and the shrinking middle class could be key causes. Ubiquitous social comparisons and the gap between rich and poor create an extremely strong urgency to make money, and the economy tends to reward successful hoop jumping generously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

A Princeton degree can open a lot of doors without a student devoting their undergraduate years to networking with the wealthiest students at the school. The wealthiest students often are not as academically motivated as the kids from public schools and/or less wealthy families that have something left to prove. There are also many rewarding careers besides working in a STEM field or for a quant fund.

So much of this feels like Pogo - "we have met the enemy and it is us."

Either way, "rigor" and Greek Life(eating clubs) are still central to the student experience. The kinds of people who typically get into Princeton are "hoop jumpers". When presented with the new hoops of intensely rigorous courses and Greek Life, they'll naturally rush to start jumping through the hoops and if they don't do it well it can break their sense of self. Some schools like to set the hoops higher than others and Princeton is one of them.

The hyper-focus on the hoop jumping can cause people to lose touch with the more "human" aspects of themselves like the need for close relationships or the desire to be a caring and compassionate person. Also, I think the compulsion to jump through hoops is stronger in Gen Z than in prior generations. Not entirely sure why, but for what it's worth, I suspect social media and the shrinking middle class could be key causes. Ubiquitous social comparisons and the gap between rich and poor create an extremely strong urgency to make money, and the economy tends to reward successful hoop jumping generously.

Agree with that.

I remember starting Princeton and being so enthusiastic about the opportunities available. It didn't feel like hoops, just opportunities to pursue so many different academic paths. I'd read the course catalog over the summer and agonized over which classes might be the most interesting.

On the other hand, if you start with your gas tank already half-empty because you've already worked so hard to get there, or feel like there's only a few "right" majors or ways to distinguish oneself, it could be an ordeal.

As noted before, it might be a good time for Eisgruber to step aside and for the university to find a leader who is more accessible and a bit less of a meritocrat/technocrat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

I read Sonia Sotomayor's memoir some years ago and remember that her descriptions of transitioning to life at Princeton made it sound really rough for someone who didn't have a privileged background.

No doubt, but she also went there about 50 years ago. There are a lot more women and minorities there now than in 1976.

You are not going to be particularly aware of students who come from very rich families, because university life revolves around activities that are largely paid for and university-centered. If you can't afford the occasional off-campus extras, that will become more noticeable - both for you and for others.

What's tough is that there's a sink or swim ethos that survives to this day. If admission to a school what Princeton is what validates you, struggling at a school that admitted you de-legitimizes you. That can mess with your head. Of course, it's about finding the right balance between being challenged and being overwhelmed.

I am having a hard time agreeing with this. I mean you know which Eating Clubs attract the rich crowd and you see the parties. You make conversations with people in your classes, and when they say they and a group are spending the weekend in NYC...well, they probably aren't staying at the youth hostel or in outer-Queens. Sometimes your roommate is pretty darn wealthy, so it's unavoidable.

I suppose if you just seek out other QB kids and that's where you spend all your time...but kids get the lay of the land pretty darn quick. Honestly, it may be misguided, but 1/2 the reason some people seek out these schools is that they hope they connect with Bezos' kid (believe he transferred to MIT) or someone similar.

You can tell a lot just from the brand of winter coat a student wears.