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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?”

This is probably the most unlikely theory.

DP: I don't think PP's wording--eaten up with jealousy--or even jealousy at all is right. But I remember being barely MC in a selective school and encountering UMC+ kids and just being saddened by how people who could be so smart and nice in so many ways could have such a blithe cluelessness about how the world worked for the majority of people. Just so many thoughtless remarks. I could see they weren't mean-spirited, just so wholly removed from how life is experienced by the vast majority of people in this country and on this planet. I was doing fine academically and socially and this still felt like an almost existential issue to me sometimes: do I even want to be here with these people I am starting to care about who are so protected from so much of reality? I can imagine how it would be if it were compounded by greater academic/social pressures.

+1. I think the people who dismiss this as a possibility are among the “blithe clueless.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of effort here to discount what he's saying.

But it is true that some of the top ivies are pressure cookers. Why deny that? You're taking uber competitive kids and putting them all in a new environment where all of a sudden everyone else is just as smart as them. It's rough. Why try and claim it's because of this kid's personal circumstances? Lots of folks say what he's saying. And he's just trying to remind you of this as you're navigating college choices. I don't think it was poor judgment. I think it was brave. He's trying to advocate for his values in a way that helps others. He's trying to say that maybe "elite" isn't worth the toxic environment. Good for him - I'd hire him.

This kid has some wisdom and you all are so entrenched in the idea of elite that you can't take it in. He's asking you to try and see things differently for your kids' sake. I honestly feel badly for the kids who are trained to chase status.

I agree with your comment 100%. Was going to add my two cents, but you already articulated what I wanted to say - perfectly!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with QB and colleges with low income kids is nobody gives them a crash course in social dynamics when you throw $65k kids into a pool where the majority are wealthy and super wealthy.

First, it looks as if Quon is probably a quirky, thriving Princeton student who’s had problems with other kids getting tired of his quirkiness. He’s not a monster, and they’re not necessarily monsters, but quirkiness is simply a challenging part of life, like being fat or being very short.

Second, a lot of aggressive QB-type kids have been swimming with the rich sharks since they were babies. They know everything about the rich sharks. I don’t think the aggressive, sophisticated QB kids have any more trouble relating to rich snobs than sheltered rich softies do.

Third, I think what the more sheltered QB kids might not understand, and what the rich snobs don’t understand, is that rude snobbery is a symptom of dysfunction. Figuring out how to keep rich snobs from hurting you is as important as figuring out how to keep psychopaths from killing you, but there’s no more reason to envy rich snobs than to envy psychopaths.

QB kids are talented go-getters who can achieve anything.

Many, if not most, rich kids try hard to act like normal people. They may have only a vague idea that they’re especially rich. They might have cars and nice clothes, but they aren’t driving ultra-fancy cars or wearing designer clothes all day. They understand that they’ve had advantages that poor kids haven’t had. They admire the grit and talent of the poor kids who are sitting in college with them.

The rich college kids who act like rude jerks suffer from parental neglect, poor parenting, personality disorders, or some combination of those three things. They have poor chances of survival outside of their protected bubbles. They’re like dumb, lazy, captive lobsters being kept alive so that the QB kids have something fresh to eat.

And that’s the point of how Princeton works. The rich kids get four fun years of partying. The Quons get to learn about the rich kids and figure out how to take them down.

You sound like a sociopath who doesn’t get that not everyone is a sociopath.

As a former scholarship student surrounded by rich kids who is now rich myself and sending a kid to college, I disagree with almost all of this. I didn’t know that many rich “snobs,” and I knew just as many poor kids screwed up by bad parenting as rich kids. What I did know is a bunch of rich kids who almost all had no clue how privileged they were. Some of the Quons may learn to take down the kids from “the bubble,” but it doesn’t sound like that’s where Quon is (because he’s not a sociopath) and the bubble doesn’t go away after college, anyway. The rich kids will still have their money to protect them and parents to get their foot in the door at internships and first jobs. I did learn to fit in with the rich at college and it does partially contribute to my success.

The only part I agree with is that the poor kid can have more ambition and drive, because they have to to get where they are. Not necessarily, though. I know Billionaire heirs who have an enormous amount of drive (probably because they want to show they deserve it).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of effort here to discount what he's saying.

But it is true that some of the top ivies are pressure cookers. Why deny that? You're taking uber competitive kids and putting them all in a new environment where all of a sudden everyone else is just as smart as them. It's rough. Why try and claim it's because of this kid's personal circumstances? Lots of folks say what he's saying. And he's just trying to remind you of this as you're navigating college choices. I don't think it was poor judgment. I think it was brave. He's trying to advocate for his values in a way that helps others. He's trying to say that maybe "elite" isn't worth the toxic environment. Good for him - I'd hire him.

This kid has some wisdom and you all are so entrenched in the idea of elite that you can't take it in. He's asking you to try and see things differently for your kids' sake. I honestly feel badly for the kids who are trained to chase status.

I agree with your comment 100%. Was going to add my two cents, but you already articulated what I wanted to say - perfectly!

DP. I think you probably eat it up a bit too eagerly because it reinforces your own assumptions and prejudices.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could some of this issue (or most of it) be caused by the test optional trend of the last 4 years?

I imagined if you were an average or slightly above average student with an inflated GPA who got into one of these intense schools via test optional, starting behind everyone else from the get go would be very stressful and demoralizing.

Not for this student. He is talking about character, not aptitude. Even with test optional, aptitude is abundant at Princeton. Maintaining character and authenticity in that environment is a much greater challenge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?”

This is probably the most unlikely theory.

DP: I don't think PP's wording--eaten up with jealousy--or even jealousy at all is right. But I remember being barely MC in a selective school and encountering UMC+ kids and just being saddened by how people who could be so smart and nice in so many ways could have such a blithe cluelessness about how the world worked for the majority of people. Just so many thoughtless remarks. I could see they weren't mean-spirited, just so wholly removed from how life is experienced by the vast majority of people in this country and on this planet. I was doing fine academically and socially and this still felt like an almost existential issue to me sometimes: do I even want to be here with these people I am starting to care about who are so protected from so much of reality? I can imagine how it would be if it were compounded by greater academic/social pressures.

+1. I think the people who dismiss this as a possibility are among the “blithe clueless.”

So middle class American kids have great insights into how "the world works for the majority of people" lacking among their UMC and UC peers? They may find it disorienting for a while to be around some wealthier kids but that doesn't exactly make them experts on the human condition.

[Anonymous]

Not for this student. He is talking about character, not aptitude. Even with test optional, aptitude is abundant at Princeton. Maintaining character and authenticity in that environment is a much greater challenge.

+1

It's easy to lose yourself and your values in a hyper-competitive environment. Your entire identity becomes about competition and it can make you a very one-dimensional and self-centered person. This happens in a lot of high intensity professions too.

[Anonymous]

Princeton is not among my favorite colleges. I've always disliked it. That said, this kid was pretty messed up before he went to Princeton.

He reads his admission essay on youtube. He is US born. His father was bon in China but adopted by a Caucasian American family and grew up in the US. So, this kid is NOT from an immigrant family in the usual sense.

Much of his essay is about his father's rage and how he was regularly beaten by his father and how he tried to save his sister from that when his father began to beat her.

That sort of upbringing leaves scars no matter where you go to college--and even if you don't go at all.

Other aspects of the essay make it seem as if the kid is OCD.

Now, I don't think Princeton is a great place, but this kid's issues aren't entirely due to being at Princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Not for this student. He is talking about character, not aptitude. Even with test optional, aptitude is abundant at Princeton. Maintaining character and authenticity in that environment is a much greater challenge.

+1

It's easy to lose yourself and your values in a hyper-competitive environment. Your entire identity becomes about competition and it can make you a very one-dimensional and self-centered person. This happens in a lot of high intensity professions too.

Just because a university is highly selective does not mean it is a hyper-competitive environment. Aspects of Princeton can be highly competitive; other aspects are collaborative and supportive. But if you want to seek out the most competitive majors and activities, they will let you jump through those hoops.

At a certain point the negative comments just become middle-brow nonsense, as if dissatisfaction with any highly selective school is a cause for celebration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Princeton is not among my favorite colleges. I've always disliked it. That said, this kid was pretty messed up before he went to Princeton.

He reads his admission essay on youtube. He is US born. His father was bon in China but adopted by a Caucasian American family and grew up in the US. So, this kid is NOT from an immigrant family in the usual sense.

Much of his essay is about his father's rage and how he was regularly beaten by his father and how he tried to save his sister from that when his father began to beat her.

That sort of upbringing leaves scars no matter where you go to college--and even if you don't go at all.

Other aspects of the essay make it seem as if the kid is OCD.

Now, I don't think Princeton is a great place, but this kid's issues aren't entirely due to being at Princeton.

It's a great place, though not a great place for everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could some of this issue (or most of it) be caused by the test optional trend of the last 4 years?

I imagined if you were an average or slightly above average student with an inflated GPA who got into one of these intense schools via test optional, starting behind everyone else from the get go would be very stressful and demoralizing.

The problem is that high school students who are really into college prestige and rankings are often vicious people.

I saw this when I went to Brown’s program for high school students. Terrific program. Some lovely students. But about half of the students were like characters out of a movie about evil students. Truly nasty people.

+1

I was on the verge of being that kid when I arrived at my elite college 20+ years ago.

Bless my parents, but they were the absolute cliche first-generation-out-of-poverty types. Their values were super scrappy and survival-based, but not always pro-social or kind. Everything focused on upward mobility, including my “achieving” admission to an elite college. And I was taught life was a zero sum competition - there’s only one “best,” you need to do whatever you can to get it.

Thankfully (!!!) I intuitively knew that their values were stunted, to say the least, and I wanted to be a different type of person when I got to college and beyond. I met incredible friends - thoughtful, kind, and brilliant beyond belief - and together we learned to be better versions of ourselves, back then and now, to this day. I’m probably still the jerk of the group, relatively speaking 😂 but I’ve come a long, long way!!

To me, this was the greatest gift of my college years. I had non-stop experiences and relationships that expanded my world view, mind, and heart.

The classes were stimulating on so many levels, and pretty much every one taught me to be a better critical thinker. Philosophy, government, literature, economic theory, art history, even my struggles with advanced math - they ALL helped me grow. And my friends, acquaintances, and romantic partners all did the same. I learned to collaborate, disagree with kindness, and view the world as bountiful and fun rather than a dog-eat-dog competition. Plus I started down the road to a phenomenal career, just as my parents had hoped. 😊

To me, THIS is the value of a college education. To step into an adulthood that is larger, deeper, kinder, and far richer in possibilities than one imagined on day one. That’s what set my life on its current path. All the rest was gravy.

[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.

It isn't just "if you learn to fit in", it is if you are ever have a chance to grovel out outside the door for a minuscule chance of being let in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could some of this issue (or most of it) be caused by the test optional trend of the last 4 years?

I imagined if you were an average or slightly above average student with an inflated GPA who got into one of these intense schools via test optional, starting behind everyone else from the get go would be very stressful and demoralizing.

The problem is that high school students who are really into college prestige and rankings are often vicious people.

I saw this when I went to Brown’s program for high school students. Terrific program. Some lovely students. But about half of the students were like characters out of a movie about evil students. Truly nasty people.

+1

I was on the verge of being that kid when I arrived at my elite college 20+ years ago.

Bless my parents, but they were the absolute cliche first-generation-out-of-poverty types. Their values were super scrappy and survival-based, but not always pro-social or kind. Everything focused on upward mobility, including my “achieving” admission to an elite college. And I was taught life was a zero sum competition - there’s only one “best,” you need to do whatever you can to get it.

Thankfully (!!!) I intuitively knew that their values were stunted, to say the least, and I wanted to be a different type of person when I got to college and beyond. I met incredible friends - thoughtful, kind, and brilliant beyond belief - and together we learned to be better versions of ourselves, back then and now, to this day. I’m probably still the jerk of the group, relatively speaking 😂 but I’ve come a long, long way!!

To me, this was the greatest gift of my college years. I had non-stop experiences and relationships that expanded my world view, mind, and heart.

The classes were stimulating on so many levels, and pretty much every one taught me to be a better critical thinker. Philosophy, government, literature, economic theory, art history, even my struggles with advanced math - they ALL helped me grow. And my friends, acquaintances, and romantic partners all did the same. I learned to collaborate, disagree with kindness, and view the world as bountiful and fun rather than a dog-eat-dog competition. Plus I started down the road to a phenomenal career, just as my parents had hoped. 😊

To me, THIS is the value of a college education. To step into an adulthood that is larger, deeper, kinder, and far richer in possibilities than one imagined on day one. That’s what set my life on its current path. All the rest was gravy.

Love all of this.

[Anonymous]

It isn't just "if you learn to fit in", it is if you are ever have a chance to grovel out outside the door for a minuscule chance of being let in.

I saw students rise from abject poverty before Princeton to very high earning roles on Wall Street immediately after through wealthy friends made in the eating clubs. Not everyone can learn to play "the game" - I myself never did - but for those who can, the rewards can be substantial. There's a much deeper question of whether one wants to play "the game" to begin with though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Could some of this issue (or most of it) be caused by the test optional trend of the last 4 years?

I imagined if you were an average or slightly above average student with an inflated GPA who got into one of these intense schools via test optional, starting behind everyone else from the get go would be very stressful and demoralizing.

Probably it contributed.

I think there’s a strong connection. If you got a 1350 and they are expecting the work of someone who can get a 1570 then yes it would be challenging. The amount of reading given requires a very high level of reading comprehension and to be able to read fast, for example.

This kid had a 1550 on the SAT or something like that.