the Atlantic: The Elite College Students Who Can't Read Books

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

It’s competitive largely because of the rampant grade inflation in high schools. This is established fact. When everyone gets As, they mean nothing. And getting all As in high school does NOT mean the students are well prepared for college. Nor are they graduating from college well prepared for the working world, by the way. See recent Fortune article revealing that 6/10 employers have already fired new college grads because they are “unprofessional and unprepared.”

So you are saying that 1) the level of competitiveness is an illusion, because undeserved 4.0s are enlarging the pool 2) AOs can't tell the best students from the grade-inflated ones?

Yes. No way for AOs to vet this with the exploding number of apps.

My kids also go to a local private and read at least 4-5 books a year in class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

It’s competitive largely because of the rampant grade inflation in high schools. This is established fact. When everyone gets As, they mean nothing. And getting all As in high school does NOT mean the students are well prepared for college. Nor are they graduating from college well prepared for the working world, by the way. See recent Fortune article revealing that 6/10 employers have already fired new college grads because they are “unprofessional and unprepared.”

So you are saying that 1) the level of competitiveness is an illusion, because undeserved 4.0s are enlarging the pool 2) AOs can't tell the best students from the grade-inflated ones?

I am saying that the pool of straight A students is MUCH larger than it should be, making GPA no longer necessarily a reflection of academic achievement or aptitude and making it harder to stand out on the basis of GPA from an admissions standpoint. So yes, this has made admissions more competitive because we are suddenly seeing straight A students not getting in to schools they would have gained admission to years ago. It takes more now. Grade inflation hurts everyone and has dumbed down every college around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

Test prep. Read a short passage find the main idea. Move onto the next skill. Meanwhile, they've never read a whole book about anything. I totally understand why this is happening. Since there's no homework these days, I assign it. My kid is always reading a book for homework, and we're always discussing it.

But that just sounds like a run of the mill 4.0 GPA/grade grabber who we are repeatedly told can't get into, e.g. Columbia.

I mean, my 8th grader is not a big reader and she read a non-fiction psychiatry book over just a few days this summer and we discussed it. Pretty sure she would be capable of discussing Pride and prejudice and Crime and punishment within a couple of weeks. I read these books in HS. They are interesting and not that hard to read.

Those books aren't interesting at all. I mean, Crime & Punishment? Are you now going to tell me War & Peace is interesting too?

Perhaps if we let a kid read a non-fiction psychiatry book instead of Pride and Prejudice or whatever, then things would be better.

But, if you want to read Crime & Punishment, then go for it.

Wow, I feel sorry for you. Your inability to understand some of the greatest fiction ever written indicates lacks in other aspects of your understanding of life.

Apparently, you can't even write a coherent sentence that is grammatically correct. That's rich.

DP. Small point but I wonder if perhaps you were reading “lacks” as a verb instead of as a noun? Try replacing “lacks” with its synonym “deficiencies.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

bc kids lie on the apps.

I mean columbia's app makes you list all the books you've read in the last 2 years...

It does? I wouldn't even remember everything I've read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

reading the entire article indicates the title vastly overstates the truth: most students still read whole books just fine

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

bc kids lie on the apps.

I mean columbia's app makes you list all the books you've read in the last 2 years...

okay... and AOs can't suss that out?

Probably not, as they are asking for stupid things like listing all the books an applicant has read in the last 2 years. Lots of people would lie when making a list in response.

[Anonymous]

NP. This is why we moved our kids to private. My kid read more whole books as required summer reading for one class for 9th grade in private than he did in all of public middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

reading the entire article indicates the title vastly overstates the truth: most students still read whole books just fine

Hmm. Looks like Atlantic writers don't know how to write. I wonder if that's because they also don't know how to read.

[Anonymous]

DC is taking AP Language this year (11th), and the teacher had them read Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell over the summer. DC enjoyed it and said the class discussion and spin-off wring assignments have been great! But …

At Open House / meet the teacher night, DC’s teacher said for the rest of the year the class will be reading non-fiction book EXCERPTS and articles and editorials. Is this normal for AP Lang??

Hopefully AP Lit will be different. A steady stream of actual full-length books, right? That’s what I remember from back in my day (the 90s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand this. Aren't admissions more competitive than ever? Aren't these the superhuman students who aced the hardest classes, scored extremely highly on SATs, had very time-consuming ECs....? We are told nobody has a chance at these schools, and yet, those who are actually there, can't read a book? How is this possible.

Test prep. Read a short passage find the main idea. Move onto the next skill. Meanwhile, they've never read a whole book about anything. I totally understand why this is happening. Since there's no homework these days, I assign it. My kid is always reading a book for homework, and we're always discussing it.

But that just sounds like a run of the mill 4.0 GPA/grade grabber who we are repeatedly told can't get into, e.g. Columbia.

I mean, my 8th grader is not a big reader and she read a non-fiction psychiatry book over just a few days this summer and we discussed it. Pretty sure she would be capable of discussing Pride and prejudice and Crime and punishment within a couple of weeks. I read these books in HS. They are interesting and not that hard to read.

Those books aren't interesting at all. I mean, Crime & Punishment? Are you now going to tell me War & Peace is interesting too?

Perhaps if we let a kid read a non-fiction psychiatry book instead of Pride and Prejudice or whatever, then things would be better.

But, if you want to read Crime & Punishment, then go for it.

DP. Read Crime and Punishment in high school and it still ranks as one of my all time favorites. It’s phenomenal.

NP. Crime and Punishment is one of the best books I’ve ever read. So so good. Have re-read it several times. Never read War and Peace so I can’t comment there.

You must read it! It’s wonderful. One of my favorite books, after Anna Karenina.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Students at elite universities such as Columbia are showing up to campus unable to read books. They've only read excerpts their entire school career. Many also struggle to write effectively. In response, many Columbia teachers have to water down the curriculum.

reading the entire article indicates the title vastly overstates the truth: most students still read whole books just fine

Hmm. Looks like Atlantic writers don't know how to write. I wonder if that's because they also don't know how to read.

Often the article titles are written by someone other than the author of the article itself. I think that’s pretty standard in journalism.

These days, the goal of an article’s title is not to be completely descriptive. It’s to get clicks and to get people sharing it / go viral. So titles are often alarmist and misleading. Seems to have worked in this case. 😢

[Anonymous]

Maybe kids should have to prove that they have read books for admission. You could take video of yourself reading, no distraction, and then write an easy about the book you’re read, also videoed. This could all be uploaded and AI could analyze the hundreds or thousands of hours of video to ensure the books have been read and understood.

The top kids would have read 100+ great books in high school, maybe even 500 or more. Poets could read poetry. Historians history. English majors English and Spanish majors Spanish. Etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dcs go to a good public high school in the south. Ds has not had to read a book since middle school. Dd has had one book to read for AP English Lit so far, that's it.

Have you ever heard of the library? My children read books outside of school. Writing is a whole different matter - I don't know how to get them to write essays as an extracurricular

[Anonymous]

Parenting. Try it.

[Anonymous]

I went to a nothing special public school system in Arizona (consistently ranked in the lowest 10 of states for education) for middle and high school. I'm SO grateful that I learned to read in elementary school in Massachusetts, and that I had a family who encouraged my love for books

The summer between my sophomore and junior years in high school I read Anna Karenina, just for fun. 800 pages give or take, depending on the edition. It wasn't the only book I read that summer, either. In middle and high school I went to the public library every other week and checked out as many books as I could carry - that was their limit. I consumed numerous works of classic literature that I was never assigned in school - but in school we read several books each year, and again it wasn't a rigorous school system. I *was* in honors English classes and tested at the graduate school level for reading comprehension as a sophomore in HS.

Years later when I taught college composition as a GTA while pursuing my MA in English at a state university, I was dismayed by the average reading comprehension and writing ability of most of my students. That was nearly 3 decades ago and I'm not one bit surprised to hear it's much worse from friends who still teach at both public schools and universities. Most kids aren't reading long form fiction or nonfiction anymore. Heck, I'm not reading much these days anymore either - but trying hard to break the digital addiction that has become an obstacle to exercising my brain.