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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Some of the points are good, like the point about overachieving kids never having faced failure. I agree with that one.

But there are a lot of over-generalizations and unsupported assertions.

For example, he claims SLACs are more diverse than Ivies. No way! Seriously, I have a college-age kid and many SLACs are bastions of white preppies.

He treats all elite schools as being absolutely identical in being factories for kids going to law and business school. As if nobody at these schools ever studies anything else. And nobody at state schools or SLACs ever goes to law school or starts a business.

He treats all elite schools as clones of each other, as if Harvard and Brown and Dartmouth and Columbia and Cornell and Stanford and MIT are all alike in terms of diversity, intellectual environment and output of "elitist pigs."

He asserts that public universities have more truly intellectual environments, partly because they are more diverse.  Maybe in some cases, maybe not in others. Tell that to kids who don't fit in at public universities that are focussed around frats and sports.

I get it, academics often exagerrate a tad to sell their books. But that author often crossed the line into opinion, where I wanted to see the stats or research that supported the statement.

IMO, a bigger problem is the rising cost of education combined with huge student loan burdens. There's a book in the making, with lots of stats. [/quote]

You need to go back and read it.  He said that SLACs were the place to for the more intellectual environments and state schools for diversity.  You have it backwards.

Of course he's expressing his opinion.  He doesn't claim otherwise. He does include stats about things like percentage of grads working on Wall street and percentage from high income families.

I think you need to read it again,[/quote]

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