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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Princeton Review Selectivity Ratings:

Grinnell 97
Denison 95
Kenyon 95
Oberlin 94[/quote]

Any kid who goes to any of these schools is extremely fortunate and privileged. [/quote]

We need to stop using the word privileged. It suggests someone doesn’t deserve what they have. [/quote]

It doesn't mean someone doesn't deserve what they have. It merely suggests that other people might also deserve those things, but don't have access to them. Big difference. [/quote]

I disagree. The whole connotation behind privilege is that your advantage is unjustified. It’s the opposite of a right. I have a right to free speech. If it were a privilege, it would be conditional and can and perhaps should be taken away from me. Privilege is a negative concept and is certainly used in a very negative way nowadays. It’s actually a very toxic concept. [/quote]

But if it's a right, everyone should have it equally. That's my point. [/quote]

You have the right to apply to college and not have your race taken into account when they decide to admit you or not. That is the extent of your rights. I suppose if anyone is privileged it would be the students who don’t have to pay for services rendered, or more accurately the students whose costs are covered by the parents of the other students who do have to pay. [/quote]

You missed my point.

There are many, many, kids who deserve good things in life, all those wonderful things that money can buy, large and small -- from homes full of books to SAT tutors, from healthy meals and streets safe from violence to a great school district with terrific college counselors -- and who would make the most of these things if they had access to them. We live in a world where a lot of deserving kids don't get these things.

I'm not saying the kids who get the good things don't deserve them. I'm saying many kids who *don't* get them also happen to deserve them. So if lots of kids deserve them, and only some get them, then some are privileged in ways others are not.

I understand that you hear a negative connotation in the word, and that it feels "toxic" to you. But the alternative is believing that the kids who don't have good things, so aren't able make the most of them, must not deserve them. That seems a whole lot more toxic to me.

This is now devolving into every other argument on the internet, and I suspect neither of us has time to rehash arguments that have already been made ad nauseum elsewhere. So I'll bid you goodnight and wish you well. Good luck to your kids. [/quote]

The PP says this very nicely. I looked at schools like these very wistfully when I was young. I would absolutely have loved to have attended one. My parents were wealthy (meaning I didn't get FA) but were never going to help me with college in any way at all. Not financially, not emotionally, and not logistically. They thought tertiary education was wasted on women and discouraged me from thinking about college. I left home as soon as I turned 18 and eventually put myself through a local public university while working. It was very important to me to pay for my kids' college educations, to encourage them to go to good schools, and to take them to visit several colleges and universities. I consider my children privileged (and that's a good thing). Very few kids go to schools like these unless they have supportive parents who are prepared to help them. [/quote]

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