This is what happens when you don’t spend time exploring different programs and going deep on what each school offers and instead reduce everything to a ranking. And then you fire off a ton of apps to schools based on those rankings rather than places you really want to go.

People who don’t do this are perfectly content.

The upper middle class fears downward social mobility.

Compared to when we went to college, many of our white collar jobs are exposed to global wage pressure. Everything I do today could be done by my very talented colleague in China. Except understanding how Americans really think due to life experience and being able to physically show up at the office.

My kid didn't go T20 and didn't feel like she had to apply to those schools. She's at an intense applied engineering school and is extremely happy. She has never felt like a loser for picking her school.

In the past, it seems that kids were more open and accepting of their differing academic outcomes and college placement than today. It seems like getting to the T20 has become a crowded trade, which has becoming a farce, and kids are left to feel that if they fail to achieve this they are losers. Why has academics been reduced to a velvet rope marketing campaign?