Anonymous wrote:I promise you at every college in the country, for decades and decades, you can find a group of 18-22 yos who think the school is terrible, the people suck, the preps and jocks are evil, administration doesn't care, etc etc. The news here is 1) the echo chamber of social media, and 2) the level of hand-wringing amongst parents.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

Do you often compare fictional dramas to real life situations? Come back to reality.

I know people think they are being helpful by urging unprepared kids to apply to these pressure-cooker colleges, but in many cases they will be better off at good schools a notch or 2 down academically.

Part of the current mess is that for many kids in this demographic, Princeton and its peers are free, while lower-ranked schools are quite expensive.

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.

Did you meet Regina George & Tracy Flick at the Brown thing?

It’s clear that the guy in the video is unhappy but he doesn’t provide enough detail to understand why or whether the reason is specific to Princeton or not.

Seems like there are lots of unhappy kids at highly selective schools these days but I’m honestly not all that sympathetic. There is a way through all of these schools and in teh end the degree is going to open doors for you . If you are in the wrong major, then you’d better switch. If you are not finding friends, you need to do more work to put yourself out there. Honestly it’s time to grow up, get off your phone and start stepping up to the life you have chosen and have worked hard to obtain.

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.

I was a driven, high-achieving, star student at a decent but not amazing public high school. I went to a highly ranked college and chose an academically challenging major. It was a brutal wake-up call to go from an environment where adults all told me how great I was on a regular basis and I was routinely the smartest person in the room to a university where my peers came from TJ, Stuyvesant, and top boarding schools. I went from being a big fish in a little pond to a little fish in a big pond. I struggled to adjust.

In hindsight I struggled because I didn’t spend my HS years learning, building study and executive functioning skills, building resiliency, and thinking about what I was passionate about. I spent 4 years playing the game as best I could. I got all As at all costs. I chose my sports and activities based on where I could win awards or hold leadership positions. All of my choices were based on building my resume and I moved through classes and activities to check boxes. I picked a school and major based on what seemed prestigious and what I thought I was supposed to want. I was winning for the sake of winning.

Some degree of playing the game to optimize opportunities is necessary, but not to the extent that it crowds out everything else. I hope I can help my kids have a more balanced approach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

I read Sonia Sotomayor's memoir some years ago and remember that her descriptions of transitioning to life at Princeton made it sound really rough for someone who didn't have a privileged background.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

Very quickly...pressure-cooker environment filled with kids who are not the "best" people. Treat you differently one-on-one vs. when you are in a crowd...overly competitive..etc. Results in lots of depressed kids / unhappy college experience, etc.

Apparently, the Youtube kid is somewhat well known and started posting while in HS, and is a Questbridge kid, so comes from a low-income background.

This description fits the vast majority of DMV Big 3/5 kids to a tee-esp the part about acting differently in a group than by themselves. My kid hates their High school and can’t wait to leave. Watching this makes me worried that the same kids will exist in college too-but hopefully a way bigger pond to choose from. Why are kids here so damn vapid and cruel??

I think a lot is dependent on major. I hear similar things about Duke STEM bring a pressure cooker, but heard trinity was very collaborative

Seems STEM at many T10 is hard to handle. Then if you add in a significant # of students who are fake/all about prestige it further compounds the issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Russell Crowe as John Nash had a similar experience at Princeton in the 40s.

Do you often compare fictional dramas to real life situations? Come back to reality.

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.

I went to a private high school that had uber-rich kids as well as trailer park kids on scholarships. (Many others, like me, had parents with good incomes e.g. doctors and lawyers but not uber-rich.) You have no idea how much smoldering resentment the poor kids had for the rich kids. You drive a beat up old junker and the other kids have brand new BMWs. The sad part was that the poor kids thought all the rich kids were snobs who looked down on them, when in fact the rich kids didn't think about them at all.

As bad as differences in income can be, differences in preparedness can be worse.

My kid went to a top ten university & got tons of financial aid. Kid definitely felt a bit intimidated by wealthy friends. But at least kid could compete in the classroom.

Kid was a tutor at the school, & said a lot of the football players & URMs were overwhelmed academically and felt alienated from the students who got in on their academic merits.

I know people think they are being helpful by urging unprepared kids to apply to these pressure-cooker colleges, but in many cases they will be better off at good schools a notch or 2 down academically.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anybody want to summarize what he said?

You have to watch it because he’s quite genuine and that doesn’t translate.

But basically- Princeton is a a really unhappy unhealthy place. People are manipulative, extremely competitive, and stressed. Do your research before you choose you college. Don’t just listen to the tour guides. Watch how students interact. Then he gave really good advice on choosing friends wisely!

Sounds blah big listening to it gives it credibility

Curious as to his audience. I agree completely...don't just do official college tours. Try to meet as many current students as possible. My kid thought CMU would be great for them, but found the STEM kids he met so stressed and depressed, that it was immediately crossed off the list.

His primary audience is high school students. His secondary audience seems to be his peers at Princeton.

I promise you at every college in the country, for decades and decades, you can find a group of 18-22 yos who think the school is terrible, the people suck, the preps and jocks are evil, administration doesn't care, etc etc. The news here is 1) the echo chamber of social media, and 2) the level of hand-wringing amongst parents.

I think the extreme STEM focus and the number of kids who've aggressively been prepped to attend a T10 school are both issues.

Too other things that may be issues at Princeton are the eating club culture and the administration:

Eating Clubs: People associate the Princeton eating clubs with exclusive, preppy White culture, and of course this was the case well into the 1970s. By the 1970s and 80s, the number of selective "Bicker" clubs was equally matched by more democratic, "sign-in" clubs that anyone could join. The members of those clubs often deliberately avoided the "Bicker" system and thought the selective clubs were anachronisms that would fade away over time. Instead, the Bicker clubs adapted - both by accepting more women and minorities and then expanding their membership numbers. If you were a Black woman at Princeton in 1985, you could be just as uninterested in Ivy Club as Ivy Club was uninterested in you, and the close-knit community at the then-Third World Center would almost universally share that perspective and have your back. But if you're a Black woman or an Asian man at Princeton in 2024, and you get hosed at Ivy, Cap and Gown, and Cottage, they'll be dozens of other Black and Asian members of those clubs reminding you that you didn't make the cut, and it wasn't just because of your race. That's a different, and in some ways equally hard, pill to swallow. Replacing the eating clubs with four-year residential colleges would help, but the administration does not want to antagonize the many alumni who defend the clubs.

Administration: Chris Eisgruber is a very smart guy with a social IQ of about 50. I know his wife, and she told me years ago - with absolutely no sense of humility or doubt whatsoever - that he was the most brilliant person she'd ever met (and she went to Harvard). He's done some things very well, and he's avoided some of the gaffes that sank the careers of other university presidents, but he's remote and not particularly accessible to students. In general, the meritocracy has served him extremely well in life, so he's about the last person on earth to be temperamentally inclined to change the "sink or swim" atmosphere at the school. Replacing him with someone who is more in tune with the challenges that students today face, and willing to restore the balance between liberal arts and STEM at the school, would probably be a good move at this point.