I don't know if I think DD's school (which does not draw from a particularly wealthy population as far as I can figure; those kids don't seem to choose to transfer to the school because they're already enrolled in the creme de la creme public or in privates)is grooming kids to be part of the Ivy League elite. I actually think they are emphasizing this leadership business to make the "gifted" part sound more palatable, somehow. It doesn't work, IMO.
Anyway. I read the article. I think the author's parents have a bit to answer for.
I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to elite colleges, often precisely for reasons of class. I never learned that there are smart people who don’t go to college at all.
Yeah, that's not your college's fault. That's your parents' fault, and it's your fault, for having a very limited imagination.
Yet it is precisely that opportunity that an elite education takes away. How can I be a schoolteacher—wouldn’t that be a waste of my expensive education? Wouldn’t I be squandering the opportunities my parents worked so hard to provide? What will my friends think? How will I face my classmates at our 20th reunion, when they’re all rich lawyers or important people in New York? And the question that lies behind all these: Isn’t it beneath me?
I didn't go to an Ivy, but I did go to a prestigious small liberal arts school, as did my husband, as did many of my friends. Maybe it's a function of the people I chose to befriend, but on the whole, we are not locked into this limited mode of thinking. Few of us are wealthy, but most of us love what we do.
Mostly what that essay did for me was convince me that I don't want my kids to go to Yale.
