Deconstructing the College Admissions Rat Race
John Perry

03 September 2011

进入你所选择的学院或大学，特别是如果它是一所高选择性的大学，比以往任何时候都变得更加艰巨和更有压力。

The odds are stacked against students from the start. Consider Stanford. This year we had just over thirty two thousand applications to fill about sixteen hundred freshmen slots. So we accepted just seven percent of those who applied.

Those are astounding numbers.

And Stanford's not alone. Harvard admitted seven percent of its applicants, while Yale admitted eight percent and Princeton admitted nine percent of the students who applied.

To be fair that’s not the whole story. Many very fine colleges and universities admit a significantly higher proportion of their applicants. UC Berkeley, for example, admitted twenty-two percent of the forty eight thousand who applied. And the University of Michigan admitted just over half of its applicants.

Itisa great thing about America, that if you want to go to college, there’s a school somewhere that’ll accept you, and it’ll probably do a good job of educating you. But given that there’s a college out there for everyone and most colleges are pretty good, it makes it all the more puzzling why there's such intense competition over the relatively few spots in the so-called elite colleges and universities.

问题是，我们的社会过于执着于——特别执着于——血统和声望。在内心深处，许多人相信，你上的大学的声望将对你的余生产生巨大的影响。

Hardly anybody stops to ask whether that belief is true. But whether or not it’s true, the bare fact of it gives selective colleges and universities a sort of perverse incentive to be even more selective. Because people take selectivity as a signal of pedigree and prestige. Which makes prestige-hungry students -- and their parents -- even more eager to apply. And more crestfallen when they don’t get in.

这是一个恶性循环。增加的应用程序意味着更多的选择性，这意味着更高的声望，这意味着更多的应用程序，这意味着……

It’s a costly circle too. As the competition for admission has intensified, the pressure on students – pressure tobemore andachievemore -- has intensified too.

这种压力从小学就开始了，一直持续到高中。我不确定这是一件完全好的或健康的事情。

We’re pretty sure it’s not a healthy thing. It leaves many students, even highly successful students, stressed out and burned out.

Or worse. Here in Palo Alto, for example, there was a rash of student suicides a couple of years ago. And while we don’tknowthat the relentless pressure to excel was a direct cause, wewouldn’t be all be surprised if it played a role.

需要有人停下来问些尖锐的问题。我们需要解构大学招生的激烈竞争。让我们的青少年承受如此巨大的压力来取得成功，我们真正得到了什么?

Have we distorted their lives? To what end? Whose interests are really served by the way the college admissions rat race is currently structu red? And is there a better way?

We’ll ask these questions of our guest, Mitchell Stevens, author ofCreating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites


Photo byNathan DumlaoonUnsplash

Comments(9)

Guest's picture

Guest

Saturday, September 3, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

I have been railing against the prevailing idea of

I have been railing against the prevailing idea of over-qualification for years. But it is a self-perpetuating circle of compulsion. I'll be interested in seeing comments on this post---they should be enlightening.

Harold G. Neuman's picture

Harold G. Neuman

Saturday, September 3, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

"Rat race" is an old characterization, possibly as

"Rat race" is an old characterization, possibly as old as the late 1950s, when it began to occur to a few that keeping up with the Joneses was the new capitalism's ploy to get us to spend more and more on less and less. But, by-and-large, the consumer public was beguiled and those Joneses weren't going to beat us out of our due.
I read today that the world population will reach 7 billion in October of this year. That 7 billionth baby will be born in India. Hooray. But, I have digressed...
The rat race led to increased competition in the education sector. The pressure to excel was a natural(?) outgrowth of a pressurized world, therefore, educational standards had to keep up with their own family of Joneses: elite schools became ever-more elite---Van Pelt's circle of compulsion notion holds at least some water.
这是我们咎由自取，目前为止，我找不到替罪羊。永续论只有一件事是错误的:无论它涉及的是物理定律还是经济学定律，都会有某种摩擦阻碍这台机器。这就是我们现在的处境。希望上天、天意或其他什么东西能帮助这个倒霉的大学毕业生。因为你无法从事一份不存在的工作。不妨试着用手推车拉烟……
Let's see what someone else has to say.

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, September 4, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

Higher Education The highest form of education ha

Higher Education
The highest form of education has neither applications for admittance nor any tuition at all. It is the school of life the self-taught, which is truly the better Way to learn to be.
We've made our institutions of education with brick walls; to give them some kind of structure some strength. And sentence our poor children behind those walls for some 12 to 20 plus years.
在我们的孩子吗?美国的禁闭学校是不确定的理论、信仰和所有已知的东西的复杂课程。我们向他们展示知识的影子，光靠人工照明。在分隔他们的高墙之外是所有未知问题的答案的真正光芒。
There is a better Way to teach them, the Way of simplicity. It is the Way less traveled that has made all the unity, nature?s truth, simply me.
我们带走了我们的孩子?现在是时候归还我们的自由了，我们可以吗?我们不能把他们带到应许之地，但我们可以解放他们，让他们找到那地方，找到我们真正的自己。
?Let Freedom Ring!?
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MJA

Guest's picture

Guest

Tuesday, September 6, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

I left, waited and came back. For a moment. I don'

I left, waited and came back. For a moment. I don't understand how you can tolerate unilateral, metaphysical morons, while rejecting thinking,rational beings. No matter, really. I'll miss you---some.
" And, oh, Mama---can this really be the end---to be stuck inside of Mobile, with the Memphis blues again."
Don't get it? Do your history. Hint: what do Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and New Orleans have in common?
答:他们都有温斯顿·丘吉尔的雕像。我听说，在KC的这座大厦里，有丘吉尔的妻子克莱门汀。哦,我的达琳…

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, September 8, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

The comment was made by Mitchell Stevens that in t

这是米切尔·史蒂文斯(Mitchell Stevens)的评论，他说，在过去的25年里，“特权阶层”比以往任何时候都更加努力地工作，这是在屈尊地影讽占劳动力大多数的其他劳动者没有这样做。它还暗示，那些从非常青藤大学毕业的“普通”人不会获得“较低”的学位，这只是夸张，因为这是“普通”工人如此努力地工作，以制造人们需要或想要的东西。说这种说法往好了说是虚伪，往好了说是精英主义的味道，这都是轻描淡写。这让我不禁要问，当一个人考虑到这个系统已经变得多么可悲地贪婪和腐败时，特权阶层如此努力地在“制造”什么?金钱，而不是有益于社会的有形的东西。我向任何在当今弗里德曼式资本主义气候下对此进行辩论的人提出挑战。
Case in point? In this same program, John Perry appears to exclaim proudly that one of Ken Taylor's past
students "made $50 million dollars in one day", emphasizing again that that is what is most important in our culture, money over what really matters. As if those high school students haven't already been taught the capitalistic mantra of 'money brings happiness', which we all know is BS.
This program was preaching to the choir of 'chosen' students by an elite school that has everything to gain by preaching Elitism...and the shallow money mantra.

Guest's picture

Guest

Thursday, September 8, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

Surely this is, at least in part, an example of th

Surely this is, at least in part, an example of the winner-take-all phenomenon that Robert H. Frank and Philip J. Cook popularized in their book, The Winner-Take-All Society. Indeed, Prof. Frank points out as much in a working paper, "Higher Education: The Ultimate Winner-Take-All Market?" (http://inequality.cornell.edu/publications/working_papers/RobertFrank1.pdf). (By the way, Profs. Frank & Cook weren't the first to develop the key ideas of winner-take-all markets. See Moshe Adler's 1985 American Economic Review paper, "Stardom and Talent.")

Guest's picture

Guest

Sunday, September 11, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

We?re pretty sure it?s not a healthy thing.

We?re pretty sure it?s not a healthy thing.

Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, October 5, 2011 -- 5:00 PM

Education

Education
我们让我们的孩子在一个砖盒子里，坐在椅子上，每周工作40小时。我们告诉他们?S不够好，让他们在自由的时候做一些加班作业。免费的吗?我们告诉他们不要出去，因为?这太危险了，如果他们够幸运，有这个愿望，我们会允许他们参加团队运动，由更多的成年人监督，告诉他们站在哪里，怎么玩。如何玩?嘿，孩子们，这就是游戏的玩法，你呢?I’我要照我告诉你的去做，好吗?米教练! !我们给他们装了太多我们认为重要的书，但给我看一本真正重要的?《圣经》《古兰经》《杰克和吉尔》 We confine and control their youthful exuberance to the breaking point and if we can't break them we give them meth amphetamines and call them problem children with ADHD. We judge them and grade them and divide them and wonder why they are having trouble in school, why they?re not normal. We measure them, pass them and fail them. Fail them! But who or what is really failing here, is it us or them? Education is nothing but child labor, child bondage, imprisonment and we wonder why thing have gone so wrong. We are what we are taught and surely the trouble we have today is a direct result.
Education reformation anyone?
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Guest's picture

Guest

Wednesday, March 28, 2012 -- 5:00 PM

I was lucky to go to college

我很幸运在50年代根据《退伍军人权利法案》上了大学——这是我在朝鲜战争期间服役的奖励。我在俄亥俄州立大学的学费是每季度61.50美元(接近)。我住在当地的一间公寓里，每月25美元。书的价格大约是每季度30美元。我进俄勒冈州立大学的时候有几千美元的存款，我没有买车，以免花光我的存款。因此，我能够在4年内完成大学学业，途中没有任何债务。“为了利益”的人抓住了大学教育的每一个方面，这让我感到痛心。我们可悲的领导允许这样做。我希望“为了利润”的运营能够得到控制——因为受过教育的人在我们国家是必要的——但我担心。许多人的生活现在被毁了。 Millions are being denied careers they could qualify for - if given the chance. I'm 80 now. My life was great. I worry, however, that the U.S. may never get out of this hole that it has dug for itself. I'd pray, but I'm an atheist! RWA