“The last thing an elite education will teach you is its own inadequacy,” writes William Deresiewicz of The American Scholar. “Elite colleges relentlessly encourage their students to flatter themselves for being there, and for what being there can do for them.”
Deresiewicz, a former Yale University English professor, has coined the term “Ivy Retardation” to reference the startling inability of elite college graduates to communicate with individuals outside their peer group. After 17 years of tenure in the Ivy League, Deresiewicz found himself unable to converse with a plumber servicing his own home, leading him to question our modern “constellation of [educational] values.”
Perhaps Deresiewicz’s view is slightly radical, but he raises some questions worth pondering.
The question remains: how much should rankings really matter in the college search? Is admission to the “elite” echelon of society an inalienable social privilege, or does it cripple students more than they know? Does a person’s alma mater’s exclusivity and ranking merely tip the scales in his or her favor when applying for a job, or is it the single deciding factor?
“Ranking was definitely a big thing for me and especially my mom,” Taylor Bass ’13 recalled of her own college search. “My dad recruits recent college graduates for his job and he tells me all the time that the school you attended makes an impression on the company to which you apply. [It’s not really] fair, but that’s the way the corporate world works.”
Others agree that this is true, at least for recent graduates: “When you’re applying for a job, the kid from a name brand school gets a better look than the kid who didn’t go to one. A top university or liberal arts college will definitely look better on your resume than ‘State University X,’” Caitlin Pharo ’13, a student at Georgetown University, said.
Some students believe this focus on rankings and prestige is somewhat dated. “I think parents may value name branding more than children do,” Julia Orlov ’13 said, who chose Wellesley after considering Barnard and Vassar. (U.S. News ranked the colleges #30 and #11 respectively this year as opposed to Wellesley’s #4). Orlov cited location as the key factor in her choosing the College and explained that she did not actively consult rankings, choosing instead to focus on “academic reputation,” which she sees as a separate criterion.
Others approach the concept of “prestige” with more liberties, focusing on colleges and universities’ resources and alumni networks instead of specific academic programs.
“My parents definitely pushed me toward attending an Ivy,” said Catherine Hu, a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania who chose Penn over Harvey Mudd College and Carnegie Mellon University, despite the latter two receiving a higher departmental rankings for computer science (her projected major).
Hu cited the possibility of switching her major as one of her main reasons for turning down Harvey Mudd, a highly specialized liberal arts college. “Larger, well-known universities tend to have stronger alumni networks, and while liberal arts colleges have their good points, it doesn’t really make sense to study something that the college doesn’t specialize in. A good degree from a liberal arts college can look great, but a BS degree from an Ivy League school looks a bit better than a BS degree from a liberal arts college.”
Conversely, some students believe that a heavy focus on rankings and exclusivity can negatively affect one’s college experience.
“I think it’s an advantage [that liberal arts colleges are less well-known] because in my experience, it seems like most students choose the school because they actually want to be there, not just because it will look good on their resume,” Diane Ahn, a student at Middlebury College, said. “It doesn’t really bother me when people don’t know what [Middlebury] is—if anything, the misconceived notion that how well-known a school is indicates how good it is is what bothers me.”
In addition, students believe that while many schools are famed for their outstanding graduate and professional programs, liberal arts colleges excel by providing undergraduates with more guidance and focus. “Some people say that employers do like the Ivy League and more well-known schools better and take that into account when hiring, but I also hear that those schools also fail miserably in providing a solid education to their undergraduates,” said Sonja Perl, a student at the University of Chicago, a school known for its devotion to intellectualism.
Separate from the job market and college experience per se, others still believe that attending an elite institution carries an inherent social stigma. Earlier this year, GQ Magazine published an article titled America’s 25 Douchiest Colleges. The piece characterized students of various elite institutions as “pretentious,” accusing them of “talking down” to others and “taking [themselves too] seriously.” When asked to comment, Thomas Hwang, a student at Harvard University, replied, “It is up to the individual whether to frame being a student here as a privilege and honor or as a birthright.”
(Harvard ranked #4 on GQ’s Douchiest Colleges list.)
Perhaps, then, these negative characteristics stem not from the school’s atmosphere itself, but from the individual’s perception of his or her institution’s exclusivity.
Beyond the college search and the 20-somethings job market, does our choice of institution have any lasting effects? “I think there are advantages to attending a well-known school, but they won’t necessarily last 20 years out. At that point, it really depends on what you’ve done with your life since,” Hu said. College should be about finding the “right fit,” and shouldn’t be seen as the deciding factor of one’s future career path.
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