How many articles do I have to ready about how high schoolers are stressed out by the college admissions process? Today's New York Times Magazine piece is just another in a long line of articles that make exactly the same points:
- It's hard to get into a good college;
- This is because a lot of people think it is very important to get into a school with a good name;
- As a result, high schoolers and their parents work hard to make their applications stand out;
- This requires a lot of hard work, late nights and overscheduling;
- Lots of applicants who work very hard don't end up where they want to.
Well, whoop-dee-friggin-do. In 1996, when I was a freshman in high school, New York published a cover story entitled "Give Me Harvard or Give Me Death," which said basically the same thing. Since then, admissions rates have gone down, more high schoolers are working harder to get in the same number of slots, but basically, the situation is the same. Anyone who is shocked by this hasn't been paying attention. Most of these articles, including today's example, offer no solutions, perhaps because there are none, aside from expanding the definition of a "good school" or convincing high schoolers to lower their sights, which isn't going to happen. I did it, my classmates did it, and a decade later, kids in my approximate position are still doing it.
Here's my proposal: no more of these stories. Unless something changes, let's just relegate the difficulty of the top-tier college application process to the realm of common knowledge. Just as the sun rises in the East, getting into an Ivy League school is hard. Get over it.
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