The Façade of Distinction

Photograph of front facade, Austin Hall, Harvard Law School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After years of writing, testing and studying to achieve the best college acceptance I could – there is the one scary thought. What if it isn’t even worth it?

I want to become a lawyer. That means four years of undergrad plus three years of law school accompanied with however long it takes me to study/pass the Bar. But the light at the end of the long tunnel may not be a light at all, but rather the dark slap of reality.

With college tuition at an all time high and student loans following suit, the actual potential for success in my future is concerning. College graduates are left with hundreds of thousands in student loans and no one looking to hire them. In 2010, nearly 50% of college graduates weren’t employed, and the percentage has been rising each year. 

So what am I to do? The unfair problem is that without a college degree my chances of getting hired in an occupation I’m interested in are close to none. So do I, like 23% of college students pay for my tuition with a credit card, or do I simply look for different higher education options?

A statistics teacher at my school argues that soon, community college attendance will become more widespread as will outlets like online colleges. With the ever-collapsing economy, people simply won’t be able to afford the astronomical prices of college fees. He told me to attend a cheaper state school rather than a more expensive, small liberal arts school because the result of my life would be the same in the end.

I didn’t listen to him. But maybe I should have.

More than 100,000 janitors have college degrees and 317,000 waiters and waitresses have college degrees. College graduates turn to jobs that don’t require a degree because their loans have left them with no other option than to work. Instead of taking an internship that may lead them to success later on, they choose to become a janitor, because they have no choice financially.

I ignored it, but maybe there is something to be said for the advice of attending the in-state lower costing college. Rankings are nice fluff, but Princeton graduates and University of Kansas graduates are all pounding the streets looking for work together. Many state schools, like UConn, have highly esteemed honors programs that many employers respect. Joe Polisena, a former member of the Rhode Island State Senate, attended Rhode Island Community College. Theodora Nathan, the first woman to receive an electoral vote in a US presidential election, attended University of Oregon.

Prestige and reputation hold little sway in this day and age. So, if you’re not an MIT prodigy child, there are other things you can do to ensure your own success. Present yourself well in an interview, stay involved in as much as you can and always be aware of developing people skills.

Earlier this year I had dinner with a Pomfret alumnus who attended Yale for undergraduate studies and then Harvard Law School. After the dinner he gave me his business card and told me to contact him for a summer internship.

He never once asked me where I was planning on attending college.

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Race for College Acceptance

black and white student clasping hands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve grown up in an extremely small niche of the nation. By attending boarding school for four years, I’ve developed this perspective of the world that you must attend the best colleges to have a successful life. You must be valedictorian. A Rhodes scholar. You already have to start planning for grad school.

I’m not the only one with this mindset. The college admissions process gets more selective each year with higher score requirements and more academic achievements necessary to be accepted. While this may seem daunting to someone, like me, who is surrounded by the mindset that college is ivy-league or bust, it’s truly the far less concerning aspect of the college process.

I recently went on vacation with a friend. We, like any good girls do, enjoy embellishing our life stories from time to time. We become Brittany. Alexa. Iris. And, we always claim to be a student at an ivy-league college. This past vacation we chose Yale.

When we travel in America and claim Ivy, recognition is immediate. But suddenly we were talking to people from England and Canada, most who had never even heard of Yale before. Not only had they not heard of Yale, but also, many had never even attended college and certainly weren’t planning on it. The most shocking revelation: these people had no intention of attending college, and they were happy. Suddenly, my friend and I were the minority, the outsiders. The ones spending an unnecessary chunk of our lives doing something that has no definite hold over our happiness.

One twenty-year old English cricket-player asked me, “What’s your major?” I replied, “Pre-Law.” He then said, “Oh, that sucks. Pre-Law is for people who get kicked out of actual law school, right?”

Not quite my friend, not quite.

But this new perspective granted us a new scope on our own situation. I, a future Connecticut College student, and she, a future University of Richmond student, had no need to be stressed about whether our schools were top ranked or not. The true situation of the world stretches far beyond our narrow view that we’ve developed through our boarding school experience.

Of high school graduates, 33.8% don’t even attend college. Each year there are about 3,030,000 high school dropouts, meaning that each day there are 8,300. The numbers get increasingly shocking in regard to race. While some believe that Affirmative Action gives students of color an unfair advantage in the admissions process, numbers say otherwise.

When a white student gains acceptance into an Ivy League school, people are shocked and jump to congratulate. But when an Asian student is accepted to a school of the same caliber, it is expected. ‘They’ are meant to attend higher ranked schools, it’s easier for ‘them.’ On the other hand, numbers reveal that, “Asian applicants have 67% lower odds of admission than white applicants with comparable test scores.” 

So next time you are concerned with your school being, “highly-selective” instead of, “most-selective” turn to the statistics that matter.

The ones that deserve this nations attention.

Related articles

• To (All) the White Girls Who Didn’t Get Into The College Of Their Dreams (racialicious.com)
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Illusion of Perfection

English: Soccer on Harkness Green (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Acceptance rates are tricky percentages. The outcome of a percentage is based off many factors. Diversity. School size. Number of students who apply. So how is a prospective student supposed to decide what school to aim for? Should they focus on rankings instead? I know I did.

If I saw a friend was accepted to a school with a lower acceptance rate than mine, I would console myself with the fact that my school was ranked higher overall. I still was better. I still won.

But hindsight is 20/20, and I am here to speak to those applying or visiting – close the books, the websites and ignore the numbers. Focus on where you want to live, the size you want and what you want to study. See college as a stepping-stone to the rest of your life and not just a name you can brag about. You are the one who is going to attend this school; you better hope to hell you are going to be happy there.

It took me a long time to start ignoring the numbers. Very recently I attended an accepted students day at Connecticut College, I sat through lectures on studying abroad and went to classes focused on my aspiring major. Suddenly I had new ideas every minute. I decided to minor in Chinese after speaking to a student who is now fluent in the language. I decided to double major in Government and English after attending classes for both. I was near steaming with excitement.

So, take a breath. You may think that you want a large urban college far away, and end up at a tiny liberal arts college thirty minutes from home. Either way, it should be where you feel comfortable to pursue your interests. Challenging, but not impossible, and the right level academically so that you have the ability to excel in class as well as many other extracurricular activities.

If I had focused on the rankings in Loomis, I would be attending a school with little focus on academics with huge importance resting on athletics. If I had listened to the pressure at Pomfret, I would have questioned my commitment to Conn and applied to multiple ivies. If I had been accepted to these ivies, I probably would have been back where I was at Loomis; at the bottom of the class and struggling to meet minimal standards.

And so, I stuck with Connecticut College. Ranked 70 overall in the nation, forty-five minutes from my house, only 1800 students – the opposite of anything I ever thought I wanted, and it’s the perfect fit.

Breath. Keep an open mind. And have fun. Whether you see it now, this truly is exciting.

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Ivy or Flunk?

Category:Wikipedians by alma mater: DePaul University (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The College Admissions Process. I capitalize all the letters because at this point, the concept has become deified for students. Yet within the labyrinth of supplements and scores lies an often-ignored theory. Students should be applying where they will excel.

My college process was different from most students. As discussed earlier in this blog, I went through a ‘stupid phase’. And so, I turned to my sports as an outlet. Beginning of my junior year I committed to DePaul University in Chicago, IL for soccer. Loomis told me that DePaul was a good fit for me, athletically and academically. With a ranking of 512 overall for colleges in America and an acceptance rate of 64%, it seemed like where I belonged. But I was never happy with this decision. I understood my grades and my scores but I wanted more.

So, ironically, to attend a more elite college I transferred to a lower ranked high school. When I realized I would be able to take more AP courses and challenge myself academically at Pomfret School, I de-committed from DePaul University and committed to Connecticut College instead.  I wasn’t concerning myself with rankings or scores or acceptance rates, I wanted to attend Conn and I was willing to work for it.

And yet. Somehow, I was still considered to be going to an “OK” school. I was told Conn was the, “stupid people NESCAC.” That I should be talking to Columbia or Dartmouth for soccer. Suddenly, I had jumped from near-community college standards to expectations of attending one of the top elite schools in the nation.

Rankings swarmed my head. I began to memorize acceptance rates. Obsess over them. Harvard: 6%. Bowdoin: 16%. Bates: 27%. Conn: 32%.

I went from believing I deserved minimal to deserving the best. The only thing that mattered was the prestige the name carried. I wanted to be able to say I was attending, _______ College, and have anyone anywhere say, ‘Wow.’

But how much weight do these rankings actually hold? Are they misleading students? Parents? What are the percentages we should be focusing on?

The answers to these questions should be more important than the Forbes ranking of a school.