Preview

Analysis Of Don T Send Your Kids To The Ivy League

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
305 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Analysis Of Don T Send Your Kids To The Ivy League
In “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” William Deresiewicz argues the weakness of admission system is that the system is unfair, rich students easily enter elite schools. By declining average kids that aren't as rich, but are smartly capable of being doing great in elite schools the system is making students insecure. Our system of elite education making articles young people who are smart, talented, and driven but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of prestige, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they are doing but with no idea why they are doing it. Deresiewicz believes that the admission system is allegedly presuming fairness in the set

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Gladwell’s overall claim in this chapter is that the class and family life you come from affects your chance of success. Coming from a lower class, Gladwell says, causes you to be less assertive around authority and less pressured into ambition. Parents of lower class families often do not encourage their kids to fine tune their talents through extra-curricular activities, but in middle to upper class families, kids are able to partake in multiple activities with the support of their parents. Also, in middle to upper class families, children are taught a “sense of entitlement that… is an attitude perfectly suited to succeeding in the modern world” (Gladwell 108). Children in the lower class are not taught this and therefore deprived of the advantage of knowing how to assert themselves.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Children who are born into upper-class families are given the opportunity of going to the best schools and getting the best tutors. During school they don’t have to worry about having an after school job or figure out how they are going to balance work and school. They are free to concentrate on getting a good education. They also have the means to continue their education at the top universities. During their school years they also have the ability to make good contacts for future well-paying jobs that will help keep their family in the upper-class. A good example of this is the American profile of Harold S. Browning. Browning was the child of an upper-class family in Manhattan, New York. He attended private schools that were known for providing the finest education. He had tutors in both French and mathematics. During high school he attended a preparatory school. The school was very prestigious and his “classmates included the sons of ambassadors, doctors, attorneys, television personalities, and well-known business leaders” (703). He then went on to an Ivy League college and majored in economics and political science. Today he is an executive vice president of SmithBond and Co. He has an annual salary of $315,000, a professionally decorated condominium on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and a farm in northwest Connecticut which he uses for weekend…

    • 1025 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Those outliers that are not benefited by standardized paradigms, or organization, may suffer at the cost. It may force an individual to recognize that they may have to choose between success and their own original ideas. One may realize that neither should have to be sacrificed, but once again, no matter what situation, not every individual can be catered to. With the constant pressure of needing to fit into the cookie-cutter lifestyle of standardization and hierarchy, there are those that are left behind. In Cathy Davidson’s “Project Classroom Makeover”, a little girl with green hair, unfortunately suffered at the cost of the narrow spectrum in school systems. Her passion for drawing had fallen back in importance behind the core classes taught in class. Because schools are geared, “implicitly and explicitly, to be college preparatory,” kids like her suffer the most (Davidson 63). Due to the sheer fact that a majority of the students will benefit most from a more standardized method of learning, she misses her opportunity to explore her own talents in regards to art. Furthermore driven into the investment banking career path, students in “Biographies of Hegemony,” are reminded that they are the absolute best, in terms of intellectual ability and social standing. He labels them as the, “cream of the crop,” and that they only “hire superstars” (Ho 174 and 175). For an anxious student worried about finding a job after college, entering an extension of Harvard or Princeton appears to be the best option for them. From there, they drop any previous dreams they had, and fully focus their attention toward attaining the lavish lifestyle they could easily have. By losing the motivation to be creative, Ivy League students and those that suffer at the cost of hegemony, both sacrifice their ingenuity to conform to the societal standards of hierarchy and…

    • 1992 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Our achievement ideology is based on the idea that the U.S. is full of opportunity and anyone can accomplish success in our society if they work hard enough. Many grow up thinking education is the ladder that will allow for this social mobility and all you have to do is be willing to work hard enough to earn it. But what about children who grow up thinking differently? Why do some strive for high paying careers while others refuse school and are seemingly ok with staying working class? MacLeod challenges the notion that America is the land of opportunity with research he conducted while in college. He uses the research of several reproduction theorists to show that schools not only are not great equalizers, as most think, but actually reinforce social inequality.…

    • 9161 Words
    • 24 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The students at Ivy League universities are told that they fit into this criterion in order to coerce them into wanting to work at Wall Street. Ho regards the “smartness” of the students being swayed by the successfulness of Wall Street as mostly negative. She does not think that the Ivy Leaguers and Wall Street financiers are as smart as they are believed to be. The fact that “the best,” “the greatest,” and “the brightest” minds in the world can be manipulated and are influencing other students with material swag, massive inundation of recruiting propaganda, recruiting seminars and dinners, peer and alumni pressure, insecurity about status, and big pay is astounding to her. To manipulate someone at such a critical and developmental stage in their life is against what most stand for. College is supposed to be a time were students get a chance to explore the different subjects and careers available to them and decide how they want to make a difference in the world. For students to work hard and reach such high institutions of education, such as Harvard and Princeton, and then to have their ability to choose what they want to be stripped from them is saddening. Gladwell argues that when it comes to individual behavior “the convictions of your heart and the actual contents of your thoughts are less important, in the end, in guiding your actions than the immediate…

    • 1538 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Sociology-Education

    • 2833 Words
    • 12 Pages

    | This sociologist argues that the values and beliefs of lower class subcultures are self imposed barriers to educational career and success. The lower class believe they have less oppourtunity for induvial achievement.…

    • 2833 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the essay “Don’t send your Kids to Ivy Leagues,” writer William Deresiwchiz illustrates why our prestigious…

    • 630 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Is it true that wealth has a determining factor on one's success? Is it simply easier for a person with a wealthy background to be more successful? In order to answer these questions, we can analyze children's academic success within different socioeconomic classes. KIPP Academy is a public charter school that is located the South Bronx, one of the poorest neighborhoods in New York City. What is different about KIPP is its success rate. In Malcom Gladwell's book, the Ouliers, he discusses KIPP's success, claiming that, "by the end of eighth grade, 84 percent of the students are preforming at or above their grade level" (parenthetical citation). KIPP is able to achieve this success through their rigor. Children that attend KIPP spend fifty to sixty percent more time learning than average public school students. KIPP children even spend an extra three months at school during the summer. This shows that with more time and opportunities, people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are able to reach high levels of academic success.…

    • 453 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I Just Wanna Be Average

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the story “I Just Wanna Be Average” the author Mike Rose argues that society very often neglects and doesn’t see the full value and potential of students.…

    • 751 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    My essay on tuition in America was graded on smartthinking by Ken F. Ken returned my essay with contructive critism concerning my supporting details and also my organization. Creating a working thesis is something that I struggle with when writing essays so I was not surprised by his critque. Ken said that I lack a clear thesis statement and that readers will not fully grasp the focus of my discussion. He also mentions that I should go on to present the main idea as the issue of higher education fees and my supporting points be the reason for each issue. I will use the example he provided to organize my thesis first then organize the rest of my essay…

    • 120 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Khan points to this fundamentally exclusive nature with specific examples such as the armory on New York City’s Upper East Side– a clear indication of division of classes as the old elite tried to physically protect themselves against potential class warfare (27). One of the most obvious examples of the contemporary elite classes isolating themselves is the participation in the American boarding school. Following in the footsteps of prominent schools such as Phillips Andover and Exeter, St. Paul’s emerged in the latter half of the 19th century to provide isolation for the offspring of the elite, as well as a stepping stone for further successes in life.. Although St. Paul’s only offered three courses (Latin, Greek, and mathematics) as well as a deep commitment to religious studies in its earliest years, it rapidly became a well-renown institution that propelled teenagers into the Ivy League. Khan argues that the success of the American boarding school is rooted in the drive for the elite to “protect themselves through the removed location … [and] cultural institutions [such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art] to construct distinctions” (27). While this success thrived on aristocracy and meritocracy definitions of the elite alike, the experience for the students today is driven by the expectation to perform at their highest level. No…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    A Case Against College

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages

    College education in the form that it exists today in America doesn’t serve the purpose of elevating the most deserving. It has become a fool of systematic economic oppression. Therefore, for this very reason a college degree could be seen as a means to an end.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Education is a major component of social class since it has affect on both higher and lower social classes. Individuals from higher social classes are more likely to attend better schools and more likely to receive higher education. Educational inequality is one factor that perpetuates the class divide across generations. These social domains directly impacts on what and how much children learn. Children growing up in low-income neighborhoods, for example, are much more likely to experience constant stress which may have an effect on their minds, cognitive skills and abilities. “The disparities between rich and poor families and neighborhoods have increased, exacerbating the differences between schools and widening the gap in opportunities.” (Stephens and Marcus 5)…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The purpose of education in American schools is to prepare children for a specific career, teaching students lifelong values, discipline, and to explore new ideas and to think independently; in other words, education helps to build good citizens. However, as argued by Jean Anyon (Anyon, J., 1980) and John Taylor Gatto (Gatto, J., 2003) in their articles, this is far from the truth. Jean Anyon confirms this by conducting an investigation of the education in different social classes while John Taylor Gatto uses his experience as a teacher. The two authors expressed similar opinions of the outcomes of American schools. Anyon and Gatto both found that in America, the method and extent to which students are educated is entirely based on their social class. In Anyon’s article, “From Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of Work,” (Anyon, 1980) she specifies that there is no question that schools in wealthy communities are better than those of poorer communities, and…

    • 2556 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In a highly materialistic world, there is an un-ending race to be the best of the best. For years there has been the continuous discrepancy regarding college, usually pin pointing the question “Should everyone go to college?” There are those like Professor Freeman Hrabowski’s who say “college should be a must”, and those on the opposite side of the fence who simply disagree due to personal experience. College isn’t for everyone; sure, some may say it has its perks but it is not the only way to make something of yourself in this continuously growing society.…

    • 612 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays