<p>Wow, who would have expected such a poverty of communicative prose from the author of The Metaphysical Club? And who would have thought it could get past the editors of the New Yorker? Roundly disappointing show.</p>
<p>It's not exactly a meritocracy at The New Yorker...clearly...</p>
<p>The New Yorker hasn't been The New Yorker since I was getting my first pair of long pants.</p>
<p>It's more of a soapbox than an actual essay.</p>
<p>I think it's the editor's problem. There is a lot of good stuff here, it just should have been put into several articles (as it was probably intended).</p>
<p>If applying to college was easy, it would be called your mom. jk jk</p>
<p>lol. I agree. The article was written poorly. There is no apparent implicit connection made between the "pink toilet paper" and the hypercompetitive college process. However, in a more optimistic light, I do think that everyone should try being more humble, especially CC's. (lol this note is directed at the individual who asks if he should retake after scoring a 2400 on the SAT. I'm sorry you got a 9 on the essay. ;))</p>
<p>Oh, I don't know...I liked the cartoon, and ditto mamenyu. The author could have said the same thing in one sentence: College is hard. This article gave me a craving for tuna fish on sprouted wheat, and the next time I'm at Safeway, I'm going to buy some pink toilet paper. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Menand's article is neither entertaining or useful. In fact when he speaks of 'American colleges inflating grades' he must be speaking only of his school because his article is downright dumb. He must know someone at the New Yorker or they were having a slow week.</p>
<p>Yeah, he probably knows a few people at New Yorker:</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Menand%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Menand</a></p>
<p>*** was that.....? Does anyone else see the point in that article?</p>
<p>I'm a long-time New Yorker subscriber -- I thought the article was fairly typical of a Talk of the Town piece, which often don't have a "point"; I enjoyed it as such...</p>
<p>Well, exactly. If you read them as purely informational reports, you're going to generate the kind of comments in this thread. </p>
<p>It's definitely "Talk of the Town" style. Obviously, not everyone likes it (not everyone's a New Yorker fan.) I also find these pieces enjoyable. Presumably so do a lot of readers of this magazine.</p>
<p>I loved it. The opening story was wonderful and the "theme," as such, concerned to what extent college involved dealing with the new and challenging versus the comfortable and relatively unchallenging. All of what have been called separate pieces had to do with this common theme. Menand did not spell it out because this is not the typical style for the magazine; if he had, it would have been too pedantic.</p>