<p>Well said @moonchild !</p>
<p>this article is on point. Most people who get into ivy league schools are basically sell-outs, some do a better job than others of covering it, and in fact the ones who cover it better are the ones more likely to get admitted.
But they make a ton of money so it’s all good.
thread closed. </p>
<p>According to Urban Dictionary:
And you know who is a sellout? The author of the article. Just look what he has done and said, and what he is doing and saying now…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How could they be considered sellouts if they’ve never joined a group or otherwise made a pledge they won’t go into highly lucrative professions for the money?? </p>
<p>You sound like one older Physics PhD student friend who once dubbed them…“money sucking scum”. Very ironic considering he ended up dropping out of his program to become one by joining a hedge-fund outfit in the Bay area. </p>
<p>Our mutual friends and I still love to rib him over that. :D</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In some punk subcultures, merely signing onto record labels even if one never preaches being against them is itself considered a form of selling out. </p>
<p>That was the case in the punk subculture Green Day was in before they signed on with Reprise/Time Warner as shown when they ended up being officially banned from the central venue of that subculture…924 Gilman where they had their start. </p>
<p>Signing on to a major record label is itself enough of a reason to be considered a sell-out and thus, having one’s band banned from playing there. Green Day references their being banned from that venue in their song “86” from the Insomniac album. </p>
<p>Also, their musical style has changed to the point there is a division between Green Day fans who only like their earlier albums, especially from 1994 and before and those who came on board after the 2004 release of American Idiot. </p>
<p>The punk purists/oldschool folks tend to fall into the former group whereas those who are younger or are not as anal like both. I happen to fall into the last camp despite being old enough to remember when Green Day Insomniac and Dookie were being happily blasted in many college dorms. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This doesn’t smell right to me. I wonder if someone with actual knowledge of what it’s like to be a recent graduate of an Ivy League school could weigh in. Are the entire graduating classes of Yale et al. simply walking en masse into entry-level 6-figure salaries at investment banks? Or are you still expected to stand out among your peers and show something besides grades?</p>
<p>I work with McKinsey frequently. My BFF used to work there (Notre Dame undergrad/ Kellogg bschool grad).
They are unfailingly very smart, creative, problem-solving people, it is a pleasure to collaborate with them on big strategic projects for our clients, and it’s insulting to suggest they “don’t have an original thought.” </p>
<p>“IMO…ivy leagues are for insecure people who need validation (yet pretend to be humble )”
-This type will not make it anywhere, forget Ivy leque, which is primarily (with exceptions) for a very strong, “elbowy” people who run you over at the first opportunity. However, there are exceptions there and there are some happy, accepting people with wide range of interests. D. had an opportunity to meet both types in her Med. School class. But those who are accepted at Med. School do not belong in this discussion anyway. They do not have any time to be depressed or unhappy. No couple minutes a day, NONE. They have to move on from any put down occasion, they have to be a “force of nature” to survive in their environment. And if they are not surviving very well, they are pushed forward by Med. School administration anyway, which cannot afford losing a single one because it may affect the school reputation and because school has invested so muchresources in each selected student…
Who is depressed and unhappy? My general observation (and I am ancient in comparison to most or maybe all here, I am a dino), people who have too much time on their hand, people who are not engaged in productive activity most of their non-sleeping hours. They start stupid conversations that are often lead to some personal problems. When I was closest to my most “down time”? - When I was between the jobs. Why some die soon after retirement (several cases in my department) - exactly the same reason, although they die from some physical illness, but other (not just me) have expressed their doubts about initial cause of this illness. Yes, people can make thmeselves very sick going thru rough emotional time. </p>
<p>This whole line of discussion is bothersome to me.</p>
<p>My D is a student in the Ivy League. She never stressed out trying to make it in. She worked really hard and did really well because she’s gifted and enjoys using it.</p>
<p>She did 25 different ECs because she’s a joiner. And she’s loyal to a fault so if she started something, she would stick with to the end.</p>
<p>She would be depressed without the intellectual stimulation and 10-20 things going on at the same time.</p>
<p>I think the article is harping on a stereotype of Ivy League students. It may have some element of truth to it but it’s far from absolute. </p>
<p>As far as validation from the Ivies, I can say that my D went there because she wants to compete with the best of the best. It’s a challenge. She has been in many academically mixed programs and was always pulled out for enrichment (public schools because we aren’t wealthy) - we wanted her to be in a classroom where everyone is functioning on the same high academic level. We see gifted kids getting short changed all the time in schools. It’s better to have a learning disability because schools have resources for them but there is very little for the gifted. Schools are designed to educate the middle 80%, not the bottom or upper 10% very well. We can honestly say that our D is where she belongs and that it really is academically demanding and stimulating for her to be at that level. Ivy Leaguers aren’t the only place with really smart people there but they really do have a high concentration of people that are off the chart smart.</p>
<p>Depressed? Probably not much more or less than everyone else living in this world. Does anyone think the middle class-losing jobs in their 40s-50s, minuscule annual raises, higher and higher bills to pay, $3.50/gallon gasoline paying, higher taxes paying and running the treadmill of life just to keep the nose above water-is truly happy? Are the poor happy? They have Obamacare, food stamps, welfare and subsidized housing. So now what, they should throw a party to celebrate their gifts from Uncle Sam? This is crazy, they will bite the hand that feeds them and rightfully so because they’d rather work and live and pay their own way.</p>
<p>Wasn’t there that study that showed an inverse correlation between a person’s feeling of happiness and satisfaction with life and where his/her school is ranked, according to USNews? I think that study showed a fairly strong inverse correlation. </p>
<p>What does post 66 mean?</p>
<p>MiamiDAP has a daughter in med school, therefore she knows a lot about the medical field. Or not. Mental health problems are common amongst med students and physcians. I agree that being busy and working hard tends to shift one’s focus off of one’s own problems, but you don’t know real mental illness if you think you can simply pull yourself up by your bootstraps and work it away. I’ve been a physician for the past 25 years and I’ve worked with medical students and resident physicians all along the way. We see medical students and young physicians with these illnesses every year and we try very hard to help them get thru it, but it doesn’t always work and some wash out. There is currently a physician charged with the murders of 3 people related to the pathology residency he washed out of. Every group of people, every demographic has problems. If you don’t think so you just don’t know them well enough.</p>
<p>Why are posters continuing the endless back-and-forth anecdotes rather than beating D. over the head with his own claim?</p>
<p>I was surprised to see the “depressive” claim in the article, which from reading W.D.'s own articles based on this book I didn’t think was part of his premise. Even granting his argument that Ivy Leaguers are so trained to jump through hoops that they never have an original thought, why would that necessarily make them depressed? Depression is just as likely to go along with a tendency towards introspection; in fact, keeping busy and challenging yourself mentally is one of the best ways to fight depression.</p>
<p>And I agree with those who said that a soul-sucking 12-hour-a-day job at a law firm or bank is not any worse than a soul-sucking 12-hour-a-day job at WalMart. (Except of course that nobody can get 12 hours a day anymore, so I guess we should thank WalMart and other employers of service employees for making them all part-time and saving their souls!)</p>
<p>Rates of drug addiction among physicians are at an all time high.</p>
<p>Do we not count them among the psychologically compromised, or do they get a free pass because some of them took merit awards for undergrad so Mom and Dad could pay for med school???</p>
<p>“Are the entire graduating classes of Yale et al. simply walking en masse into entry-level 6-figure salaries at investment banks? Or are you still expected to stand out among your peers and show something besides grades?”</p>
<p>No, they don’t walk en masse into those jobs. First, you need high grades relative to your classmates. Grade inflation doesn’t matter here; if a bank is looking at 100 Yale transcripts every year, they know who’s at the top of the pool. Second, you need to convince them that you can fit into the culture and work 80+ hours a week. This is pretty difficult if it isn’t true. Most of aren’t great actors (though Yale produces more than its share!). Banks want people who actually have an interest in finance.</p>
<p>Lots of Ivy envy in this thread. I’m really not sure what motivates people that have never attended an elite college to be so vocal about how horribly overrated they are. Elite colleges are just really concentrated locations of bright and ambitious people. Just like Silicon Valley is a concentration of the best and brightest in tech. NYC and Boston are a concentration of consulting and finance. DC is a concentration of politics and think tanks. The best and brightest thrive and get pushed to their limits in a thick concentration of sharp like-minded peers. The Times wrote a few months back that a really bright student is more likely to regress at a sub-par college. I’d rather run the risk of being “depressed” at a great school than failing to ever reach my potential at a sub-par one. I can take an anti-depressant at the former, at the latter I’m trapped.</p>
<p>Is the depression expected to arrive later? Are the first few weeks of exuberant, gratifying, and happy involvement in class shopping, EC finding, and meeting classmates a short-term high that will be followed by depression? Maybe I misunderstand the whole point. </p>
<p>@MiamiDAP “But those who are accepted at Med. School do not belong in this discussion anyway. They do not have any time to be depressed or unhappy. No couple minutes a day, NONE. They have to move on from any put down occasion, they have to be a “force of nature” to survive in their environment. Who is depressed and unhappy? People who have too much time on their hand, people who are not engaged in productive activity most of their non-sleeping hours.”</p>
<p>Bravo. Excellent post. Pretty sure every parent wishes their children were engaged and purpose-filled, but when it’s the ELITE (or IVY) kids, it’s phony or they’re depressed, or they’re empty souls. People really need to examine their motives.</p>
<p>Thanks @maize2018, let me see if I’ve got this right: med school good, other elite educational institutions bad. That’s simple enough for even my phony depressed kid to remember. </p>
<p>Depression is a disease. Saying that someone “doesn’t have time to be depressed” is about as stupid and idiotic as saying that someone “doesn’t have time to have diabetes or high cholesterol.” Consider the source.</p>