A realistic perspective on one’s relative ability compared to the competition today is crucial. Grandpa was likely admitted when rates were 50% or more, so understandable that he hasn’t kept up with how the landscape changed. Similarly, few of the students at OP’s College, or any college, are destined for “society defining” jobs, and many of those jobs aren’t defining society anyway.
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My kids are at top BS’s. No unrealistic expectations on their part. They’ve seen top kids go to top schools and kids chose schools which are a fit for them. The CG at these schools are mostly( though not always) top notch. They can see where a kid fits. Kids and their parents can listen or ignore. But telling any kid even one with perfect stats and national level recognition that they are going to walk into any school is unrealistic. I think most BS parent know this, many private prep know it too if they are paying attention to kids a few years ahead of their own.
And if the kids at at top BS aren’t in the top 25% of their class, they should know that there is almost no chance at top 20 schools.
While, there are lots of kids ( and their parents) who think that a private/BS school is going to give them some golden ticket to the perfect school, most know that the world has changed. There are tons of great and able students everywhere.
Even the Princeton grandpa isn’t going to give a kid a big boost with the tens of thousands of kids applying these days.
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Grandpa was admitted when being the white male scion of an influential family with decent academic ability AND strong athletic ability was enough. Women weren’t a factor (take out 50% of the applicant pool), internationals were the handful of children of royalty or a deposed monarch/oligarch, every class was sprinkled with “a few ethnics” which included Af-Am students (and they were housed together- the Jewish/Black roommate combo, on a floor with other such combos was very common at the elites until shockingly recent times).
This is why I find discussions around “the good old days” so disconcerting. Yes, the competition now is global and fierce. But was it better when Chip was a walk-on just because he got B’s at prep school while swinging a tennis racket?
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While I haven’t read all of this thread, I have read enough to see the OP has gotten some very insightful (and polite) perspective from some very senior members of the CC community. She is obviously not listening, and perhaps needs to rant after a very difficult and perhaps disappointing college admissions season.
That being said, I am struck by the bitterness, victimhood and pessimistic attitude of the OP and suggest she take a moment (or all the time she needs) to reassess. The perspectives being offered by others are worthy of consideration and things may not be as bad as they seem. Her defeatist attitude is not healthy and cannot/should not infect her child’s mindset as she heads off to college. Resenting people/systems with more money will only put a cap on one’s ability to succeed.
FWIW, I am the child of immigrants who came to this country with no money. After working his way thru HS and college by washing dishes, custodial/staff work but ultimately got some scholarships to attend grad school, he took a job (and made a career) in higher ed. As the OP knows, these jobs do not pay well. Growing up, I always saw other people who had more money and more resources and I really resented them. Doors seemed to open to much less qualified people just because of money, and parents who “spoiled” their kids seems to be stupid and wasteful. I ended up going to a college that was not elite (at the time), and not nearly as good as many of the wealthier kids in my town. The only good thing this resentment gave me was ambition not to be poor.
While I was resentful, my parents were not. They sacrificed a lot to be in this country and it was in fact a better life living in the US than the communist regime they had left. They always told me that the sky was the limit and they were proud of whatever accomplishments I had. And I did work hard, and over time my resentment of people who had more than I did receded into the background. As necessity is the mother of invention, my lack of resources may have made me a better, or at least more interesting student/candidate/person.
After graduating from a non-elite college, I was fortunate to get a job at a prestigious NYC bank which led to an Ivy-League MBA and all the comes with that. Now that I am on the “other side of the tracks” from where I first started, I see how unproductive it was to be so resentful when I was young. When you work hard, and make all the sacrifices that come with professional success, making the most of your position/status/influence is just what you do and no one can/should blame them for doing so (if done honestly/legally). Nevertheless I am proud to have done it with less and I continue to believe it is possible. The resentment I felt when I was young was my problem, not that of those who had more. This was a valuable lesson that I wished I learned earlier.
Honestly, with the internet and especially resources like CC, the path to “elite societal-defining jobs” is more transparent and democratized than ever.
I agree with those who have posted that “the good old days” may not be as accurate or realistic as the adage “the older you get, the better things were”. Every time period has its challenges and each have to be dealt with dynamically with current solutions. It is important not to skate where the puck was, but to where it will be.
Anyway, in her own mind, the OP is in a terrible place and it sounds like it is everyone else’s fault. I hope her daughter is able to leave home and make the best of things in this changing world we all live in. I wish her luck.
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Yeah, I see your point and I have a few thoughts.
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Economic policies have wrecked the social fabric of the American working class (first the black working class but now the white working class as well). If you’re bring brought up by a single non-college-educated parent, the odds really are against you.
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Libertarianism is great as a personal philosophy (you have agency; don’t depend on anyone) but terrible as an organizing principle for society. By definition, half the population will be below average in academics. Most will be mediocre or worse. If you don’t have a stable familial/social environment, the odds are really stacked against you. And now, if you are poor and disadvantaged, you’re in a Hunger Games society where the super-talented are plucked by Ivies/equivalents but with state schools getting less per capita, thus less fin aid and support for you, even being 90th percentile may not be enough to get anywhere if you’re in a state without a well-funded public (a school like UMich does have a good-sized endowment to draw upon and the Texas system has a massive endowment).
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Rolling back to the ‘80’s is a pipe dream. Societal attitudes have changed but more importantly, technology has changed society, and there’s no way to put the genie back in the bottle even if you want to.
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Somehow, then, a economic system needs to be fashioned where all segments of society benefit. Making publics free would help, but it wouldn’t restabilize the working class. Making education more accessible for all would also help (startups may be helpful there). But I see no way around stronger safety nets and massive redistribution. The alternative to that, suggested by history, is yes, revolution and chaos.
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It’s always been hard. The difference is that now, about half (it could be more now) of working class kids are born out of wedlock while the majority wasn’t 4 decades ago.
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Well, her employer admits most, but most of the rest has happened because state funding per capita has decreased.
Did he ED to Vassar or Mid?
If so, chances would have been decent. Otherwise, bad.
That was my first reaction as well. Read the whole thread. One crucial aspect is that we are not teaching classes to a lot of disadvantaged kids while the OP is. She’s seeing the wreckage of the American working class.
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Not sure how health is different from profession, personal finances, social relations, etc. in this respect. You have some control over all of these things, but you do not have full control over them. In profession and personal finances, your choices matter, but if you prepare for a profession and then encounter a macroeconomic or industry downturn just as you try to enter the labor market, your professional growth and personal finances will be diminished for decades compared to having less bad luck in terms of entering in a non-downturn. Social relations obviously depend on other people as well as yourself.
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Walter Scheidel, in The Great Leveler has a very pessimistic view in that economic inequality has historically increased in societies, with only major events like mass warfare (such as World War II), societal collapse, wide ranging plagues (that make COVID-19 look trivial), revolution (particularly communist ones) significantly reducing inequality. All of these happen to be unpleasant for those who have to go through them, and some of these are unpleasant afterward as well (communist revolutions). The US was very fortunate in World War II in that the war did not do as much damage to the US as a whole compared to many other places, but helped pushed society and politics of the time toward expanding economic opportunity across SES ranges (huge government stimulus spending for the war, high taxes on high incomes, GI Bill, state university expansion, pent-up demand economic boom, etc.).
Of course, extreme economic inequality can be a driver for some of these events.
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Yes, the US is one of the few examples in world history where society became more egalitarian without tremendous violence and upheaval. Though it was both the New Deal (brought upon by the Great Depression and fear of Communism by elites) as well as WWII.
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Yikes, massive redistribution often does yield revolution and chaos.
I’m for letting the system act as it does, having a minimal safety net ( strong for the elderly, and those with health/mental health issues). I certainly don’t support taking away from one person’s work to redistribute to another.
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World War II was tremendous violence and upheaval, but the US lost only 0.32% of its population (versus 17% for Poland and 13.7% for the USSR) and suffered almost no non-military damage outside of the Philippines (that stopped being part of the US in 1946), Guam, and merchant shipping (unlike many other participants). But the US got many of the good parts or good upheavals, such as the huge economic stimulus of military spending and instant full employment (military service or work making things for the military).
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Please cite historical examples. In the examples I know of, the order is reversed: revolution and chaos leading to massive redistribution. Please list the historical examples where orderly peaceful massive redistribution led to revolution and chaos.
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Well, the US is unlike many other societies in that it has had a solid middle class. While, there seem to be lots of problems around the middle class doing equally well compared to the upper and lower classes in recent years, it still exists. Technology has reshaped many of these jobs and a lot of the jobs have moved offshore. It’s likely this will continue and possibly get much worse.
The biggest question is, will there be enough jobs for the number of people in society or will technology make it harder to get a job. In Europe and elsewhere, many young people cannot find even a basic job. This creates a lost generation where you have young people with lots of skills and energy in search of work. It also creates a high unemployment rate with the gov’t paying for people who are willing and able to work.
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I suppose it depends I how you’d define “tremendous”. Compared to the counties where WWII was actually fought as well as the French/Russian/Chinese revolutions, it wasn’t tremendous.
Many people would disagree with this position, but I will state it as this is what worked for my husband and me, both immigrants with no connections when we started. Back in the day, we chose fields of studies that we believed would give us knowledge that is difficult to acquire as well as employable skills. The more difficult the subject, the higher the barrier to entry for people that did not challenge themselves in college. Even though education was free in my country, it never occurred to me to study pure history even though I was good in the humanities. For me, history is a hobby that you can develop outside of school.
We made it clear to our children that we expect hard work and employable skills from them in college. If they wanted to take classes in whatever, it would not be at the cost of $80k/yr. Just a little insurance policy if the society-defining job did not materialize or it did not pay enough for them to be able to support themselves.
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Yep, that’s not great and the labor market is much more rigid too.
But at least for now, it’s better to be poor and average in Europe than poor and and average in the US.
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Venezuela, the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon. No one said redistribution was ever peaceful. Least I didn’t see that in this thread. All caveats to how things started you are oversimplifying for the sake of your argument. Mine is that you are not going to get people to massively redistribute their wealth easily without chaos.
Step one: Richest people leave, often with their $, Step 2, gov’t … you know the rest.
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