<p>Parent, maybe I wasn't clear, I was talking about those who rise to lead in environments where everyone has an elite education.</p>
<p>When I talk about the head of GS coming from the Bronx, I'm talking about someone who grew up lower middle class with smart parents focused on education. An excellent upbringing, just not an affluent one.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope,</p>
<p>You're right - its different. I've only been to New Haven for a weekend and perhaps I didn't get the full experience. However, the point was that I do think students will mingle surrounding environments. I only have my own experience to reference but as Booklady pointed out, community is huge at Yale as it is for Stanford.</p>
<p>Speaking at Stanford on Tuesday (4/12/11)), "writer and former Yale professor Bill Deresiewicz declaimed to a packed audience in Annenberg Auditorium that Stanford students are really just excellent “hoop-jumping, teacher-pleasing sheep.” "</p>
<p>[Talk</a> compares students to sheep | Stanford Daily](<a href=“http://www.stanforddaily.com/2011/04/13/talk-compares-students-to-sheep/]Talk”>Talk compares students to sheep)</p>
<p>I love people who indiscriminately generalize. Such great role models of individualism and creativity, lecturing those with supposedy neither.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, but this Yale prof should be ashamed of his projection of how HE is onto “all” Ivy students. That may be the way he is, and maybe a few others, but I really have not experienced this with Yalies or other tippy college grads and students. They are a pretty diverse bunch, with ambitions academic and/or career-wise. They have faults and naivetes and drives and can wear blinkers, in lots of different ways!!</p>
<p>Why is he so sour grapes? And so elitist?? And eager to be popular??? By bashing achievers??? Is this some form of mis-guided modesty??? Or a way to “pander” to the non-Ivies by confessing his own elitism???
Anyway, no need to defend against his accusations as far as I can tell. </p>
<p>WHY?</p>
<p>Sour grapes? He has a PhD (“and a few other degrees”) from Columbia. He taught for 10 years at Yale. He’s giving talks at Stanford. He’s a contributing editor at The Nation and The New Republic. So it’s not as though he is pretending to dislike what he can’t have. </p>
<p>Why is he “bashing achievers”? He wants students to be less frenetically busy. He apparently thinks the soul of a university is in introspection and conversation, not piling on extracurricular activities or jockeying for internships at investment banks. I bet he’s into “slow food”.</p>
<p>His point about “talking to the plumber” is easily misinterpreted.<br>
His argument may be a little overwrought but it’s not too unusual for academics to criticize each other this way. This is a tradition at least as old as Socrates.</p>
<p>Denied tenure at Yale, from what I can tell.</p>
<p>For our son it became a choice of big fish in a smaller pond in the initial screening process plus the merit scholarship issues. He bypassed applying to the second tier elites(Cornell, CMU), a decision which worked out fine in the end.</p>
<p>
Actually, I think you’re right. </p>
<p>The few comments about him on RateMyProfessor range from “He is incredibly stuck up and spouts cliches most of the time” to “My absolute fav prof. The smartest man I’ve ever met”.</p>