The Disadvantages of an Elite Education

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<p>Tenure</a> road rough for professors - The Daily Princetonian</p>

<p>"not the most heinous act of plagiarism.... will get you expelled."</p>

<p>I wouldn't be so convinced of that at Princeton, given their Honor Code. And if not expelled, certainly earning an F in the class, etc.</p>

<p>"The only terrible thing was that a fraud such as Kavvya Viswanathan was not kicked out of the most venerable academic institution in the world. We'd expect a community college to be less forgiving."
But should she have been kicked out for something she did before she attended the school and did not submit to the school as her own? I would think the academic dishonesty should relate to representations made by the student to the institution.</p>

<p>Actually, plagiarism is not a violation of Princeton's Honor Code, which only governs in-class exams. Rather, it is a violation of the school's disciplinary regulations. Even legitimate Honor Code violations typically only result in a one year suspension. Expulsions are very rare.</p>

<p>Weasel:</p>

<p>I know of one prof who was denied tenure despite being a recognized authority in his field because he had not demonstrated sufficient interest in undergraduate education (but he had great evaluations from graduate students). I also know of profs at LACs who have been denied tenure because they had not published enough. Untenured profs at top LACs suffer from the same anxieties as untenured profs at top research universities.</p>

<p>And I know of someone who graduated from high school ranked 750 out of 800 who is a rising sophomore at Princeton. But I would never claim that this person is representative of Princeton's student body.</p>

<p>Let's see...</p>

<p>We now have HYP bashed for supposedly not being economically diverse enough, supposedly having questionable teacher quality, supposedly being havens for tolerated plagiarism.</p>

<p>This all sounds pretty unbelievable to me. What sounds believable is imperfection. Now, did students, and/or their parents, expect moral, academic, and social perfection all rolled into one? I mean, where does one get this in life -- packaged perfection? Kind of reminds me of the adage that one makes one's own happiness in life, rather than "finding" it somewhere. Some person or persons have overblown expectations about college. According to the aforementioned author, apparently college is supposed to form you into a person of deep social sensitivity to people not of your "class." </p>

<p>(No, <em>you're</em> supposed to form <em>yourself</em> into such a person -- with and without the aid of circumstances!)</p>

<p>one thing he comments on, how a "public school education teacher you to deal with stupid ppl..." not quite. i went to GHS, couldn't take classes with the stupid ppl, switched to gifted... there's only 40 gifted, so we don't meet a whole ton of ppl out of our class of 600... but i'd NEVER complain about missing out. I meet people through activities, but i'd rather not know how they do in a classroom if they're going to embaress themselves there.</p>

<p>Weasel:</p>

<p>If you know graduate students at top universities, you'll know that they are encouraged to put together teaching portfolios so that they can be hired at places like HYP and others. I have one S at an Ivy and one who attended a LAC. The profs at both came from the same institutions both undergraduate and graduate, and displayed the same teaching techniques, strengths and weaknesses. They are totally interchangeable.</p>

<p>But this issue is far from the original one, which is the limitations of an elite education and the inability of profs at top schools to relate to ordinary people.
I'll say again: baloney.</p>

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"The only terrible thing was that a fraud such as Kavvya Viswanathan was not kicked out of the most venerable academic institution in the world. We'd expect a community college to be less forgiving."
But should she have been kicked out for something she did before she attended the school and did not submit to the school as her own? I would think the academic dishonesty should relate to representations made by the student to the institution.

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<p>When it became apparent that the pressure by outsiders would not subside, Harvard rescinded Blair Hornstine's admission for a rather obscure case of plagiarism in a newspaper. While there were many questions about the veracity of her EC activities and the role of Judge Louis in fabricating much of her resume, the reasons for rescinding the admission were narrow. </p>

<p>Had Harvard wanted to apply a similar scrutiny to the application file of Kavvya to review the application prepared by a high-priced master packager, there is little doubt that the plagiarism and fraud started well before the "author" gained "fame" for her book and movie deal. </p>

<p>Harvard decided to overlook the lack of contrition, the denying lies, the defiance of the fraudster and decided to hide behind the smallest of fig leaves in viewing the honor violation was not related to work submitted to Harvard. The school lost a golden opportunity to send a clear message that honor and ethics are not a matter of semantics.</p>

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<p>I would say that it is very relevant to the original discussion, as it is a specific example of a possible limitation of an Ivy League education. I agree with you that the author's inability to converse with his plumber is his own fault, but there was much more to the essay than the author's ill-conceived introduction. Deresiewicz pointed to a number of problems facing top schools today, among them teacher quality, "entitled mediocrity", and the abundance of grads pursuing careers in investment banking and consulting. Even if the context in which these issues were raised was flawed, I think they warrant further discussion.</p>

<p>So the abundance of grads pursuing careers in investment banking and consulting is responsible for entitled mediocrity and low teacher quality? How?</p>

<p>That article was so badly argued (besides the ill-conceived introduction) that one wishes that the author had taken a class in logic. It's very possible that the students heading off to Wall Street do not find the topics he teaches very interesting (but hey, what about Jennifer Aniston?), but profs of political science might not find the English majors has strong in statistical methods as they would like. But that just means that most students are good at something and not as good at something else. It should not lead to a blanket condemnation of all students at elite colleges or of elite education in general.</p>

<p>And really, I do not see anything wrong with students wanting to pursue careers in investment banking. What I would not like would be for the entire student body to be doing the same. But that gets back to the issue of diversity (and not merely socio-economic).</p>

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So the abundance of grads pursuing careers in investment banking and consulting is responsible for entitled mediocrity and low teacher quality? How?

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<p>No I never said that. They are three separate issues.</p>

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Deresiewicz pointed to a number of problems facing top schools today, among them teacher quality, "entitled mediocrity", and the abundance of grads pursuing careers in investment banking and consulting.

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<p>This is what I responded to.</p>

<p>I would also point out that besides the fact that the faculty at top private research universities and top LACs come from the same pool of undergraduate and graduate institutions, so do the students. There is quite a bit of cross-admits and perhaps less diversity in LACs because fit is more important than in larger institutions. In turn, mid-sized research institutions are less diverse than larger (and usually public) ones.</p>

<p>But I still don't see where the quality of teaching comes in.</p>

<p>Sorry to belabor this point, but I don't see how my quote suggests in any way that the issues are related. </p>

<p>The fact that faculty members come from the same pool of institutions doesn't mean anything since these universities do not turn out a uniform product. Amherst could hire one freshly minted PhD from Harvard who has demonstrated teaching ability while MIT could hire a classmate who's research shows more promise. Just because these two hypothetical grads both went to Harvard does not mean they will have the same abilities.</p>

<p>In some ways, the subtext of the article is "white guilt"/rich guilt, bemoaning the social stratification which results from what can be called social tracking. However, I do not see it as significantly worse than any other kinds of narrowed life experiences. There are people that refuse to leave CA. People that have never met anyone outside of the suburban middle class -- be that either higher or lower in income. Many of the latter have amazing stereotypes of rich people AND of poor people. Many of the former have misunderstandings & prejudices about people from the East Coast. Both groups (lifelong CA residents + sheltered suburbanites) were not "made" to be that way by their college experiences necessarily, which could be public or private, but which may be ever as "grouped" as those of the author. (Just different groups.)</p>

<p>Many students, on and off CC, have reported that they are encountering or have encountered more diversity in nationalities, incomes, ethnicities, & other aspects of background -- at their Ivies than they would at their in-States which draw heavily from middle class students of mostly local geography.</p>

<p>So my point is, people can choose to create or accept stratifications they encounter by virtue of their young life experiences, or they can choose to broaden their worlds with enriching, border-breaking experiences, friendships. HYP do not prevent them from doing so, nor will HYP in themselves force/require them to have fresh encounters & insights.</p>

<p>That's a great point. Frankly, there's a lot of East Coast provincialism that I see here on CC -- "what, there are companies in the middle of the country? who'da thunk?" which in its own way is just as limiting as the author's provincialism about speaking to the plumber.</p>

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Just because these two hypothetical grads both went to Harvard does not mean they will have the same abilities.

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<p>So? Doesn't this means that Harvard (and other elite institutions) is diverse? </p>

<p>I totally agree with Epiphany. And talking about parochialism, I still get a kick out of the story a former colleague of my H once told us. He is from a town very close to Boston and from an Irish Catholic background. He told us that the first time he ever ate a pizza was at Harvard, where he was an undergraduate in the 1980s. For him, that was the beginning of an education in cosmopolitan eating.</p>

<p>"We now have HYP bashed for supposedly not being economically diverse enough."</p>

<p>I have absolutely no problem with their chosen level of diversity - it is their choice. I just think we should call it for what it is - the numbers are public, and current. For some reason, not I but Princeton saw a problem in its lack of socioeconomic diversity, and has taken some significant steps to rectify it. I expect they did so not so much out of the goodness of their heart, but because they assumed educational quality for ALL students might improve as a result. So they must have thought there was something that was a limitation, and needed improvement. (I don't think they are in the habit of throwing money down a rathole.)</p>

<p>An awful lot of people call it pretty fine. </p>

<p>People who don't want to study with a student body which is < 50% poor should probably not apply to an Ivy League U. Ditto for people without the imagination to develop associations with people from many walks of life, above & below one's own, or who somehow believe that four years of their life are the defining & terminal opportunities.</p>

<p>Wow. Just wow.</p>