The Narcissism Of Minor Differences

Colleges and Universities A-Z Bates College
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<p>From the NY Times: </p>

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<p>"THE NARCISSISM OF MINOR DIFFERENCES</p>

<p>Freud coined this phrase to refer to the phenomenon that similar countries or peoples, living in proximity to one another, develop rivalries and antagonisms. This makes the individual communities more cohesive, and allows each to assert its prominence. The same holds for colleges. Elite institutions of a certain size and locale tend to resemble one another and yet to fight fiercely to maintain a sense of superiority, which is to say, a higher U.S. News ranking.</p>

<p>Universities use rankings as a lure, making it seem that admission to a college ranked higher than another is crucial, only to turn around and blithely use the club of selectivity to beat away the hordes that, as a result, want desperately to gain entry. </p>

<p>A student is likely to experience great disappointment when rejected from, say, Amherst, despite being admitted to, say, Colby. (Or should we say rejected from Bowdoin but not…) But since these colleges are seemingly very similar, enormous time and energy are required to distinguish one from the other. </p>

<p>Monet painted many pictures of Rouen Cathedral, which art historians have spent their careers studying. Likewise, parents pore over the catalogs of Dartmouth, Williams, Middlebury, Bowdoin, et al. </p>

<p>As with all connoisseurship in which extremely small, elusive qualities are subject to analysis, the results are bound to be uncertain and contradictory, leading parents to an even deeper analysis of small New England liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>The admissions process is not unlike the kabbalah or “Finnegans Wake”: one works hard at coming to an understanding under the assumption that one never will. Urban (or rather suburban) legends abound: how the student with perfect scores — a third-generation legacy whose grandfather has a building named after him — was deferred from Yale. Parents are told “it’s a crapshoot” so many times they may be tempted to join Gamblers Anonymous." </p>

<p>For the full article see last Sunday’s NYT “When The Best Is Not Good Enough”</p>

<p>We parents need to consider our own insecurites…and those we obviously pass on to our children.</p>

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<p>The article by Gregg Easterbrook, a visitng fellow at the Brookings Institution has some interesting thoughts also.
<a href="http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/20040902easterbrook.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/20040902easterbrook.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>" Admissions mania focuses most intensely on what might be called the Gotta-Get-Ins, the colleges with maximum allure. The twenty-five Gotta-Get-Ins of the moment, according to admissions officers, are the Ivies (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale), plus Amherst, Berkeley, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Pomona, Smith, Stanford, Swarthmore, Vassar, Washington University in St. Louis, Wellesley, and Williams."</p>

<p>But, as Krueger has written, "that you go to college is more important than where you go." The advantages conferred by the most selective schools may be overstated. Consider how many schools are not in the top twenty-five, yet may be only slightly less good than the elites: Bard, Barnard, Bates, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Carleton, Carnegie Mellon, Claremont McKenna, Colby, Colgate, Colorado College, Davidson, Denison, Dickinson, Emory, George Washington, Grinnell, Hamilton, Harvey Mudd, Haverford, Holy Cross, Kenyon, Lafayette, Macalester, Middlebury, Mount</p>