1. From Newsweek: The Great College Road Trip. And you thought you were the only one obsessed with this topic. Nope. It's gone mainstream. What are your thoughts on this profile? Does the Holland family represent a broad spectrum of people or does this play to privileged folks (keep in mind the soaring costs of such an adventure)? Where's the MA angle in this (and move beyond the copy cat idea).
2. From the Wall Street Journal: How to Get a Real Education at College. Another great piece of satire from Scott Adams. What are your thoughts on this thoughts? What's his thesis? And is there an MA angle in this piece?
7 comments:
The Great College Road Trip:
The concept college road trip seems to be expanding more and more, bolstered by a herd instinct and the media ( e.g. lots of college road trip movies). The idea of traveling hundreds (maybe thousands) of miles for a good college seems to be a pursuit for mostly privileged students: many students without a leg up financially will probably look at state colleges more in their immediate vicinity, instead of traveling long distances to look at schools as far away as Britain or France. The Hollands, living in Pennsylvania, are at once a good example of this privileged-class excursion, but also not the best: they are rich, east-coast only-child parents. There are many factors in their lives that make them ordinary and unusual at the same time, making their idea of a college road trip ordinary and different.
Real Education:
Scott's article really ties into the Mark Twain "Don't let school get in the way of your education" quote: most of the valuable business lessons he learned had to do with extracurriculars. He did tackle his problems in a very businesslike, professional way right from the start, so maybe it has something to do with his personality. That aside, Scott's steps to becoming a better businessperson/entrepreneur were thought-provoking and original, proving that he did learn something at the bar.
The Great College Road Trip: wow, this article could not have been a more accurate depiction of my college process. I mean, talk about dejavu. I'm currently re-visiting colleges right now, a few mentioned in the article, and it is insane to think of all the money and resources that go into picking the college you end up at, even though everyone says "you're going to be happy wherever you go!" This process of qualified applicants is growing exponentially, and recently in a college meeting with an admissions officer, he noted that the cost of a liberal arts college is increasing nearly 5-10% each year, so that in nearly 10 or 15 years, prices will be outrageously expensive (not that this isn't the case already) and the amount of students applying will have increased tenfold. This trend can be seen in the growth from nearly 5 years ago to today. At just about every school I applied to this year, this year's applicant pool increased and the acceptance rate decreased, just like the article said. And how to kids avoid rejection? By applying to 10 or 15 schools. Once again, this feedback loop is expanding this process to ridiculous proportions. This process needs to be altered in order to sustain the growing applicant pool in the near future.
Real Education: This is a very interesting piece, and a useful one at that. Adams writes about how to be successful and what skills to learn in college in order to increase your value. I think that the strange and specific majors college students are taking these days (or even creating) are interesting and thorough, but will it help them get a job? With the job market being so competitive and difficult, does it really matter if you went to one of the top-tier liberal arts schools with a 10 percent acceptance rate and majored in Bowling industry management or Wine making (yes, those are real majors) or if you went to your local community college and mastered the skills of entrepreneurship or business management. These concerns are important to raise in the developing college world, and will be interesting to see 10 or 15 years from now, when these college students are developing their careers.
The Great College Road Trip-
That article will probably hit home with most kids in Marin, and especially at MA. The greater experience of the Holland family- the search for the perfect college depicts a majority of high school students in the US. While not everyone will travel thousands of miles, most students will read about and stress over where they want to go to college. I found the part where the author talked about the cycle of application rates going up, acceptances going down, and people visiting more and more places very true. While MA gives you the manila envelope with space for 8 colleges, and encourages you to only use that one, I know so many people who have gotten a second and even a third envelope which only perpetuates the cycle. While the Holland family’s “exotic” travels may not relate to everyone the process of applying to college relates to a lot more.
The Great College Road Trip:
The prospect of embarking on at least one of these trips next year is daunting, to say the least, as is the entire admission process. It seems that half of all of the things that I hear about college involve how difficult it is to be accepted, and the other half is about what a great experience it is. I do think that the Holland family is more representative of privileged people, given the colleges they're looking at and the number of trips they're taking. I'm honestly not sure how we could write an article about this without writing an article about the difficulties of getting into college.
How to Get a Real Education:
This is a very interesting article. It's also something I've given some thought to, given this quote from College Road Trip article: "Today, in more austere times, reps at the information sessions at the small New England liberal-arts schools on our trip made sure to sell their career-services departments and other offices that mitigate the perceived uselessness of a bachelor’s in comparative lit." The field someone majors in might not be the one where they wind up working later in life, or they might not be able to find a subject that they want to major in, which is one of the draws of the "make-your-own-major" programs mentioned previously. As far as I can tell, his thesis is that learning can only teach you so much. You need to be willing just try things and make mistakes.
The Great College Road Trip:
I think that this article does indeed target more well-to-do families because, while the idea of going to college and continuing your education appeals to millions of kids, not everybody has the financial resources to attend college let alone have their parents take time off of work and drive around the country, staying in hotels and eating in restaurants along the way. That aside, focusing on the Holland family, while the author does mention that they were very "sane and pleasant people," I personally think that it is excessive to pre-visit colleges and spend copious amounts of money looking around the country at schools that are easily accessible on the internet and through the books (which it sounds like Mrs. Holland had a few).
How to Get a Real Education:
While separating out and teaching the B students things like entrepreneurship, therefore discontinuing their education in the 'standard' subjects, might be a solution, I think it is avoiding the issue. I think that it can be really beneficial for the 'B students' to be in the classes with the 'future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers' and to have exposure to the ideas of those other students instead of treating them like second-class citizens.
The Great College Road Trip:
Yes, may be about something we can all relate to. And yes, colleges are hard to get into. It is true that some of us are more privileged than others. However, that in no way made this a good article. I felt that the writer must've had so much good material and golden opportunities and yet they squandered it. The article was long and pointless, and I could hardly remember who was who. Really, it was just so boring. Well great, ya'll went to visit colleges?! How original and unheard of! I would just love to read about what is essentially my life. Because, isn't the point of magazine articles just to summarize the routine life of a high school student and their family? No, Newsweek, no it isn't. Now I'm going to make a point about how hard it is to get into colleges. Yeah. It's tough. And here's where I say how lucky I/kids at MA/Dylan Holland is. Yeah, so privileged. I don't see how anyone gets into colleges. So really, I think we should all just stop doing homework and cry into our Ben & Jerry's, because life is just so hard. Or we could read Newsweek. Maybe this week they'll have an article on people tying their shoes.
How to Get a Real...etc.:
This one I liked. He was clever, and the article was short and sweet. I thought the stories of his college entrepreneurial adventures were quite funny. I also liked that his tone seemed to say: don't take yourself so seriously, i didn't. It was a nice idea, especially after being reminded of my hopelessness in the college process (thank you newsweek). I think he gave valuable advice, as well as a nice story. He had a simple message, and conveyed all his ideas well. All in all, I thought it was a nice article.
The Great College Road Trip
The Holland family is definitely typical in the parents concern and passion for their kid’s well-being, almost more concerned about the colleges than the kid himself. Every parent is concerned for their child’s future. It is common belief that if you get into the right college, you will get a good job and “get ahead in life.” The college road trip, exploring every possibility to find that right college and get a jumpstart on that perfect future, is the first step. However, the increasing competition in the application process described in the article has parents spending a lot more money on not only road trips, but SAT tutors, private college counselors, and the applications themselves. Not everyone can afford that. However, in the relatively rich area that we live in, many people can. There are a lot of kids from MA who go on similar tours of colleges and spend as much time meticulously choosing their favorite. This was a well-written article, entertaining and with a good tone, and it really summed up the frenzy of applying to college.
How to Get a Real Education at College
This article had a really interesting point: for some, college classes often can’t teach you what real-world experience can. His use of a personal story to prove his point made the whole thing a lot stronger. There will always be those people who pursue those intellectually high-reaching topics, like he says, but the classes that help those people achieve their goals are not necessarily helpful for those who are not looking for such an intellectual career. In the end, college can help those people achieve their goals as well, but in a different way. It isn’t as direct as a class. The interesting part is the way that Adams distinguishes the two types as A students and B students. I disagree with this, and I don’t think it fits with the culture at Marin Academy. I don’t think that grades necessarily define what field someone wants to go in, whether it be physics or entrepeneurship (if that’s a real word). I think MA encourages us to find what we want to do, regardless of test scores.
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