Why Ivy League Grads Aren't All Pretentious Douchebags

A response to "The Disadvantages of an Elite Education" by William Deresiewicz

http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ http://www.willa.me/2012/07/why-ivy-league-grads-arent-all.html

Juan Farfan said... As a recent Princeton grad, I'm going to go out on a limb and contradict the prevalent view amongst most of my friends who are reading this...I don't intend for my argument to in any way diss Willa, since I know her from our eating club and I know she's a great person, but I also think she misunderstood the point being made in Deresiewicz's article. Princeton and the other Ivy League schools do breed a sense of entitlement. Sure, as Willa mentions, at a place such as Princeton one is surrounded by people that are better than you at practically everything. However, although one may think of that as a humbling experience, it only teaches you to be humble with respect to certain people. People who are successful, well-bred, motivated, intelligent, etc.;these are the types of people that live in the Orange Bubble. The Ivy League schools may have a lot of diversity in terms of race, nationality, and even class, but they do not contain the average person who may not work as hard or is not as naturally gifted. So when we go to Princeton we learn certain behaviors and interactions that only prepare us to communicate and work well with people like ourselves. Since these sorts of people also tend to be clustered in certain industries, we inadvertantly gravitate towards those careers after graduation. Therefore, we perpetuate a lifestyle and community that increasingly isolates us from the rest of society. In general, I find that most of us believe that we deserve this as recompense for our years of

but what we don't even realize is that we have segregated ourselves to the point that we don't know how to communicate with people outside our social circles or connect with their daily greivances.
hard work,

I am not so sure that this sort of institutional sense of entitlement is paricularly intentional or simply a product of the Ivy League. The truth is that it exists at all levels of society. Ivy League students feel superior to people who went to state schools, state school students feel superior to those at community colleges, and people at community colleges tend to feel superior to those individuals who never even finished high school. Most people tend to judge one another at every possible level if it can make them feel good about themselves. The Ivy League and education is just one level in this chain, but it also extends to practically every facet of life. There is a sort of inherent superiority complex associated to our priveldged standing in society that makes us think of ourselves as better than most others. Do I feel a sense of entitlement from having attended Princeton? I try not to, but I would be lying if I were to say that I did not. Likewise, I think it would serve well many of my peers if they took the moment to realize that they are not as humble as they claim to be. We are entitled and most of us live in a world quite unlike the rest of humanity, but we should remember that that doesn't make us better than anyone else. If we see a homeless person begging on the street, we are no different than they are and we should afford that individual the same respect and dignity that we might to our boss at work. I know that I don't usually live up to that ,and I'm pretty sure none of the people I went to school with do either. So let's stop pretending that we don't feel some entitlement, because we all do.

pastwatcher said... I relate to this comic and enjoyed it, but you're missing a huge point. Elitism isn't just about thinking you individually are smart; it's about thinking people like you are the best kind of people. Ivy educations tend to trade egomania for academic

snobbishness, in precisely the way you aptly described. If you want to write to a broad audience and explain why Princeton didn't make you elitist, you have to show that you value the life experiences of people who didn't go to Princeton or wherever. It's not enough to say "I didn't say Princeton was the only place to learn humility!" It's not enough to explain your own experiences; you must demonstrate some understanding of others' perspectives. I learned this lesson the hard way, and now it pisses me off to see people congratulating each other for elitist thinking. I don't mean to sound harsh.

We do get a lot of benefit by meeting people from other countries and backgrounds, but you can meet more diverse people in New York City. You shouldn't only want to talk to your plumber when they show up to fix your house; you should realize that they have a whole life outside of plumbing. You should want to talk to random people you meet at the bus stop. To people you always pass by when you're in a hurry. You should think, when you see someone on the street, about whether you're even able to imagine their lives outside of your interactions with them--or whether you only care to see if they might rob you. You should truly value the lessons learned from people outside of your family and your Ivy friends.
I still struggle with this stuff, because it's definitely awkward when people find out I went to Harvard. But not half so

awkward now as it was before I got over myself; in fact, I probably sound harsh because you sound like a past version of myself. Please, either admit that you need to learn how academic privilege works, or demonstrate that you already have.

M said... Fellow Ivy grad here. Deresiewicz's argument is that elite institutions help perpetuate a false sense of superiority/entitlement and make it harder for students to relate to others who aren't like them. In some ways, I think this is true, but not for the reasons Deresiewicz states. If anything, I think Deresiewicz's thesis is correct when you actually take into account the spirit of Willa's comic. Many people who get into the Ivy League come from EXTREMELY supportive families. Note that I don't necessarily mean "rich." One thing that seems to hold true for a vast majority of students is that they had parents who were there for them in some way, even if they were poor. Many of my peers had collegeeducated parents as their lifelong sources of wisdom. If you don't have that father you can talk math with -- or that mother who's willing to pick you up/drop you off for after-school activities -- or someone who's willing to cover your 11th grade lab fees -- or that family-driven sense of academic motivation - it's very difficult to get ahead. As a result, Ivy admits generally don't know what it's like to *lack* that support. Elite institutions give privilege to those who are already privileged in some profound way, and this is

Too many people think that everything they've

where I think the "false sense of entitlement" comes from.

earned is a result of their own blood, sweat, and tears without truly acknowledging how much of an impact their starting conditions had on their success. Furthermore, support fosters ambition, which makes it easy to think something is wrong with those who live lives that don't require much ambition to achieve.
Ivies do nothing at all to allude to this, and I think that is what Deresiewicz was trying to critique. Deresiewicz isn't saying that the schools *cause* these problems. They just amplify pre-existing ones caused by one's upbringing and reinforce social notions that need debunking instead.

Kevin Driscoll said... I didn't go to an Ivy, but I did go to a 'brand name institution.' Fortunately, my personal experience contradicts almost every aspect of Deresiewicz's article. I don't have stats or surveys, so my own experience is about all I can go on. Deresiewicz claims that going to Duke alienated me from talking to people who are dissimilar to me. On the contrary, I already had trouble talking to "everyday" people before college. Since middle school, I've preferred to talk about politics, religion, philosophy, and law. There aren't many people who share my interests. Universities provide many of us a place to discuss our shared interests. Life will provide us with ways of relating

to people with dissimilar interests. After all, if we share no common interests, then the only thing left we have to discuss are the basic aspects of being human. Since most college students haven't really lived yet or dealt with the challenges of everyday life, why would we expect them to relate to people who have? This criticism seems like a farce to me. There will always be people who have experiences entirely different form mine. It will always be difficult for us to strike up a casual conversation. What needs to happen first is for us to educate the other on our experiences, so we have some common ground. This is an area where elite universities excel! Even if its true that only privileged people go to the IL, you still learn to educate others about your life experience and have them educate you. Rich people aren't all the same *shocker*. I have a much greater command of sharing my perspective and reflecting on others' because I had the opportunity to meet people from so many different places. The real elitism is in assuming that your plumber doesn't want to hear about Kant, or Obama, or the awesome book your just read. Educate them about your perspective, listen to theirs, and then you can have a conversation, not before. Deresiewicz apparently is accustomed to hearing students claim that they are better than everyone else. I just don't understand this at all. My friends at elite schools are better at finance, law, science, etc than most random people you would pull off the street. They deserve the jobs they have because they acquired the relevant skills. Even if they got those skills through luck or privilege, the fact is that they have them right now. There is a kernel of truth to this criticism that is intimately tied into the liberal mindset. The idea of requiring people to wear seatbelts because it's 'for their own good' does presuppose that you know better than they do what is best for them, but it isn't a conceit that is peculiar to elite universities. Plenty of everyday people on the street and think that the government needs to pass laws to protect citizens from themselves. It is still, then, a further leap to claim that this mindset implies a generic feeling of superiority. No IL students are clamoring to take away the human rights of everyone else. They might not acknowledge the fact that everyone deserves to decide for him/herself what to do, but that's a broader issue. Even if they

argue that they know better what's best for others, they still acknowledge others' inherent worth by trying to help them. If IL students felt generically superior, then they just wouldn't care at all what happens to everyone else.

kevpsmith said... Nice comic, Willa. Beautifully argumentative. However, I'm noticing that most people are focusing on the argument of whether going to an elite college makes you elitist. Deresiewicz does open his article by drawing you into that debate, I think he makes a subtler point (two, actually). By the end, he's saying something more along the lines of "Because elite colleges train their students to be part of an elite class, they also tend to nurture elitist thinking" and "It is not necessary to be part of an elite class to live a fulfilling life." So he's not saying that all Ivy League grads are pretentious douchebags. He's not saying that Princeton tried to make him a douche. He's saying that because Princeton trained him to be conventionally successful, he lost sight of the lives of those who weren't educated as he was. He's lamenting his observation that because Ivy League schools put their students on the track to elite jobs and roles, their students often don't explore opportunities off that track, which more often that not leads to their not making friends with, conversing with, empathizing with, caring about, and understanding people off that track as well. So yes, I'd like to agree that I don't think all Ivy League students are elitist, and that some are genuinely humble people

who can connect with everyday folk. But as an Ivy League student myself, I will say that I agree with Deresiewicz's point that "the disadvantage of an elite education is that its given us

Though the Ivy League doesn't teach us to look down on plumbers, or even cause us to lose the ability to converse with and genuinely connect with them, it does foster the mindset that to become a plumber, a cashier, or even a teacher at a public elementary/middle/high school is somehow a waste of our education, an education that was supposed to put us on the path to becoming professionals like doctors and lawyers, wealthy businesspeople and entrepreneurs, and leaders in the fields we end up in. And because that undervalues the lives of plumbers, cashiers, and schoolteachers, isn't that a form of elitism?
the elite we have, and the elite were going to have."

137c342a-ccbc-11e1-9f9f-000bcdcb471e said... I'm an ivy league grad and I have two, in some ways contradictory things to say: 1. I completely agree that structural inequality not only exists but is at the foundation of contemporary American society.

What's more, I didn't fully realize this until I got to an ivy league school and noted that a large percentage of my fellow classmates were not only white but also from affluent families. Many of them had attended elite boarding schools and were the children of parents who had also graduated from ivy league institutions. That being said, I don't think the answer is to attack the ivy league but rather to address the larger problem of structural inequality THROUGHOUT American society. I find it incredibly frustrating that ivy league students and graduates are becoming the scapegoats for the racial and class inequality that essentially every well-to-do white American (and in the case of racial inequality, white Americans of every economic background) helps maintain and perpetuate. The reason this frustrates me is due to the second point I would like to make: 2. Growing up in a predominantly white, affluent town, I never really felt socially accepted by my peers. Sure, I had a small group of friends, but all of them were what you would call 'nerds'. I didn't get my first kiss until I was nearly a senior in high school and I spent a fair chunk of my life lonely and, at times, miserable. One of the reasons I wasn't accepted was because I was much more interested in reading books, thinking about philosophical questions, and discussing current events than I was in discussing who was dating who or reading the latest gossip magazines. Mind you, I'm not saying one group of interests is better than the other, but while I was growing up I was consistently told by my peers that my interests were 'lame'. I was, in other words, 'not cool.'Perhaps partly as a result, I set my sights on getting into a good school. This meant working almost every hour of everyday, Saturdays and Sundays included, on homework. One of my friends, also from a wealthy, white family (and the child of two very successful families) would spend her weekends hanging with friends, going to movies, etcetera. I sacrificed all of that to get into my dream school (she ended up going to a good state school). Fast forward to college and I suddenly was surrounded by people with similar interests. I cannot explain what a relief it was to finally feel not only accepted but also appreciated by my peers. If I wanted to talk about the current state of the european economy with someone, it was suddenly 'cool.' In conclusion, I 100% believe that my white privilege played a huge role in getting me into an ivy league school. I do not

agree, however, with the conclusion that all ivy league grads are elitist. As I have shown, I spent most of my life rejected by the 'elites' in my town, high school, etc and I made many sacrifices that my peers chose not to to get into an ivy league. Now that I have finally begun to accept who I am and am finally feeling valued by those around me I am being told my new-found self-confidence is pretentious? I think we as Americans are losing sight of the real problems here. We should be working on the structural inequalities that restrict who has the opportunity to attend a good school, which is not a problem solely caused by ivy league schools or by ivy league graduates. Although I'm furious that my classmates who came from wealthy, white families and excluded me from social events because I wasn't 'cool' enough are now turning around and calling ME elitist and pretentious, I also know there are millions of people out there who really were unfairly denied access to a quality education.

Kantian said... I enjoyed Willa's comic as I think her views were nicely expressed. By this point in the comments section all who came before me have addressed most of the pitfalls in Willa's comic. However, most people forgot the part of Deresiewicz's (Mr. D hereafter) article which was most poignant to me and a part that was also left out by Willa. My personal experience has validated much of Mr. D's point about how there is a specific paradigm in which students -- all students -- are asked to conform to. He couldn't be more accurate about the students who "game the system" to make it into an Ivy League school. I will be attending a large

public university in a few months so forgive me for my bias, but the students I saw who were selected by the elite universities were the students who worked very very hard to make sure their GPAs were top notch and their SATs scores at the 99th percentile. Intellectual curiosity was a foreign subject to many of them. Mr. D. directly refers to these kids in his piece and I give him much credit. I acknowledge that the structure we have in the US likely fills state universities with the same type of students who are just not as inherently gifted as their Yale counterparts. Yet, counter-intuitively, the more intellectually curious end up in state universities because they didn't care to take 15 AP courses and be a "leader" in 3 clubs they didn't like. He doesn't deride an Ivy League education for the same reasons that are popular. He is in fact making a deeper claim about the culture of academics in the United States where academics is merely a means to a career -- not a cultivated mind. The Ivy League students above me have already substantiated Mr D's claims and have done so word for word at that. The Ivy League culture is to fit into the system as much as possible and achieve highly within it. It excludes trivial things like passion, intellectual curiosity, charity and virtue. If Ivy League is a factory for the consumption of Wall Street HR departments, what does it say about the individuals who go to such institutions? It likely says that social status derived from wealth is the great parameter on which even the "best" and "brightest" minds judge themselves by. It seems to me that the best among us would be less concerned with such things and more concerned with hard virtues. So I arrive at my subjective conclusion that elite universities don't actually acquire the best and brightest (not by my definition of best and brightest anyway). So you see, being elitist is not entirely bad if you ARE indeed superior to other people. I would encourage Dr. Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa to feel superior to Hitler. Although this illustrates an extreme example, the basic concept holds true. Altruism, charity and benefit to society ought to be the yardsticks -- not intelligence, education, occupation and wealth.

Critics, please understand that I'm not talking about ALL Ivy League students/graduates. I am not actually even talking about just the Ivy League. The problems that society in general faces are magnified in elite universities. Without doubt, they are designated as elite because of what society at large values most. This pitiable condition won't be changed unless we change our implicit values. I'm sorry, it seemed Willa and the rest of you ignored this point that Mr. D made.
http://asianameducation.wordpress.com/2012/07/14/an-admission-officers-response-to-willas-world/