Excellent Sheep

William Deresiewicz’s book, "Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite", has generated much discussion over the last few months. Deresiewicz chiefly targets the Ivy League and their equivalents. An elite education should spark creative drive, above all feeding and motivating student curiosity. Instead, Ivy League students are ‘excellent sheep’, cultivating identical resumes from prep school onwards, conveyed  via uniform college A grades into the sterility of finance and consulting.

My own biases tap nicely into parts of his description. Deresiewicz encourages high-schoolers to look beyond the elite institutions and to populate public universities and those liberal arts colleges that have stayed true to their mission. But lesser-raking colleges have similar ills. Almost without exception, universities have become almost pure money making machines. The professors, who used to be recruited on their academic brilliance and reputations, are now valued more on their, admittedly related, ability to bring in money. In science, a rapid drive towards group-think has led to individuals being evaluated less on their ability to perform or directly supervise research, and more for their ability to lubricate efforts federating dozens or even hundreds of scientists in competitions for multi-million dollar contracts. In a recent discussion I had with a Vice President of a midwestern college the only subject that seemed to interest him was the setting up of a lucrative company based on the university's research assets.

Tension between the acquisition of creative knowledge and the acquisition of wealth is not new, but a truly intelligently designed system recognizes their equivalence. Wither the Ivy.

Quotas on Asian Students?

I have always argued against any sort of differential treatment based on skin color. An example of this is race-based affirmative action in college admissions, increasing admission rates of minority racial groups, which was explicitly allowed in a 2003 Supreme Court decision. College selection should based solely on how well  a prospective student is likely to succeed. Given this criterion, there is indeed an argument in favor of some preference for low-income students, based on the precept that their circumstances have made it more challenging for them to achieve a given level at high school, and therefore they are  more likely to succeed on the level playing field of college. Of course, discrimination based on income does favor low-income racial groups, but this is not an explicitly race-based policy.  

Given the above position I am curious to learn that the three most selective Ivy League colleges may well be discriminating against Asian candidates. Apparently, although Asian-Americans made up over 27% of the applicant pool  from 2008 to 2012, they comprised only 17-20% of the students admitted. Of course, it is conceivable that the Asian-American applicants were less qualified on average, collectively sending in hopeful below-par Hail Mary applications just in case. But if not then these schools are rejecting bright, qualified hard-working future leaders solely on the basis of race. Why? Because they 'work too hard'? Because they're 'no fun'? Because their parents don't have enough money or connections? No, in the interests of 'diversity', ostensibly, so that the universities can plant their pretty little gardens mirroring the make-up of society.   

My response is to say to the University of Tennessee is "Bring 'em here"! Let's get those thousands of highly qualified future leaders to UT. That'll get us up towards the Top 25, help motivate the locals  and teach the Ivy League a lesson. The use of race in college admissions should end.