This article (via Joanne Jacobs) may be heartening to some who believe that if fewer ritzy, private prep-school students are admitted to Harvard and its ilk then perhaps more deserving, low-income students from public high schools will be. That may be true. It would be a shame, though, if America's best colleges were to??accept large numbers of pupils who are less academically able than are many to whom they, the colleges, deny entry. What good comes of enrolling young people who aren't prepared--or, rather, aren't the most prepared--for the Ivy League?
I know, I know: Ivy League classes are supposedly easier than classes at many state schools, so students don't actually need to be more prepared for Harvard than for the University of Virginia or LSU. Maybe not. But as we've argued about AP, and as Checker told Jay Mathews in so many words, the quality of a higher-level class is in many ways determined by whether or not that class actually enrolls higher-level students. I tend to think the same holds true, to a large extent, for university classes and campus culture, too.??Too much??diversity of intellectual ability??on campus doesn't seem to offer any particular benefit. (It is certainly a myth that Ivy League graduates are the only ones who fill competitive jobs, or that a Harvard degree is necessarily the ticket to success.)
And colleges are??of course??judged largely??by their prestige (agree or disagree about whether that's good, but it's true), as measured by lots of things, such as quality of faculty and endowment size, all of which are mutually reinforcing.??But at base, I think,??a school's??prestige is generally built on who matriculates there. It's complicated stuff, sure. But if Harvard starts shutting out significant numbers of the most qualified applicants and offering spots, instead, to lesser minds, then Harvard's unique luster will diminish. Some think that's a good thing, but I don't find compelling justification for their thoughts.
Photo by Flickr user mjm.