Readers discuss a guest essay about the advantages that privileged students bring to college admissions.
To the Editor:
Re “There’s Still One Big Trick for Getting Into an Elite College,” by Sophie Callcott (Opinion guest essay, Oct. 2):
I’m a student at the Hotchkiss School, and I found the claims made in the article about the “nationally ranked overachiever factories” contradictory to my personal experience.
As a scholarship student at Hotchkiss who previously attended New Haven public schools, I came into freshman year with my only knowledge of elite prep schools coming from social media and Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel “Prep.” I expected hypercompetitive peers and intimidating teachers. That’s not the case.
My classes are challenging, and my teachers have high expectations of effort and participation, but the atmosphere is supportive and kind. I’m a junior, and so far no teacher has talked to me about where I should go to college, and I’ve been dragged into zero meetings with a college counselor.
Ms. Callcott isn’t wrong in saying that spots at top universities are sought after and competed for. Students at Hotchkiss are ambitious, and they pursue prestige. However, my school is a place where education is coveted and valued, where the goal is to foster well-rounded, thoughtful, good people. It’s not a factory that disregards the mental and emotional health of students in the pursuit of Ivy League admissions.
Rebekah Oppenheimer
Rennes, France
The writer is spending the school year studying abroad.
To the Editor:
Sophie Callcott correctly observes that the benefits of private high schools and elite colleges flow primarily to children in wealthy families. She overlooks, however, the fact that many of us received those benefits by attending private high schools on generous scholarships. One way to decrease the wealth gap at private high schools is to increase funding for those scholarships.
A classmate of mine who, like me, attended our alma mater (the Columbus Academy) on a scholarship started such a program a couple of years ago. Since then, the program has grown exponentially. Scholarship students comprise about 30 percent of the student body, and raising funds for endowed scholarships is now the school’s top philanthropic priority.
Those of us who reaped the benefits by attending private high schools on scholarships have a moral obligation to pay it forward and help students who can’t afford the tuition. And those who received the benefits without financial aid can help, too.
Joe Hartzler
Chicago
To the Editor:
Sophie Callcott is to be commended for her affirmation of the inequities embedded in the college admissions process. It is a sham. I suspect, however, that if she were to take a step back and reflect on the spectrum of “tricks” for getting into an elite college, she would readily agree that the odds are skewed well before attending an elite college or private secondary school.
Educational inequities can be traced back to birth. There are those infants whose prospects of attending an elite public school are defined by the ZIP code of their home, or who can embark on an elite private school education because of family wealth. Then there are those for whom the notion of admission to an elite secondary school, let alone such a college, is fanciful.
There are no “tricks” available to these children that can upset the deck stacked against them. They will likely encounter oversize classes, uneven instruction, disruptive environments, poor facilities and challenging external supports. For the unfortunate, college prep courses, tutors, extracurricular activities and first-rate athletic facilities are emblematic of the “tricks” associated with affluent students.
But to soothe our collective conscience, we have constructed the delusion of a meritocratic educational system that comfortably camouflages its fundamental unfairness. It is a meritocracy only for those who can afford the price of admission.
Derek Wittner
Kennebunkport, Maine
The writer is a former vice president at Columbia University and the Cooper Union.
To the Editor:
Sophie Callcott writes that privileged families use a private school education to game the college admission system. Perhaps because she is young, Ms. Callcott may not understand how much parents will sacrifice for their children. So many parents forgo homeownership, vacations and secure retirements to give their children an independent school education. Not every one of them has bags of money, and not every one of them is playing the game that Ms. Callcott describes.
Rather than seek comfort, status and wealth for their children, they are just doing their best to give them the fullest, most well-rounded education they can. The lifetime benefits cannot be quantified.
Marye Elmlinger
New York
To the Editor:
I wonder what intention Sophie Callcott had when she wrote her essay. Was it purely to indict a system she judges as unfair, or is it a plea for change? If it is the former, the essay tells us what we already know. Of course privileged students like Ms. Callcott enjoy superior support and resources that improve their chances of getting into elite colleges and beyond. If it is the latter, it offers no proposal for real change.
Ms. Callcott calls the private schools overachiever factories and says that secondary education is pursued for the purpose of getting into a prestigious university. That’s it? With all those resources at hand, all that the privileged kids can dream of is gaining a badge of prestige? What a waste of privilege and educational opportunities.
For goodness sake, use this privilege to dream, act and think through how society (and the up and coming generation) might change the system. I have children who are just a few years younger than Ms. Callcott. But I am dreaming bigger dreams than elite colleges for them.
I dream that they approach learning with joy and curiosity. I dream that their intention for college, wherever they land, is to spend four years seeking knowledge (though knowledge seeking should be a lifetime pursuit) and be transformed by it, and in turn seek to be transformative in ways big and small.
Jacqueline Kim
Encinitas, Calif.
To the Editor:
Why do we keep hearing that “elite” colleges like Stanford and the Ivys are the ticket to “success,” whatever success means — usually a Wall Street salary and a place in the Hamptons?
However, in the same Oct. 2 print issue as this Opinion piece, the Vows section features a groom who graduated from a community college in Michigan and works as a bike mechanic and resort supervisor. His wife is a chef. They live in Aspen, sort of Hamptons West.
The story suggests that the couple is very happy and has a bright future. No Stanford, Harvard, Princeton or Rhodes scholarships necessary.
Marc Bloom
Princeton, N.J.
To the Editor:
While this piece points to very real inequities in college admissions, it fails to mention another side of the story: the superior education offered by private schools.
Having gone to a private school and having taught in both private and public schools, I can attest to the rigorous teaching and intellectual demands made by the former. There’s no comparison.
How about the folks in charge of U.S. public education stop fooling around and require the rigor that most private schools routinely ask for — and get?
Anne Bernays
Cambridge, Mass.
"Opinion" - Google News
October 22, 2022 at 10:30PM
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Opinion | From Elite Private Schools to Elite Colleges - The New York Times
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