It is no secret that, in towns like New Canaan, parents strive to send their children to elite colleges. Many are willing to hire SAT/ACT tutors, private coaches, and college counselors all in hopes that their children will be admitted to the most selective college possible. On March 12th, the now widely-publicized college admissions scandal came to light. Amidst the news appearances and arrests, this story brought up a question: how far are parents and students willing to go in order to be admitted to the most prestigious colleges?
In February of 2019, Forbes magazine published an article outlining what are projected to be the top 10 most important skills for the future of work. Among the most important of these skills, according to the article written by Adi Gaskell, are conflict management, time management, stress management, and communication skills. Nowhere in the list does Gaskell reference the prestige (or lack thereof) of the institution that one attends. So, why are we conditioned to believe that attending a top university is the factor most directly correlated to career success?
In Malcolm Gladwell’s book David and Goliath, he describes his own theory on the issue. Gladwell believes that, by attending a top-tier school, students are setting themselves up to perform at a level that is average, or even below average, with respect to their peers at that school. Gladwell then suggests that, should the same student attend what some may consider a “second-tier” school, they will be more likely to outperform their peers and graduate at the top of their class. It is this, Gladwell postulates, that drives future success, not the school’s ranking.
Given this information, it does not seem to make sense that parents would pay, in some cases, millions of dollars in order to assure that their child is admitted to a highly competitive university. Would it not be possible for students to learn skills like conflict and time management even at what some would consider to be a “lower level” university?
Perhaps, if students are truly motivated by the possibility of future success, they would be better served to focus their time and effort on mastering these work skills instead of focusing all their time and resources on gaining admission to competitive colleges. As a school, part of our responsibility is making sure students are aware that learning is more important than maintaining a 4.0 GPA. Though the corruption behind the college admissions scandal has been exposed, real change is only possible when the mindset of students, teachers, and parents alike has been changed.
