Canada: Who needs Harvard? Send us your best and brightest

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/who-needs-harvard-send-us-your-best-and-brightest/article19887588/

Who needs Harvard? Send us your best and brightest
Mark Kingwell
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Aug. 02 2014, 6:00 AM EDT
Last updated Saturday, Aug. 02 2014, 6:00 AM EDT

Last week, in an essay for the New Republic, “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League,” former Yale professor William Deresiewicz continued his assault on the values of America’s top universities, drawing on a stint serving with an admissions committee.

Far from being the elite institutions of learning they pretend to be, he argued, the Ivy League has become a training ground for clever, self-involved yet biddable youngsters – “out-of-touch, entitled little shit(s),” to quote one of them – who make especially good fodder for the morally bankrupt financial sector.

The aspirants to admission are like prize animals trained to within an inch of their sanity. To be considered “well rounded” they must “have a sport” and evidence of charity work, preferably in a foreign nation or colourful locale like New Orleans; otherwise, they can be “pointy” – very good at one thing – but only if they are national or even world-class at it: Olympic-level swimmer, say, or headlining concert pianist. At the same time, an overly laden résumé, as with one that included double-digit extracurriculars and nine letters of reference – nine! – can be rejected for indicating someone is “too intense.”

Dr. Deresiewicz and the New Republic masthead have been criticized for being just as Ivy-dominated as any Wall Street trading firm, but the objection is beside the point: Gumption and talent still count for more than pedigree in publishing. (Roger Hodge, former editor of Harper’s, went to Sewanee; New Yorker staff writer Adam Gopnik is a McGill graduate; and so on.)