Jay Mathews of the Washington Post has long been fighting the good fight against collegiate namebranditis. In his regular column and his outstanding 2003 book, Harvard Schmarvard, Jay always injects healthy doses of both reality and perspective for families who are going through the college admissions process. Here’s a snippet from his latest piece, How to stop Worrying about college rejection:
"If you want to succeed, worry less about what college you get into and more about doing your homework, taking care of your chores and being nice to other people, as mothers have been saying for a long time. Whatever college accepts you, see it as a treasure trove of people and ideas that will lead you to a great life, maybe even a governorship, if that’s your dream. It is a very American story sometimes forgotten in our fashionable yearning for colleges that reject the most applicants."