Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, has something to say about the message so many kids are receiving about getting into college. From his recent Washington Post piece, “What is college for? (Hint: It’s not just about getting in)”:
“In the process [of preparing for college], all too many receive a sorry message, indeed: ‘The goal of high school is to get into the college that rejects the most people; the goal of college is to gain access to employers or graduate programs that turn away the greatest number of qualified candidates; the goal of life is to have more of the stuff that other people are unable to acquire.’ No one puts it quite this way, but that’s what our young people are hearing. It is a message that kills the soul: Value things only to the extent that other people are deprived of them.”