The University of Wisconsin-Madison accepts approximately 60 percent of its undergrad applicants. Harvard University accepts about 10 percent. With that 50-point gap, we might ask, is Harvard's campus that much thicker with freshman genius than our own?
If it's tempting to answer yes, we should remember that Harvard accepts a particular brood whose parents can both pay for SAT-prep classes and fork out an annual $30,000 in tuition. Given that fact, it's not unreasonable to believe that university meritocracy is distorted by privilege at the upper echelons. This should concern us beyond the mere fact that our lowly campus is ranked up near the elite. At its root, the issue is not merit nor privilege, but status anxiety.
Ambitious children of ambitious parents gun for top 12 schools'Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Amherst, Duke, etc.'and intense competition is the rule. Some 171,800 18-year-olds applied to those top 12 in 2004. Only 25,862 were accepted'about 15 percent.
These universities suck up so many applications mainly because of name-brand value. A degree from Nebraska won't raise eyebrows much past Lincoln. A degree from Yale will raise eyebrows in New Haven and practically anywhere else.
Today, undergrads accepted by the top 12 universities are primarily not the children of old-money millionaire WASPs. Rather, they are children of highly educated professionals with high incomes. According to a recent review by David Brooks, in 1996, about 11 percent of Harvard undergrads had fathers who had not attended college and only 5 percent had fathers who worked blue-collar jobs. While 3 percent of the overall workforce in the United States consisted of professionals (doctors, lawyers, etc.), around 30 percent of Harvard undergrads were sons and daughters of professionals. Merit plays a big role here'Harvard's student body is 50 percent Jewish and Asian mainly because those groups statistically perform better in academics.
Yet, the offspring of upwardly mobile, six-figure income families are not only the best educated but also the best prepared, and here the meritocracy becomes distorted. These kids go to the best schools, whether private or public, where they receive tons of help. Advanced Placement classes provide semester-long prep sessions for $65 tests while teachers organize SAT prep after hours and counselors walk the best and brightest through the admissions process.
On top of this, the best high schools provide students with after-school volunteer programs and well-funded sports programs, allowing these students to ladle soup to street people (thus building a solid amount of 'character,' at least on paper) and to scull across the lake (an expensive sport). Top 12 schools look for well-rounded kids'an incredible percentage of students play obscure varsity sports like squash or rowing at the Ivies'but such roundness can be a function of leisure and means.
Clearly, the admissions process to enter Harvard, Yale and the like, no matter how meritorious, is not quite fair when the common run must compete with the specially-packaged wonder children of families that can pay full tuition.
But the last laugh might be with students here at Wisconsin. A study published by Princeton University in 1999 showed that students who had been admitted to highly ranked schools like Princeton but declined admission and enrolled in less-prestigious schools instead ended up earning as much money after graduation as those who had chosen to matriculate at Princeton. So not only is UW-Madison more fun than the Ivies, but the most studious of us will make just as much money as top Ivy grads. Moreover, their Ivy League prestige is balanced by eight times the debt.
In some ways, the frenzy among ambitious families to send their kids to the top schools is nothing more than status anxiety, and as always, status anxiety is overrated. In a world where American service jobs and even professional jobs are outsourced to New Delhi, some families hope to hitch their kids up the socioeconomic ladder to a height where such concerns do not exist. However, as a nation, we would be better served if all those professionals would pay more attention at the ballot box and the dinner table when it comes to their children and less attention to the status game.
