Enhancing Egos

Enhancing Egos

When one would think of Harvard, one would say that it is the cream of the cream of the crop. Any other superlative adjective can be attributed to it. College education is one of the marketable investments. Accordingly, it seems to be the most elusive goal, since an average American Citizen is bombarded with superficial promises of the corporate world even without college education. Some people may consider admission in Harvard as an odyssey. Harvard seems to evaluate every applicant in the lens of an electron microscope.

In the midst of the application hardship, there is a way to get in Harvard that can be considered a tie breaker. One would call it as Legacy Admissions. Legacy Admissions seems to be simple. The requirement would be that Mom or Dad should be alumni in Harvard, and Mom or Dad should have donated wads of cash to Harvard.

In a recent documentary from BBC’s “The Changing World,” it was reported that 10% of College admissions in Harvard are legacy admissions. In this way, the children who were born

with silver platter on their mouths can arguably be admitted to one of the finest universities in the world. As a result, egos of the rich people are enhanced. Accordingly, people should support legacy admissions. In fact, Harvard President Lawrence Summers states: “"Legacy admissions are integral to the kind of community that any private educational institution is.” One can infer that from the quotation, one can work hard for grades and integrity, and a legacy kid can just be ahead of the game in terms of Harvard admissions.

One alternative to this inequality is people should study in Finland. One can say that there are no legacy admissions in Finland. Moreover, Finland claims to have the best education system. The same documentary communicates that Finns starts formal education as late as seven years old. Children start in mid August, and by December, 90% of the children can read. When average 1st graders are asked if they like school, one can almost always expect that the responses would be alienation towards school. One can correlate alienation towards school due to the fact that American starts early. As opposed to Finns, since they start formal school at an arguable later age, their enthusiasm towards learning can be contagious.

Arguably, American college graduates are bombarded with the myth that after they graduate: only the best should be for them. As a result, they have an over-inflated sense of confidence. Such confidence is ingrained to them since childhood, so as not to ambush their self esteem. For instance, when a child is playing baseball, most parents would hold him as the best player, event though he can not even score a home run. Most parents shield children from the fact that there will always be children smarter and better than them. As a result, when a child (lavished with the myth) grows up and finished college, and have his spirits broken by problems, loans, bills and competition, the problems would be too much for them to take. There is a great likelihood that most of them would go to a shrink….. For the purposes of…. Enhancing their egos.

Source:

Will Bush truly renounce privilege in admissions?