This week’s TIME column takes a look at what to say to the high school seniors who didn’t get into the college they wanted. You don’t want to be glib about it, but it’s also not as a big of a deal as it may seem in the moment.
It’s an exciting time for students who got into one of their top-choice schools. But what about all the kids who didn’t? At 18, that kind of rejection can be devastating. And perspective on how the college you go to doesn’t determine the rest of your life takes a few years to kick in. Tom Brokaw has said publicly that his rejection from Harvard helped him realize that he needed to party less and study more. He got a degree from the University of South Dakota and ended up becoming one of the most highly regarded household names in America. Warren Buffett didn’t get into his first choice for business school, and he’s done alright too.
Brokaw and Buffett’s paths to impactful careers offer a basic and important lesson: Your first act isn’t your last. In that vein, here are three pieces of practical advice for dealing with college rejection…
Want guaranteed admission? Like some colleges and universities this week’s column is open-admission. Just click this link to read the entire thing.
Simple math.
A degree from a third tier school in science is now worth more than a liberal arts degree from an Ivey.
How can it be that Johnny Average with a degree in chemical engineering is now working in Bakersfield earning $140K/ year, and roughneck is making $80K/year while Susie Special with her degree in women’s medieval armor from Yale is working for TFA?
The free market is speaking. Those who make things and innovate are in the sciences. Those who crank out opinions and lame ideas are in the social sciences.
And the preponderance of the second group are in education policy. There was never much to admire or trust in education schools or policy. Now, there is even less.
It is now even worse. Their only defense was to create crises and then offer rotten, glib solutions. Now they even generate a crises in math and physics, and THEY have the solution. Unfettered arrogance and ignorance at its best.
When immigrants students, most often poor, come to our country and TROUNCE native students in the PUBLIC SCHOOLS, one would look for a solution elsewhere.
But education policy wonks have always offered lousy ideas as obtuse solutions to made-up problems. Their profession is not about “helpin’ da’ kids”. It is all about their own self preservation.
It is time to dump our self-appointed experts. It is time to stop the money flow and let the doggone mess sort itself out.