A.antipathy.B.apathy.C.ambivalence.D.dissent.The author……
TEXT B
In the college admissions
wars. we parents are the true gladiators. We’re pushing our kids to get good
grades, take SAT prep courses and build resumes so they can get into the college
of our first choice. We say our motives are selfless and sensible. A degree from
Stanford or Princeton is the ticket for life. If Aaron and Nicole don’t get in,
they’re forever doomed. Gosh, we’re delusional.
I’ve twice been
to the wars. and as I survey the battlefield, something different is happening.
It’s oneupmanship among parents. We see our kids’ college pedigrees as trophies
attesting to how well--or how poorly--we’ve raised them. But we can’t
acknowledge mat our obsession is more about us than them. So we’ve contrived
various justifications that turn out to be half-truths, prejudices or myths. It
actually doesn’t matter much whether Aaron and Nicole go to Stanford.
Admissions anxiety afflicts only a minority of parents. It’s true that
getting into college has generally become tougher because the number of
high-school graduates has grown. From 1994 to 2006, the increase is 28 percent.
Still, 64 percent of freshmen attend schools where acceptance rates exceed 70
percent, and the application surge at elite schools dwarfs population
growth.
We have a full blown prestige panic; we worry that there
won’t be enough trophies to go around. Fearful parents prod their children to
apply to more schools than ever. "The epicenters of parental anxiety used to be
on the coasts: Boston, New York, Washington, Los Angeles," says Tom Parker,
Amherst’s admissions dean. "But it’s radiated throughout the country."
Underlying the hysteria is the belief that scarce elite degrees must be
highly valuable. Their graduates must enjoy more success because they get a
better education and develop better contacts, All that’s plausible--and mostly
wrong. "We haven’t found any convincing evidence that selectivity or prestige
matters," says Ernest T. Pascarella of the University of Iowa, co-author of How
College Affects Students, an 827 page evaluation of hundreds of studies of the
college experience. Selective schools don’t systematically employ better
instructional approaches than less-selective schools, according to a study by
Pascarella and George Kuh of Indiana University. Some do; some don’t. On two
measures--professors’ feedback and the number of essay exams--selective schools
do slightly worse.
By some studies, selective schools do enhance
their graduates’ lifetime earnings. The gain is reckoned at 2 percent to 4
percent for every 100 point increase in a school’s average SAT scores. But even
this ad vantage is probably a statistical fluke. A well known study by Princeton
economist Alan Krueger and Stacy Berg Dale of Mathematica Policy Research
examined students who got into highly selective schools and then went elsewhere.
They earned just as much as graduates from higher-status schools.
Kids count more than their colleges. Getting into Yale may signify
intelligence, talent and ambition. But it’s not the only indicator and,
paradoxically, its significance is declining. The reason: so many similar people
go elsewhere: Getting into college isn’t life’s only competition. In the next
competition--the job market, graduate school--the results may change. Old-boy
networks are breaking down, Krueger studied admissions to one top Ph. D.
program. High scores on the Graduate Record Exam helped explain who got in; Ivy
League degrees didn’t.
So, parents, lighten up. The stakes have
been vastly exaggerated. Up to a point, we can rationalize our pushiness.
America is a competitive society, our kids need to adjust to that. But too much
pushiness can be destructive; The very ambition we impose on our children may
get some into Harvard but may also set them up for disappointment. One study of
students 20 years out found that, other things being equal, graduates of highly
selective schools experienced more job dissatisfaction. They may have been so
conditioned to being on top that anything less disappoints.
What
fires parents’ fanaticism is their self-serving desire to announce their own
success. Many succumb; I did. I located my ideal school for my daughter. She got
in and went elsewhere. Take that, Dad. I located the ideal school for my son.
Fleck, he wouldn’t even visit the place, Pow, Dad. They both love their schools
and seem amply stimulated. Foolish Dad.
The author’s attitude to the parents claim "our motives are selfless and sensible" is one of ______.
A.antipathy.
B.apathy.
C.ambivalence.
D.dissent.