Had you put half the focus you did in your Wall Street Journal opinion column into your high school career and college applications, maybe you would have had a fighting chance in the college admission process. In fact, many have pointed out that this would make one hell of a satire piece, if only you meant it as such. But on to everything with which I disagree in your column.
First off, your descriptions of what you should have done comes off as offensive. You cannot simply throw insults at gay or lesbian individuals and minorities in America because you are not one of them. It’s not edgy and honest — it’s mean. You shouldn’t have said, “Show me to any closet, and I would have happily come out of it.” It’s offensive enough to assume that coming out of the closet is something people do for attention, but do you honestly think that being gay will get you into college? That is absurd and completely unsympathetic toward a significant population of the United States that faces immense discrimination. While you were applying to college, some were out on the streets protesting for the right to get married in this country, which, if you ask me, is a little more important than college acceptances.
And yeah, it can suck to be white as Wonder Bread sometimes. You didn’t ask to be born into the majority, and now the odds of getting into college seem to be against you. But do you know what can also suck? Being in a minority group that is constantly the victim of bigotry and hate. Just the way you didn’t ask to be white, the Native Americans didn’t ask to be kicked out of their lands and black people didn’t ask to be overlooked when hailing taxicabs because of the color of their skin. And — news flash — minority groups are still minority groups when they get to college. Even if it seems like they had an advantage in the admission process, the number of valuable and deserved opportunities created by affirmative action do good that outweighs the bad of granting arguably undeserved admission to the few who are legitimately unqualified.
And don’t wish for a “Tiger Mom.” Really? You wish a racial stereotype had constantly breathed down your neck and punished you when you didn’t get As in junior high? This is similar to the statement about coming out of the closet — you don’t know how tough it is to live with these circumstances. You couldn’t possibly know because you are not in that situation, and this isn’t your fault, but please watch your mouth when you wish for something.
And as a general rule, don’t make light of starving children in Africa. Just don’t.
Secondly, your condescension toward volunteer work, internships and extra-curricular activities in general is unfair. What one person deems as fake, the next person could deem as very useful and sincere. Of course there are some people who write down BS charities and the likes on their applications, but once again, those cases don’t hold a candle to the hard work done by the majority of people building their resumes for college. Don’t discourage people from trying to make a difference because you didn’t think of a cool idea for a non-profit organization.
Suzy Lee Weiss, I’m sure you don’t mean to belittle everyone in an Ivy League institution, but that’s how your column reads. Some of us, and I mean the vast majority of us, worked really hard to get here. Whether we overcame real adversity or our “over-privileged backgrounds,” we worked very legitimate jobs, studied hard for our tests and put every drop of sweat we had into our school work and extra-curriculars, so please don’t make the assumption that there is some pre-prescribed method of playing the admissions offices that gets you into a top college.
You said yourself in your interview with the Journal that you felt you had all the prerequisites for a top school, so clearly that doesn’t work. That’s because prerequisites are bullshit, and of course you have to qualify with certain SAT scores and whatnot, but I for one would like to believe that it really does come down to the strength of one’s individual character.
What hurts me the most about this opinion piece isn’t that you are attacking the substance behind those who attend Ivies — I am hurt for all of the people who also didn’t get into a top college that you’re silencing with your overblown bitterness. There are amazing applicants every year who get turned down from every school to which they apply because they just fall through the cracks. By complaining that self-proclaimed mediocrity just didn’t get you far enough, you are insulting all of the outstanding minds out there that had awful luck or — gasp — didn’t have the resources to afford SAT tutoring and play the college admissions gamble. That is the worst crime of all, because unlike you now, those kids don’t get Journal interviews and opinions columns.
Caitlin Dorman ’16 actually participated in no volunteer work throughout high school because she felt that it was not her calling and would be glad to continue this conversation at caitlin_dorman@brown.edu.
