Friday's Food For Thought - Fallacy of Prestige

The Fallacy of Prestige
by Alan Montecillo
Journal of College Admission, Summer, 2010

[Oratory given at the 2009 Southeast Asia Forensics Tournament, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Original Oratory, Gold Medalist, February 14, 2009]

I’m in my final year of high school and will be heading off to college in about six months, and apparently, to my extended relatives, there’s no other topic of conversation in the known universe more worthy of discussion. This Christmas break, I was endlessly bombarded by my relatives with questions like “Are you going to Stanford, like your father?” “Or to Northwestern, like your aunt?” “Or to Columbia, like your grandparents?” “Or to Berkeley, like your cousin?” “Or to Yale, like your uncle?” “Or Cambridge, like your other uncle?” I’m almost embarrassed to tell them that I didn’t apply to any of those schools nor any other globally prestigious research university, but when I do I’m always met with an almost unwavering skepticism in the wisdom of my choice.

This sort of questioning and those kinds of reactions illustrate one of the most elitist, insidious and pandemic mindsets in industrialized society. The ridiculous amount of obsession regarding the rank, prestige and elite status of institutions of higher education is not only misguided, but also downright dangerous. More often than not, American colleges are ranked by the reputations that already precede them and the selectivity with which they choose their students. U.S. News and World Report, for example, counts “Peer assessment” as 25 percent of their criteria and “selectivity” as 15 percent.

“Peer assessment” essentially means its reputation among administrators of other colleges. In other words, 25 percent of College A’s ranking will be determined by what the administrators at Colleges B-Z already think of it to begin with—not what students think, or how satisfied the students are with their faculty or their overall experience, but what other higher-ups think of it.

“Selectivity” is self-explanatory. Statistics like SAT scores, high school grade point average (GPA), class rank, and overall acceptance rate all factor heavily in a college’s prestige. However, what most of us have been tricked into thinking is that this is somehow a decent measure of the actual quality of the education you will be receiving—because even if we assume that statistics like SAT scores and GPA are the most accurate measures of intelligence, they would only illustrate the talent and brains of the students entering the college rather than the quality of the college itself. Loren Pope, a former education editor for the New York Times, writes in his book Colleges That Change Lives: “Ranking colleges by their selectivity is like ranking hospitals based on the health of the patients it admits. What happens during the stay is what counts.” The overall intelligence of an incoming freshman class should never be that which gives a college its prestige. It should not be based upon what you already had in your brain when you walked in, but rather how much more you have gained by the time you’ve walked out.

Some kids at my high school got into college early, and we wasted no time in congratulating each other on our successes. But the more I congratulated people, the more I found that the reputation of the school corresponded directly with your level of enthusiasm in congratulating said person. “You got into Penn State? That’s great, buddy! Congratulations.” “You’re going to UCLA? That’s amazing! I’m so happy for you. You totally deserved it.” “YOU GOT ACCEPTED TO HARVARD?! OH MY GOODNESS! THAT IS SO AWESOME! LET ME GIVE YOU A CONGRATULATORY HUG IN HOPE THAT YOUR SMARTNESS RUBS OFF ON ME!”

Look, there’s nothing wrong with being happy for your friends, but let’s be honest here. The friend who is going to Penn State is no less valuable to society than the friend who is going to Harvard. People who go to Harvard are not, for lack of a more accurate description, “better” than people who go to so-called “lesser” colleges. As William Deresiewicz, a former Yale professor, wrote in an article in The American Scholar entitled “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education”: “Their pain does not hurt more. Their souls do not weigh more. If I were religious, I would say, God does not love them more.” But for some reason we have looked at this process as some kind of moral or metaphysical reflection of the strength of one’s intellect or the brightness of one’s future.

That’s another myth, by the way—that getting into a “good” college ensures that you’ll earn more money in the future. Based on data collected by the Mellon Foundation, the average student who attended very selective schools like Yale, UPenn, or Princeton earned $22,000 US dollars more than the average student who attended a less selective school. This study seems to support the claim that prestigious schools place you on a path to financial prosperity. But the flaw in this study refers back to the reason these people were accepted in the first place. 

Generally speaking, high achievers attend selective schools, graduate from selective schools, and go on to get higher-paying jobs—but the selective school isn’t the reason they’re high achievers to begin with. To address this inconsistency, economist Alan Krueger decided to compare earnings between students with high GPAs and SAT scores who attended more selective schools versus students with similarly high numbers who chose to attend less selective schools. He found that the earnings were unrelated to the selectivity—and therefore, the prestige— of the college which they attended.

Despite all the evidence pointing to the incoherency of college prestige and the shaky logical foundations on which they are built, this established system of rankings and statistics isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. And no doubt many of you have parents or relatives who want to give you their input on the ideal college. You can accept and appreciate their advice, but remember this: it is you who will be spending four of the most important years of your life at some institution of higher education.

So, with that in mind, if I were to offer any final advice to a younger high school student, it would be this: Don’t permit yourself to be restricted by brand-names. Don’t just take the top 25 American colleges and use that as a starting point. Do research. Look for places that fit what you’re looking for. Look at class size, student-faculty ratio and surrounding area. Look at their curriculum, talk to students, talk to professors, and visit the place if you can. Look for colleges that you’ll know you’ll be glad to spend four years of your life—because if you do, you’ll be happy there—and if you’re happy there, you’ll get the most out of college. When you get the most out of college, that’s when you’ll really be on the fast track to that glorious future that everyone said only the most elite colleges could possibly bring.

[Alan Montecillo graduated from Hong Kong International School in 2009 and is currently a sophomore at Reed College (OR) majoring in political science.]