Hacker News Reader

you know, you can also do all those kinds of things as a kid non-cynically, and then go to those schools all the same

Yeah but the number of kids doing it non-cynically is orders of magnitude smaller. I went to one of the top high schools in the country and pretty much all everyone who cared about Ivies inflated their resume to look like they cared about some flavor of the day cause.

To do it non-cynically, you would need to, by coincidence, truly want to do exactly those things that are needed to get in: the same causes, organizations, and activities. That coincidence is unlikely.

Or be an outlier.

It's not hard to be an outlier, if you set your mind to it. It's a lot easier than playing the game at a sufficient level to be admitted.

I was an outlier, and now I'm raising my kid to be an outlier.

But yeah, there is a culture of corruption spanning the upper tier.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com