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Comment by supportengineer | Hacker News Reader

I'm at the age where I'm seeing the endgame of this, our cohort of kids & friends are applying to college. They did all these after-school activities, tutors, sports, etc. They were over programmed over achievers. And guess what, even with their 4.5 GPAs and impressive resumes, they aren't getting into the colleges they want (University of California). So what was the point of all that?

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This is the result of NIMBY, but for education. Same as the housing market - once you're in it, you're invested in housing prices not going down (and certainly not build-build-build as we should be doing).

What we should have done is expand access to elite colleges commensurate with demand, and thereby dilute the status of the "elite" college. Harvard still accepts ~2000 people, around the same as 40 years ago, even though demand has skyrocketed. That is basically leading to more and more competition over the same slots, same as the bidding wars in the housing market. And all of the alumni of the University get to ride the wave of more and more exclusivity (they benefit from a low acceptance rate), so this is unlikely to change.

Artificial scarcity rules the day.

Better to not have “elite” colleges at all.

Agreed. We're at a point where if you want to get into a top college, you have to be interesting. You must have done something unusual, ambitious, creative, or anything beyond sports or band or violin and a bunch of AP courses.

Guess what? Kids who have never had time to play are ones who have never had time to develop cool interests.

Jack Nicholson said it best (repeatedly): All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

Why this burning desire to go to a top college?

I know enough of those who went to these so-called top tier colleges, meanwhile I took my time getting through an average college, but nonetheless exploring interests, making eclectic friends.

Most people around me were treating life like a sprint - My young self even back then knew it was a marathon.

I am not saying be aimless but don't drive yourself crazy at this altar of success - it will come, but there are life lessons you learn in your 20s - that are the foundation for a better life later.

Because the kids now, and their parents, have mostly gone through an education system that constantly hammers you on how you need to get into the top college, you must go to college, you should be taking as many AP classes as possible to get into a top college. They've had 30 or so years to be propagandized into believing it.

There was also definitely a strong undercurrent of first-generation immigrants to the US pushing their kids hard, because they had no reason to distrust the message that if you want to succeed in the US, you need to go to a top college so you can get a good job.

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