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zamland | 10 years ago

The problem is that it's a false path and the logic doesn't quite make sense. If Ivy league really matters, then you can deduce it to high school, jr high, elementary school all the way to pre-school. Therefore if you're age 4, if you don't get to the most elite pre-school, your life is over, just over. If you make it an Ivy league, then your life is set. If you've been at one of these institutions, you'll know both of these things are false.

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saidajigumi|10 years ago

You are not really "getting it" re: the effects of privilege.

It's not that going to some particular school or even a set of them (Ivy or no) matters per se. The effects of privilege exist on a continuum, and tend to accumulate over time. In that article I linked, the filmmaker had fairly extraordinary privilege via a long accumulation of access, education, peer mindset, parental support, and resources. But that's perhaps an extreme example. A lesser example: just the fact that a university student was even able to consider college as a life path is also a manifestation of privilege. For the most part, it points to an accumulation of parental and peer support over the student's life. E.g. her parents valued school and encouraged schoolwork, maybe tried to get her into a better school. She had peer support for life-paths including notions of education, career, "bettering oneself", etc. Peer support is especially interesting, as it also subsumes a lot of class issues.

Memes matter, and speaking probabilistically, kids whose peers see no paths to "success" in life can expect to have a hard time finding it themselves. We've likely all seen tales of hugely successful people who rose from modest backgrounds. That's the old story. The new one, the one we're just starting to tell, is about the enormous waste of potential from all those who didn't make it.

zamland|10 years ago

I understand your points. What you're talking about is middle class and upper middle class privilege. That privilege is different than upper class, which is implied by the original poster's comments on ivy league and boarding schools like Andover. There's different granularities and levels of privilege.