I would be only too happy to see certain things change, at the elite universities–I’d love to see the PC claptrap disappear, and the humanities taught again as the real disciplines they used to be, with arguments about meaning and truth and things that matter, not the identity politics and race-class-gender (after all, that’s trickled down all the way to high school by now, for god’s sake!).

It’s all very well to shop around for a cheaper place to send your kids; there’s some truth to the idea that ‘the books are the same’ that they read. These days, with the trouble the PhD’s have getting jobs, even quite lousy places may have some decent instructors.

The problem is, you want your child to be among other intelligent and well-prepared students, so there’s a chance of class discussion (or discussion outside of class, even!) that will be stimulating to him/her. To achieve that, you really do want the kid to be at the kind of place that attracts the kind of student who has read something and thought seriously about something–to the extent that they do this (instead of tuning into some fancy media, these days).

They’re called ‘competitive colleges’ for a reason.

Don’t worry, I hate the gaming of the admissions process as much as anyone. Those awful kids (or parents, probably) who’ve figured out some clever-looking scam for appearing to have done community service …!