I am an optimist and a big dreamer.  Always have been, probably always will be.  This type of dreaming can allow one to do some big things, to be sure.  But today I want to write about the downside to dreaming big when it comes to college.

We have an epidemic on our hands when it comes to the “college race”. 

Thousands upon thousands of kids are applying to what our society says are “the best colleges”, with these rankings partly driven by the US News & World Report and partly driven by reputational chatter and water cooler chit chat.  These are the highly selective institutions such as the Ivy League schools and Stanford University. I attended Stanford.  I loved my time there and am glad for having had that experience, don’t get me wrong.  But I do feel like I have a lot to say about trying to stuff a student into a “brand name college” as opposed to researching all choices to find the very best fit. 

I recently watched a Zeigeist Minds Lecture by Malcolm Gladwell who was discussing a theme in his book David and Goliath. I found it absolutely fascinating and am including the link to this 17 minute lecture below.  I highly recommend you all watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEwbRWFZVc

Mr. Gladwell’s premise is that our society largely suffers from Elite Institutional Cognitive Disorder (EICD), part of what expert’s call Relative Positional Disorder, or the tendency to compare your performance based on those immediately around you.  In his lecture he compares Harvard students to students at various other “run of the mill” colleges around the country and shows that:

• Only the top 5% of Harvard students outperform other students from these other institutions.

• Conversely, the top students at the “run of the mill” colleges (that are not as “smart” as the Harvard students) are outperforming those Harvard students because they feel competent and empowered. 

• The data shows that students who are not the “cream of the crop”, even at an elite institution such as Harvard, become discouraged and de-motivated in relation to their smarter peers. 

His conclusion:

• Relative position matters more than absolute position” and therefore, in choosing a college a student should not attend the best institution they get into but rather attend their 2nd or 3rd choice.  Choose to go where you will be in the top of your class. 

• Companies that hire only from selective institutions are fools and that they should instead hire from a multitude of colleges based on class rank.

Interesting food for thought but definitely part of my college going philosophy:  Find great fit colleges for your student based on academic, social and financial fits and attend there verses picking colleges based on reputational rankings.