“To all the high school kids in this country who are dreading the crossroads of college admissions and to all the young adults who felt ravaged by it. We owe you and the whole country a better, more effective way”
-Frank Bruni
Come to North Harmon! It is clearly the better, more effective way!
Mayer, John. “John Mayer- No Such Things.” YouTube. YouTube, 11 Aug. 2008. Web.
7 May 2015.
Your test scores and GPA were not high enough
Focusing entirely on SAT or ACT scores and GPAs is a highly efficient way of sorting through applicants. It is a quick way of creating a profile for the type of student that will be admitted to our school. By using this method, we can make sure that we only allow in only those with GPAs above a 4.0 and with standardized test scores in the top percentile. However, while using this method may be efficient, it is not always effective. Students should not be defined by their test scores. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” –Albert Einstein. This is exactly what standardized tests do. They attempt to measure intelligence of students and effectiveness of teachers in ways that simply do not fit. “Employing standardized achievement tests to ascertain educational quality is like measuring temperature with a tablespoon” (Popham). Where some students excel in math, others flourish in history, so how can it be that educational quality is measured by having students answer some math problems and write an essay? It can’t be. Every student is different so the idea that they can be measured the same way is unrealistic. Standardized testing sets a bar. Not doing well on these tests does not mean that one doesn’t meet the bar, it simply means that they have been looking at a different bar; not one below it or above it, but a different one. We here at North Harmon choose to ignore all these flaws in our system in the hopes that you don’t notice.
Do not worry though, to balance out the issues that come with this admittance system based on scores alone, we also focus on your personal essays, a method that is equally as flawed. This brings us to our second reason for why you may not have been accepted here.
Your personal essay was boring, unoriginal, or just plain stupid.
We use the personal essay so that we may better ascertain the type of person we are considering for admittance. However, we cannot always determine the type of person we are admitting just from this six hundred-word essay. Students like you are constantly being told what they should and shouldn’t write about. Write about something that has impacted you, but if that something is about the death of a loved one, don’t write about it; admissions officers see that too much. Be truthful, but be sure to write about something interesting and unique even if you’ve lived a fairly average life. These are pointers that are given to applicants every year making it difficult to know what to write about. Obviously just because someone does not have an interesting or unique story does not mean they should not be admitted to a school, and yet the only other way to judge them is test scores and GPAs, which as we have pointed out, have their flaws as well. This is why here at North Harmon Institute of Technology we are dedicated to using both highly flawed methods. They balance each other out, right?
Popham, James. “Why Standardized Tests Don’t Measure Educational Quality.” Using
Standards and Assessments 56.6 (1999): 8-15. ASCD. Web. 20 May 2015.
Higher education is a dystopia, because what it is supposed to do and what it actually does don’t match up. According to society, higher education is necessary for a large portion of the jobs we desire. However, in practice this is not how higher education works. The collegiate practices of today keep graduates from becoming experts in their desired vocational paths. With colleges having as much as two years worth of core classes, the college experience, specifically at liberal art schools, is a very ineffective way for a student to gain the knowledge and skills necessary for his or her dream career. And yet in today’s society, employers demand that applicants have that college diploma even though that applicant has spent so much time studying for courses not related to the profession. The irony is that higher education fails to provide students with either in-depth knowledge, since as we’ve already pointed out students tend to slack off in areas not related to their major, or practical skills, as is evident by the fact that most liberal art schools only require one year of classes is dedicated to the student’s major – thus higher education fails both in theory and in practice. If higher education is not able to sufficiently prepare one for a job, then certainly it should be able to noticeably better someone’s knowledge, but as we pointed out, college fails to do this as well.
We here at North Harmon Institute of Technology want to inform you of this because these dystopian qualities of higher education are obviously nonexistent at our school, thus making us the perfect choice for you. We ask that you respectfully refrain from digging any deeper into the dystopian aspects of this school. We Promise we have none. Pinky Swear.
We’re sorry, but here is a dose of bitter reality. Not every teenager can get in everywhere- you unfortunately didn’t get in here. However, each year students push themselves as hard as possible to get into that one school on their list with the name that makes parents quiver with excitement, makes employers press that call button, and instills envy in classmates. The prestige and ranking of a college is indeed an important factor to many when choosing where to apply. The problem is though that the prestige of a college has become directly correlated with whether or not employers think one is qualified for the job. A recent study for the journal of Research in Social Stratification and Mobility shows that “elite professional service employers” focuses more on “academic pedigree” than any other factor when considering applicants for a job (Lepore). This correlation between prestige and qualification is a very complicated matter because, as we’ve stated before, college in practice does not always prepare one for their career of choice. So now it becomes a matter of name rather than content. Many cannot afford to attend prestigious colleges such as Harvard and Yale and will therefore be looked over in the job market in favor of those who did. Just because they don’t have a prestigious name on their resume does not discount how qualified they are for the job. Similarly, there are many people from impoverished families who cannot afford college at all and yet still want to be doctors and lawyers. Because attending a four-year university is unaffordable for these people, law schools, medical schools, and other graduate schools will not consider them for admittance. To summarize, the name of our school matters even though it shouldn’t, but unfortunately for you, you cannot show off our name because you didn’t get in. Better luck next time!
Lepore, Meredith. “‘I’m Ostracized At Work Because I Didn’t Go To An Ivy League School’.”
TheGrindstone. Defy Media, 13 July 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
The simple answer is that if your desired job absolutely requires a college degree then you should abosolutely attend this college. But if you want to work in a job that doesn’t, or rather shouldn’t, require a college degree you should not attend this college or any other and you should instead take a different route such as a vocational school. This approach to education would be far more effective for you and others like you. Also, if you cannot afford college, vocational schools would ensure that you could still achieve your goals in life. As we’ve pointed out, not all jobs require or should require the four-year education that the job market insists they do. Attending vocational schools would ensure that you and other young adults like you do not waste time on getting degrees for jobs that don’t need them, thus making you and others “underemployed” according to Chris Bowyer, a Forbes contributor. Bowyer points out in his article Overqualified and Underemployed: The Job Market Waiting for Graduates, how in June of 2013 “44% of graduates were underemployed” according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Over the years vocational schools have decreased in numbers, leaving us with an overqualified and under skilled workforce. This is unfortunate, and we should focus on ways of bringing them back into the national picture. Furthermore, if you come from poverty, vocational schools would allow you increased choices in career paths and thus greater economic opportunities. According to the Federal Reserve Board of San Francisco, over a lifetime college graduates can expect to earn $830,000 more than high school graduates (Onink). What the report fails to suggest is that if your investment in a college education is seriously invested elsewhere by you over your working lifetime (4 years longer than that of a college graduate) then your earning differential between you as a high school and college graduates is reduced, if not reversed. In essence if you need college for your desired profession, or if you just want to attend college because you have the means to do so, then you should pursue this form of higher education, while if you are unable to attend college or do not need it for your desired profession, you should not be hindered or discriminated against because you do not pursue this form of higher education. Which category do you fall into?
Bowyer, Chris. “Overqualified and Underemployed: The Job Market Waiting for Graduates.”
Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 15 Aug. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Onink, Troy. “Federal Reserve: College Education Worth $830,000 More Than High School
Diploma.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 5 May 2014. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
The major problem with high school graduates choosing to attend college for the wrong reasons is that this desire to better oneself does not magically appear upon entering one’s first class. If kids are not attending colleges for the right reasons then they will gain little worthwhile from their experience there. So you must first ask yourself if any of this is really worth your time and money. College is supposed to be about continuing one’s learning experience. Yet too often it is the case where students attempt to learn as little as is possible while still maintaining good grades. Often students skip reading the assigned materials, especially if they can get by with just the class notes and they frequently will not attend classes if the teacher doesn’t take attendance. In fact, studies show that the average student skips thirteen classes per semester (“The True Cost of Skipping Class”). Too often a student’s goal in attending college is not for his or her own enrichment but rather to acquire a gold-leafed, embossed paper diploma that will provide parents’ with bragging rights and perhaps open a few more doors in the job market. This is the kind of outlook that our society perpetuates. In a society where college has become no more than a means to a job, it is to be expected that history majors will have no desire to learn about the sciences and biology majors no desire to learn about history or English. Are you going to be one of these students going to college for all the wrong reasons? If so, perhaps this isn’t the best option for you.
“The True Cost of Skipping Class [Infographic].” Student Scholarship Search. Edvisors,
3 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
As Bartleby Gaines points out, what is truly needed in order to have a higher education is people with a desire to better themselves. Unfortunately though, like in the movie, this ideal has become buried under prestigious names and strict guidelines for how things should be run. While there is no doubt that many people go to college to better themselves, that does not seem to be their primary reason, and this is because this idea of personal growth is not reinforced by high schools, parents, and colleges who instead concern themselves with grades and rankings. By the time many teenagers graduate high school, their passion for learning has been lost, and they venture on to college because it is either expected of them or because they know it is what they must do to get a high or decently paying job. In other words, there is seemingly no other alternative but to go with the college flow. Higher education should be exactly that: a higher education. And yet how can colleges be about the desire to learn when that’s not even why young adults are attending in the first place? So we want you to tell us why you want to attend this college (if your answer is simply because this is what is expected of you, please lie and provide us with a more suitable reason).
Cooper, Adam. “Accepted (10/10) Movie CLIP- Bartleby’s Speech (2006) HD.” YouTube. YouTube, 6 Jan. 2011. Web.
7 May 2015
Congratulations on your acceptance to North Harmon Institute of Technology. Your $1,000 nonrefundable deposit is due by tomorrow. We regret to inform you that we will not be able to provide you with any financial aid, nor can we guarantee you on-campus housing. Welcome to this deceiving dystopia wonderful university.
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