ByStudents

In what will I’m sure feed a lively discussion on the Washington Post website, Amelia Rawls, a 1L at Yale Law, gets up on a pretty high horse to denounce her classmates, as well as thousands of students she’s never met. Ivy Leaguers, she declares, aren’t very “nice.”

I’m saying that sometimes some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to “do what is right.”

Seems like she’ll make an excellent, super-pious judge someday. She skims over the fact that American teenagers are known the world over for their self-absorption, and not just the ones lucky enough to score expensive private educations. Besides, what teenager wouldn’t roll his or her eyes when told “to do what is right”? I’m rolling mine right now and I’m 25.

With “very real regret” [Duke] / “sincere regret” [Yale], they are “so sorry to tell you” [MIT] / “sorry to bring you disappointing news” [Wesleyan]. They have given you “careful and concerned consideration” [Brown] and “wish you every success with your further education” [Georgetown].

At Newton South high school, students are handling the stress by posting their rejection letters on a Wall of Shame.

This year, Harvard just rejected a record 93 out of every 100 applicants, according to an article in today’s NYT. Of course, this phenomenon was not limited to those hallowed halls:

Yale College accepted 8.3 percent of its 22,813 applicants. Both rates were records. Columbia College admitted 8.7 percent of its applicants, Brown University and Dartmouth College 13 percent, and Bowdoin College and Georgetown University 18 percent — also records.

“We love the people we admitted, but we also love a very large number of the people who we were not able to admit,” said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College.

The super elite schools are playing hard to get these days. All the more reason to make friends with the other thousands of worthwhile educational institutions out there.