The “Excellent Sheep”

The best and brightest young Americans often aim for Ivy League or other elite colleges. After graduation, they typically enter prestigious sectors like law, consulting, finance, and banking, shaping the country's leadership. However, despite their achievements, these individuals are criticized for the country's current state.

Today's college students often struggle with fear, stress, loneliness, and depression. Coming from privileged backgrounds, they have experienced continuous success. Excelling in high school, they focus on getting into Ivy League or elite colleges, viewing these institutions as their only viable path.

Elite colleges lack true diversity. While students come from various racial and religious backgrounds worldwide, they tend to share similar views. Although some students from lower-income backgrounds are admitted, their numbers are insufficient to drive significant change. Elite college students often think and act alike, attending the same schools, taking similar courses, and pursuing the same professions. This lack of diversity leads to risk aversion, limited critical thinking, and a failure to envision alternative solutions, contributing to failing institutions and a struggling nation.

Challenges of Elite College Admissions

The path to elite colleges leaves little time for anything beyond studies and structured activities. Students carefully craft their summer activities to impress admissions officers, fearing disappointment from their parents or the risk of pursuing their own interests. Many students feel they don't learn to think independently in college, especially in top universities. While they may start with intellectual curiosity, they often make safe choices to ensure their future careers.

Elite college students strive to appear flawless and solely focused on their future careers. Those who do discover a passion, such as teaching or the trades, worry that their choice isn't prestigious enough and fear judgment from others. This pressure often leads them to conform to the narrow range of careers pursued by their peers.
Change in Trends in College Admissions

In the 1960s, elite colleges began breeding superior sheep, metaphorically speaking. Before then, these schools had unfair admission practices, often excluding Jewish and Black students. They favored applicants who fit the "prep-school" mold and came from prestigious backgrounds. However, when Kingman Brewster became president of Yale University, he revolutionized the system. Brewster introduced a selection process based on merit rather than pedigree. Since then, the standards for merit have skyrocketed, putting immense pressure on students to excel.

In the 1970s, the Scholastic Achievement Test (SAT) became crucial for college admissions. Colleges began adding more requirements, such as taking multiple Advanced Placement (AP) classes and exams, achieving high grade point averages (GPAs), and participating in numerous extracurricular activities, preferably in leadership roles. The introduction of the first US News & World Report college rankings in 1983 intensified competition among students. Nowadays, colleges often encourage students to apply just so they can reject them. This tactic lowers acceptance rates and boosts their rankings.

Both colleges and parents are responsible for the fierce competition among students. Parents add to the pressure by enrolling their children in organized activities and insisting that anything less than top grades is unacceptable. They even pressure high school administrators to prepare their kids for college admissions, sometimes criticizing teachers who encourage independent thinking. As a result, schools often focus solely on test preparation because families prioritize test scores. Children who seek their parents' approval will do whatever it takes to avoid criticism, leading them to pursue success based on others' expectations rather than their own interests.

Shift in College Priorities

Colleges and universities now prioritize funding and revenue over their original goal of providing a well-rounded education with a focus on the humanities. Instead, they promote specialization and vocational skills development to produce future donors.

Professors increasingly focus on narrow research interests rather than quality teaching, as their rewards come from publishing and research, not teaching excellence. College students, as customers, expect good grades and degrees for their payment, regardless of effort. Professors comply because they are busy with research and because colleges evaluate them based on student satisfaction ratings. This unspoken agreement means professors pretend to educate students, and students pretend to learn—a "mutual nonaggression pact."

Leadership and Education

Admissions officers look for leaders, and colleges aim to produce them. But the leaders colleges admit and produce often don't change the world. They excel at navigating bureaucracy, following instructions, and meeting expectations, but they may lack the qualities of character and bravery seen in leaders of the past.

In the past, Ivy League schools produced leaders known for their principles, commitment to ideals, and willingness to challenge authority. However, today's leaders are often more focused on maintaining the status quo. True leadership involves asking questions, criticizing plans, and challenging norms to improve a company or country. However, many schools and organizations avoid conflict, making it challenging to practice real leadership.

Millennials may champion social causes, but some prioritize trendy activism, like volunteering in fashionable places, for CV clout rather than genuine impact.

Benefits of Liberal Arts Skills in the Workplace

Employers often prefer to hire liberal arts graduates because they are more likely to possess critical thinking skills, which are highly valued in the workplace. Critical thinking skills are valued more than the specific degree a job candidate holds. The only skills that employers value more than liberal arts are specific vocational skills, such as computer science and engineering, which account for 34% of hires compared to 30% for liberal arts.

While technical vocational majors may initially earn slightly higher starting salaries than humanities majors, this wage gap tends to disappear within a decade. Technical skills can become outdated quickly as technology advances, whereas soft skills, like those developed in liberal arts programs, are longer-lasting but more challenging to teach than vocational skills.

Leading consulting firms like McKinsey love hiring liberal arts majors because they're awesome at thinking creatively and handling change and complex situations. Even David Rubenstein, CEO of The Carlyle Group, a big private equity firm, says they hire humanities majors because they know how to use information wisely. Liberal arts education is like the difference between a doctor who just gives out pills and one who truly heals people. No matter what job students go for, spending time on literature, history, philosophy, and life gives them a deeper understanding and perspective.

Maximize your college experience 
Don't let college turn you into a commodity. Don't allow teachers, professors, or parents to see you merely as someone employable. Think beyond just "return on investment" when considering college; your reasons for going should reflect how you live your life. Books and lectures won't teach you how to think unless you actively engage with them. If you don't, you'll leave college with only practical skills, prepared only to be a compliant employee and a passive citizen. Use your college years to learn to form your own conclusions, to think skeptically and critically.

College might be your last opportunity to learn to think independently. Engage in discussions and debates with fellow students about important ideas concerning life, death, politics, and society. Stay up all night talking. Experience the thrill of real, unrestricted discussion. Don't graduate college with just a resume; if you leave it unchanged from when you started, you've missed the point. A fulfilling college experience should be like a new beginning: You should emerge as a genuine and unique adult, no longer the same person you were as a child.

Thinking Skills

Thinking skills are essential, not just a luxury. They help you understand yourself, your desires, and even your purpose in life. Your career matters, so having these skills helps you pursue work that resonates with you or aligns with your purpose. It's about fearlessly following your own path instead of blindly conforming to societal expectations.

Don't expect an easy ride, especially if you're after wealth and luxury. Choosing your own path comes with risks, but it's also a journey of growth and learning.

Choosing your own path requires courage and resilience. If you opt for humanities studies, be ready to defend your choice. Even if you graduate from prestigious institutions like Harvard and pursue unconventional careers, you may face criticism. Author William Deresiewicz, for example, shifted from a science-focused background to pursue his passion for English literature, experiencing the joy of doing what he truly loved.

The problem with status. 

Choosing your own way may mean sacrificing status. However, the pursuit of status often leads to unhappiness – you can never have enough, and reaching the top is rare. Instead, focus on excelling in work you love, whether it's making music, writing, or accounting. Discover your purpose by recognizing it when it arises. Take breaks from skill-building or enhancing your CV. Consider taking a year off after high school or college to do something unique and to reflect. Don't expect to have your life's path figured out immediately. It may take years to find your passion, and even then, it won't always be easy. Remember, work is challenging, even when you love what you do.

Forget the idea that you can do anything you want; that's not always true. If you lack talent in a particular area, you'll need to pursue something else. Identify what you like or love and are good at, then work hard to succeed in it.
Education and Society

Teachers, professors, and mentors play a crucial role in shaping young minds, and teaching them how to think. However, at more elite colleges, there is often less focus on teaching, with rewards and tenure going to those who produce research and publish. This can discourage great instructors, as their peers may perceive them as caring less about research. Emphasizing teaching would enhance the learning experience, requiring recognition and rewards for excellent instructors.

As a student, it's important to choose your college wisely. Instead of pursuing Ivy League or research universities, consider small liberal arts colleges or public universities that prioritize actual teaching by professors. Institutions like Reed, Kenyon, and Mount Holyoke encourage intellectual exploration and less competition among students, allowing you to fully embrace four years of learning how to think and emerge as a unique individual capable of original thought.

Society needs to undergo a transformation similar to that after the Great Depression. The rise of a meritocracy, which rewarded lineage, led to many positive changes. However, its decline, evident in events like the 2008 financial crisis, calls for change. Elite colleges should admit more students from poor and lower-middle-class backgrounds, and citizens should support taxes that fund quality education. Successfully transitioning from a meritocracy to a democracy requires the participation of all of American society.