The national press hasn't put it in so many words, but they have been tripping over themselves clamoring about what Wednesday's New York Times called "the astonishing competitive crunch at the top." Astonishing!
Lest we forget, the top is us. It's no hype: the Ivies and Stanfords of this country are now not only selective, they are entirely out of reach for all but the highest-flying high-achievers of the world's high schools. The Times headlines alone sound like dispatches from a culture losing its mind: "As School Choice Starts Earlier, So Does the Frenzy." "A Great Year for Ivy League Colleges, Not So Great for Applicants to Them." The latter article went on to report that schools like Harvard and Princeton had rejected "thousands" of applicants with 4.0s or perfect SATs.
The Dartmouth couldn't help itself: "Acceptance rate hits all-time low," bragged the March 30 edition. (Smug, but not as smug as naming your newspaper by taking the name of your college and putting "The" in front of it. Seriously, try that with other colleges' names. That's how we sound to everyone else. Even Harvard didn't stoop so low.)
Elite schools are now a seller's market to a fatal extent, which is rendering the dream school concept untenable. In the day, any doe-eyed high school student could fall in love with the leafy red-bricked brain haven of his heart's desire, work hard, and be more or less certain of admission. Dream, hard work, payoff -- America, f*ck yeah.
No more. Today, it doesn't matter how brilliant the student or how immaculate the resume; admission to any given top tier school will still be riven with uncertainty, a lottery, a number picked from a hat full of equally exceptional numbers. Many students are coping by applying to more schools than ever, making admission to a given college yet more difficult and the idea of one perfect school all the more irrelevant.
In this environment, having a dream school is a fool's errand, especially when this country's second and third tier schools are increasingly equipped with world-class professors and resources and-- oh, look! --other brilliant students for whom the Ivies were impossible.
And let's not sh*t ourselves. Even if you're smart enough to have a reasonable chance at elite schools if you apply to enough of them, is Cornell really going to be miserable punishment to Columbia's four-year orgasm? This is blasphemy, but a great school is a great school, and this country sports dozens upon dozens of great schools.
The dream school is dead.
But here we are, at Dartmouth! And it's Green Key! Look, the alums are here -- and as well-heeled and wonderful as our alums may be, let's keep keeping it real: Most of them wouldn't get in to Dartmouth today. In fact, I don't think I'm the only upperclassman who's ever shuddered at the latest admissions statistics and wondered if I would've made the cut for the Class of 2011.
What kind of high school student is working hard enough right now to qualify to be in the Class 2013? What kind of life is he leading? A common upperclassman refrain is that the freshmen may have nifty test scores, but they couldn't socialize their way out of a wet paper bag. At some point, this will become true; Dartmouth is only getting more competitive.
And the future of Dartmouth, the kids stuck in the wet bag: It's not their fault! The bar is raised higher by the year, and there will come a day when jumping over it requires an adolescence that would strikes today's students as undesirable, a youth that would strikes our parents -- and the alums of old -- as unrecognizable.
Admissions consultants, test prep camps, force-fed extracurriculars. I weep for the future.
Students of Dartmouth, it is Green Key. The possibility is real and we must consider it: We are the last real people who will ever gain admission to Dartmouth College.
And for that, rejoice.
Whether it was your dream school or not, Dartmouth has imperfections. But not this weekend. It's Green Key. For seventy-two hours, the bluster and futility of our extracurriculars do not matter--nor does the smarm and ego of our campus publications. This weekend, the cloud of sad obscurity over our sports dissipates into revelry. And more: This weekend, the fundamental timidity of our cliquey social reality blossoms into the weekend when the Dartmouth dream comes true: The dream that all terms are created equal, that a party weekend will not be judged by the legitimacy of its founding, but by the content of its pong tournaments.
Green Key is superficially purposeless, it is true: It is Absurd. But just as we must imagine Sisyphus happy, we must imagine -- and endeavor to ensure -- Green Key triumphant.
The long term's journey into exams is almost over. The summer, the seniors ...
-- But not yet!
Fellow Dartmouth students: Ask not whether you would get into Dartmouth tomorrow; ask what you can do to make her marvelous this weekend.
