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Sunday, October 15, 2006

The Phillips Exeter Academy Is Sadness

Here is a post by a fellow called Sam Jackson, who is attending the fancypants Phillips Exeter School and has, enterprisingly and to some happy success, elected to chronicle his college application adventures on a blog. But after reading his posts, I cannot but worry if all such places—these college feeders—are so dour and dehumanizing? Only the good die young, Sam.

UPDATE: Sam e-mails this point:

Just a quick point on college from the PEA perspective: the CCO is fabulous. I love the CCO because their mission is to help us find somewhere we will be happy while emphasizing all that is good about us as individuals. Compared to the big workloads public school counselors must deal with (Even at my very good old HS, Newton South, it is troublesome) the Exeter college counseling office is incredibly human. College admissions can be a very sadistic process and I sometimes recognize that on my blog.

Isn’t that the thing? Should not college admissions be a distinctly unsadistic and exciting process? Near as I can tell, the colleges themselves don’t make the application process sadistic. (Except for the application fee, which I do think is a minor outrage.)

Filling out forms in triplicate and sending registered mail and obtaining various forms of legal identification are not torturous things, and neither is sitting down in an armchair and figuring out where, among your options (if you are so lucky as to have options), you ought to go to school. None of these things is sadistic, even if your “CCO” is DOA. They’re basic things that a person ought to be able to do. But I know where Sam is coming from, because I imagine what makes these things seem sadistic is the acidic atmosphere of competition at a place like Exeter, yes?

Posted on October 15, 2006 07:19 PM. Permalink | E-mail This