Why all that feel-good admissions stuff you hear is B.S.

The right fit?

Home away from home?

Kindred spirits?

Hogwash!

In the vein of the last less-than-uplifting admissions post, Tom Bartlett of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a depressing report on how investment banks and other firms recruit only from certain Ivy League schools — sorry, Brown and MIT — and look at cool extracurricular activities more than GPA:

You also can’t read this study without getting the feeling that the game is rigged. That obtaining a name-brand diploma matters more than actually learning something. That the gatekeepers at our nation’s most prestigious firms are pathetically shallow, outrageously parochial, and insufferably snobbish. The message is this:

It’s not what you did in college. It’s where you got in.

Lehman Brothers and Arthur Andersen, anyone?

About the blogger

Alex Friedrich

afriedrich@mpr.org

Alex Friedrich reports on higher education issues for MPR News. Among the stories he has covered: the fall of the Berlin Wall, aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, 2003 Moscow suicide bombing and 2004 presidential elections in the Republic of Georgia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia and a master’s in European political economy from the London School of Economics.