On Friday I
received a thoughtful e-mail from Jon Reider shortly after the publication of
my post about media coverage of college admissions. Jon is a regular reader of the blog and
correspondent as well as someone whose opinion I value, and I asked him if he
would consider adapting his e-mail as a guest post. Here it is:
Jim,
I have mused a
lot over the years about the best way to speak to the media. (I do get
called from time to time, so my ego is OK.) The best reporters like
Eric Hoover and Janet Lorin can often quote at more length, perhaps because
their space constraints are less severe than the daily press. I too have
winced at seeing a half hour chat turn into a half-sentence bite. I
sometimes try to say something like, "This is the key point."
But that wouldn't always work, and I doubt reporters want to be instructed in
their trade, any more than you and I do. So, yes, we have to live with it
and hope that the important stuff gets through, as it does in the second half
of the article.
We can
remember the adage that "Dog bites man" is not news, but the reverse
is. Occasionally, reporters call trolling for a story: what is new
this year? What trends are you seeing? That sort of
thing. They are looking for the "Man bites dog"
story. The problem, as we know, is that the daily grind of
advising, editing, writing, waiting, and then either celebrating or consoling
is much the same year after year. The real news is slow and
cumulative: more early applications, more test optional schools, more
demonstrated interest schools, more selectivity. Fine for Jim
Fallows and the Atlantic Monthly, or Andrew Delbanco writing a book, but not of
much value for a daily newspaper.
What
amuses me is the phenomenon itself, that Ms. Kaminer's hyper-sophisticated
editors consider this front-page Sunday stuff (below the fold, to be
sure). The early emphasis on the ridiculous excesses plays into
that, of course, just as the tale of the Cadillac-driving welfare queen made
good fodder for Ronald Reagan way back when. The extremes drive the noise
machine. One of these days, I hope to address the broader question of why
elite college admissions has become a fetishized commodity (in Marx's sense),
which is presumed to have magical value, akin to a Mercedes or Rolex. In
addition to spawning all the parasitic industries like test prep, organized
community service ventures, independent counselors, and maybe even our own
livelihoods, it has infiltrated late bourgeois culture with an array of
popular books, movies, TV shows, in addition to the regular coverage in the
Times, WSJ, and elsewhere. College admissions has become a
"myth" in the anthropological sense of a motivating and framing
narrative through which a culture makes sense of itself. How and
why this has happened is worth exploring.
Jon Reider
Director of College Counseling
San Francisco University High School
I am thankful to Jon for his willingness to contribute,
and as we approach a much-needed Thanksgiving break, I am thankful to all of
you who read the blog and share your thoughts.
It is good to know that there are many colleagues who share core values
about college counseling and admissions.
The regarded aspects and probabilities as mentioned above would possibly help students around different areas of interest. how to critique qualitative research
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