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NPR has a story this morning on how high school seniors need to decide, today, which college they will attend. And this of course led to a story about liberal arts schools and how they are struggling to prove they can help you get a job.
First, if you can, go to a liberal arts school. The rest will take care of itself. This was true for me with Kenyon, even when I graduated, in the midst of a recession with no real marketable skills (except Japanese, which I didn’t want to use). No, no one hired me into their management consultant trainee program.
Oh well. The rest is history and I wouldn’t change it at all.
But all this got me thinking about college applications. You know what would be cool? Turn the application into a year long learning event. It’s not like colleges don’t spend oodles of money on slick brochures and mass mailings. They do. And doesn’t most of that go into the trash?
So spend that money instead, or a portion of it anyway, setting up year long classes that anyone can connect to and participate in through the magic of the Internet.
Get rid of the ACT. Get rid of the SAT. Spend the time to actually get to know students instead.
YouTube the courses.
Reddit the discussion.
Stack rank the participants based in whatever quality you like and then ask for their name and address once you’ve agreed to spend two, three or four years together.
Raise a generation of intellectual mercenaries and drop all discussion of helicopter parents.
That would be a revolution.
And a word to those who consider Aristotle et al a little out of date: ignore the Greeks at your peril.
