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The Absurdist University

By Ned Resnikoff - Jan 9th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

College admissions are (thankfully) a couple years behind me, but I vaguely recall a time when overachieving students would have aneurysms over their extra-curriculars, parents would drop exorbitant sums of money on coaches, and everyone would pay way too much attention to college rankings that signified nothing of value, all because of this idea that there was some trick to getting into the most prestigious schools, and therefore being able to coast through a lucrative career for the rest of your life upon graduation.

The reality, of course, is that there’s really no trick, and college admissions are as cruel and arbitrary as an uncaring god in a Beckett play.

So to any high school students who may be reading this: Try not to freak out about admissions too much. You can write the best damn essay in the universe and still get rejected from your reach school because the guy reading your application that day has a bad rash. He doesn’t care about your future, because he has no real reason to. Think of it as school’s way of preparing you for the real world, in which CEOs and government officials will gaze down on you from high, assign you a number, and push you around based on whims that you will never understand.

The good news, as I said, is that college rankings are meaningless, and whatever university you end up in is bound to suck less than high school. Progress!

Tags: higher ed