Image: Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 8 out of 10. An engaging and liberating book for students and parents who are considering their options for college.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 6.10.2021; No. 33
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Star Rating – 8 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Author
Frank Bruni
About the author
Frank Bruni is the author of two other best-selling books and a columnist for The New York Times. He writes on a variety of topics, including higher education, politics, food, popular culture and equal rights.
General description
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be is a book about America’s obsession regarding college admissions and the perceived status among certain schools. The subtitle of the book – An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania – provides an accurate description of what the book contains. Frank Bruni shares stories about the struggle students have in selecting colleges, getting in and figuring out how to pay for the increasingly common high price of postsecondary education. He goes on to show how attending a prestigious college does not necessarily correlate with landing a high-paying job and having an easy path to success. Topics covered in this book include:
Examples of lesser-known colleges with high-performing graduates
The pressure many students feel to get into the most prestigious college they can
How quality education can be found at a lower cost in small, less-familiar colleges and the honors programs of many state universities
Factors that correlate more highly with career success than the reputation of a college
Unique and most important aspects
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be is an engaging and thought-provoking read. It challenges preconceived notions in our society that the most selective colleges are the best and that getting into one is a prerequisite to success. Frank Bruni provides many examples of how flawed those ideas are. It’s not that elite schools are not good. He presents the case that they are not necessarily better and that there is a downside to attending a prestigious university. The process of applying to and selecting a college is an anxiety-provoking and vulnerable time for kids and their parents. Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be is a great book for any student considering their college options and fighting the myth of a guaranteed roadmap to success. Important features of this book include:
The relative importance of a graduate school’s status compared to an undergraduate school
The falsehood that a school’s selectiveness represents its value or quality in the education it provides
Examples of how the college ranking systems of Money, Forbes, U.S. News and others are flawed and do not correlate with a quality education
The strategy of selecting a school in the geographic region of where you want to find a job or pursue a career path
That there can be a “stunning fragility” to students and graduates of elite colleges due to the likelihood of their having fewer setbacks in life and listening to the myths perpetuated by their colleges that they are special and “chosen”
Best quotes
“What they’d learned in the workplace since graduation had more bearing on their assurance and performance at Harvard than did anything picked up in any class, let alone the name of their alma mater.”
“In fact students at institutions with less hallowed names sometimes demand more of those places and of themselves, convinced they have ground to make up, a disadvantage to compensate for.”
“Somewhere along the way, a school’s selectiveness – measured in large part by its acceptance rate – became synonymous with its worth.”
“The recruiters were saying that when it came to filling entry-level jobs that require discrete skills, state universities had proven more reliable pools of eager workers with specific, relevant training.”
“Your earnings say more about what you chose to study, and with how much of a practical and salary-minded agenda you chose it, than they do about the luster of a school’s name.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Students, parents and guidance counselors who are looking for a clear rationale to not join the hordes applying to status schools would likely enjoy Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be.
Who would not enjoy this book?
People who firmly believe that prestigious colleges are the most important factor in life success are unlikely to enjoy Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be.
Conclusion
Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be is an engaging and liberating book for students and parents who are considering their options for college.