The Organization Kid in a Chaotic Culture

            I remember when David Brooks wrote about the “organizational kid” in The Atlantic nearly ten years ago.  The takeaway was that our college students were – at the time – quite admirably hard-working, unquestioning of authority, and self-regarding as naturally on the top of the cognitive elite.  Brooks’ darker, and I think, more provocative, claim comes near the end of the article in speaking with a Princeton professor regarding “the vocabulary of virtue and vice,” as he put it.  Neither he nor Brooks was necessarily advocating courses on building character, but as the professor asserted, contemporary students were – in comparison to previous cohorts – less Augustinian, less self-critical, and less confessional.  These were extremely pleasant kids, well prepared for class, highly organized, and willing to work hours on end for that A on the next final exam.  But they didn’t seem to know that “a tragic dimension to life” existed, and that ultimately, Brooks concludes, to these students, measurable accomplishment trumped any abstract conception of virtue.  Not enough was being taught or read to highlight the distinct differences between the two.

            While it seems like each aging generation bemoans the shortcomings of its younger generation of leaders (“In my day, we used to have to chisel our notes onto stone tablets!”), Brooks and the Princeton professor made persuasive and suggestive points about the new millennial generation back in April 2001.  But then 9/11 reoriented everyone’s moral compass, and suddenly evil was very much identifiable to these students while virtue was seen walking up the towers’ stairs into the fire.  Into the fire.

            We can certainly march through the memorable events of the rest of the decade, possibly culminating in the recent domestic tragedy of Tuscon and the international whirlwind of protest taking place in Cairo, as we speak.  What I most focus on, however, is the global economic depression of, what seems like, the past ten years.  One thinks of Bernie Madoff.  Tony Hayward of BP.  And other faceless fools who went the way of immediate gratification by gambling with derivatives, credit default swaps, and other people’s money, like it was a Monopoly game and the rest of us all went for a bathroom break trusting that the other players wouldn’t cheat.

            The obvious connection between the organizational kids of 2001 and the economic malfeasance of 2008-2010 is that many of these young men and women, at the very least, came of age this past decade; some of them unfortunately were even active participants in the questionable practices in derivatives markets.  But I’m less interested in laying blame specifically at someone (or a particular group)’s feet.  For one, these “kids” weren’t at the helm of the major banks too big to fail.  Second, to whom were Brooks’ “kids” and the other kids of the past decade supposed to turn as proper role models in the public square?  Certainly the aforementioned rescue workers of 9/11 are worthy candidates, but our own Congress recently wanted to deny these heroes financial support for any health issues incurred by their brave actions (as if we had forgotten their selfless acts in a dusty bin of history).  Some senators painted the rescuers absurdly as welfare kings and queens, while corporate welfare only seemed to balloon with each point-drop in Democratic polls.  So our government officials have hardly proved exemplars: Eliot Spitzer; Minnesota’s Larry Craig; Mark Foley; Louisianan William Jefferson; David Vitter; John Ensign; Mark Sanford; and the (predominantly male) list goes on.  What about our financial leaders?  Did I already mention Hayward?  Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein, a.k.a., in some lighting, George Costanza’s doppelgänger? 

One only needs to read Chrystia Freeland’s engaging cover article for this month’s Atlantic, entitled “The Rise of the New Global Elite,” to understand our global plutocracy and our universal predicament.  In short, almost all of the income growth in the past five years has only benefited and been consolidated by a handful of plutocrats she calls “the super-elite.”  The rich are indeed getting richer, and the poor are growing beyond poorer.  It’s the Davos, Switzerland crowd, and perhaps they all will eventually fork over their fortunes to charity (“philanthrocapital”), but as Freeland makes plain, this generation of rich is not the old-money rich of Beacon Hill and Greenwich, or the nouveau riche in vacant McMansions all over Florida and California.  They’re a hard-working, intellectual bunch, she argues, and one that rarely apologizes for its part in the widening gap of income disparity.  See, I could counter that I know twenty equally hard-working and exceptionally bright individuals at my institution and they’re not going to make or seek 1/1000^th of the amount of money this super-elite accumulates.  And that’s what it is: accumulation of wealth, but really of things, stuff, and in some cases, people.  I get her point that the super-elite have indeed worked hard and earned their keep, but give me a break: I won’t cry for the person who cares about the aesthetic difference between 20 and 30 million dollars as evidenced by one’s apartment furnishings (see the Freeland article).

My roundabout, admittedly broad argument here is that on one level, the organization kids of a decade ago have grown up amidst this corruption, this collective drive for visibly significant wealth and ‘bling, and, let’s face it, they live a fast life.  Maybe that Princeton prof was right ten years ago: vice, virtue, and sin.  We should be teaching more about character and ethics, on every level of the educational ladder (and at home?).  I wonder how this past decade of uncertain moral activity has inevitably affected the organizational kid.  Is s/he now a “young adult of chaos”?  (What twenty-year-old isn’t?) 

In my first year of teaching at my current institution, only a half-year after the 2008 election and the economic meltdown, I remember sitting at a lunch with the Provost and a cadre of new faculty hires, one of whom was a pleasant young business professor.  Undoubtedly, he was an “organization kid” with braces and bad acne in 2001.  But I asked him: “Have you seen the recent New York Times article querying whether our nation’s top business schools are appropriately changing their curricula to include ethics instruction in light of what’s happened on Wall Street, throughout the U.S. (and world)?”  No, he hadn’t, and he tried to deftly parry my next question by complaining to the Provost that the university had not done enough to acquire his partner a proper visa for their move to this new city.  But I wanted to probe a little more: “You know, every top school – HBS, Wharton, Stanford – except ours has agreed that future curricula will include such ethics courses.”  The Provost wasn’t too happy I raised this point, and the twenty-something professor seemed to not hear my point at all, as he moved on to more important issues, like unaffordable, multi-room apartments in the heart of the city on a business school professor’s salary of six figures.  Virtue.  Vice.  “Vocabulary of tragic dimensions.”

            So, is this whom the harmless, apolitical organization kid of 2001 has turned into?  Lesson remains unlearned: the notion of a virtuous life and virtuous acts still don’t quite hold a match to the materiality of accomplishment.  Or, is it that the captains of industry and banks of this last decade were the ones who rode unregulated waves to untold treasures, and then neatly packaged their offspring for St. Paul’s and Exeter, or Crossroads and San Francisco University High School, and further “organized” them for Harvard Yard or Stanford’s Arcade?  This isn’t a scientifically supported argument by any means, but rather an educated guess and an opinion.  I mean, when more students come to class and complain (perhaps appropriately so) that their tuition is too high, one’s antennae go up.  This has long been a collective moan from most undergraduates.  But, now, in light of the past decade, the rise of the organization kid, the packaged school experiences, and the latter-day plutocratic parents, these complaints take on a wholly new timbre and substance.  “Listen,” I was once told.  “The parents are paying a lot to send their kids here, so if you have to miss class for a funeral, then I’m not sure what to say.”  This was someone in administration who was chastising me for paying my respects to two close friends who died from cancer within days of each other in another city.  I had to miss one class as a result, but at least one or two students complained that they wanted their pro-rated money back for the missed class.  Seriously.  And, they hadn’t even spoken with me but went straight to the dean (after e-mailing me their condolences: they really are organized).  Sounds like the children of adults used to “transactional relationships.”  First, this is another reason why people like me are leaving the profession.  Second, now that I know the administration will side with the paying customer and leave its own employee virtually unprotected, I have two of the best lawyers on retainer.

            Guess who’s the organized kid now?       

Early Admissions and Hasty Decisions

   Given that many high school seniors now comfortably sit with their early admissions letters pasted to their foreheads,  I wanted to offer my humble opinion on the notion of early admissions and early decisions at selective universities.  I'm assuming that many of you reading this know exactly what the process is, and the fact that more and more students are applying early in their senior years to the schools of their choice.  Statistically speaking, more students of incoming freshman classes are admitted during this early admissions wave, and usually, admissions offices persuasively explain the phenomenon as a function of the inexplicable (but consistent) volume of highly motivated, well-prepared, and slightly-above-average candidates flooding this earlier pool.  What this means for everyone else is 1) if you don't have your act and GPA together by junior year of high school, you should probably apply during the "normal" season (to give yourself a chance to boost your less "motivated" GPA), and 2) it appears like another unfair advantage in a laundry list of reasons why the college admissions process is a) unfair, b) flawed, or c) both.

   I should be one to talk.  Twenty years ago, I was enjoying (well, that's an overstatement: I was homesick, had a "Rachel" haircut as a dude, and thought I was just another small fish in a huge, Ivy-laden pond) my first semester in the leafy confines of my first-choice college, the one to which I had applied early and been accepted nearly a year earlier.  Therefore, I fully concede the hypocritical nature of the stance I now choose to take two decades later.

   First, I had no godly idea where I was applying.  That is to say, I knew where I wanted to apply early, but I had no sense of what the place could actually offer me, whether or not my academic interests would be best served there, or how brutal an experience it would be.  In other words, I went through the motions of visiting choice colleges during my junior summer (Penn, Georgetown, Cal, Stanford, Brown, and Columbia, among a few others), but I wanted to go to one place, and one place alone.  I didn't know if it was a good fit.  I had no idea if I would be able to continue the activities I enjoyed in high school there.  I didn't realize that I had absolutely no chance of playing on a college team beyond intramurals with a bunch of overweight, goggle-impaired nonathletes.  (At the time, the Ivies were kind of an honorary Division I league, except for low-profile sports like rowing, squash, field hockey, and fencing.  Now, they're still great at those sports but also manage to produce NFL-, WNBA-, or MLB-quality, Olympic-worthy, & nationally-recognized athletes.)  I also hadn't researched enough to know how disconcerting it really was to attend a lecture filled with 800 other students and only meet in discussion sections with admittedly brilliant but overworked, underpaid graduate students.  Professors at my campus were inaccessible celebrities: you wouldn't get any face-time with them unless you waded through office hours, usually scheduled to the brim weeks ahead.  

   Having contextualized my shameful lack of knowledge of the all-important "fit" of a student and school, I'm sure that current parents and high school students are much better prepared now than I was twenty-one years ago.  At least, I hope so, because in the interim, things have only grown more competitive, more expensive, and more confusing.

   Second, I didn't fully grasp the advantage of having a college counselor who expected you to not only go to college, but to do well there.  Even though, in truth, I disliked my counselor a great deal because s/he told me I wouldn't get into the college I did in fact get into (and early), I do genuinely appreciate the work that college counselors afford their students, especially in untenable situations where, say, only two or three counselors minister to a graduating class of 500, many of whom cannot or choose not to attend college with good reason.  Like a choice few, I was extremely spoiled because I attended a prep school loaded with talented counselors who each advised maybe 20 of us.  They wouldn't automatically get you into college, as many people still believe happens at prep schools, by simply making a call (this ain't the 1920's anymore, thankfully), but they at least assessed your candidacy, offered you (and your parents, if they were interested) a list of safety schools, possible "50/50"'s, and long-shots.  And, you began this process early in the fall of your junior year.  So, we were prepared well in advance, and thus I still have nobody to blame but myself for choosing a college which ate me up like it did almost a thousand of my first-year classmates.

   My point is that the advantages for some students have only exploded exponentially today.  Not only do students at good schools (public or private) receive early and professional counseling at school, but they also have the potential financial or social capital to physically visit colleges, to take at least one preparatory course for the SAT I and II, or to interview with a local alumnus/a, a rare bonus for your application.  More significantly, these versions of capital allow a student to apply early to the schools of their choices, when many other college-aspiring teenagers are still working summer jobs to help their families make ends meet, or helping to raise younger siblings or looking after elderly members of the extended family.  Even if they had the money to enroll in a prep course, or visit Amherst and Smith on a weekend, and gather as many applications as possible (with their exorbitant fees), these students may still be at a disadvantage for the reasons I enumerated above (counseling, access, actual literal time).  

   Sure, many students - advantaged or not - wisely opt to wait until the regular deadlines and April decisions after they've made equally informed choices as the early birds: the playing field is presumably level.  However, I think you get my drift: just as socioeconomic status serves as a better proxy and better indicator of admissibility than SAT scores do, such status logically (but not fairly) provides that precious access to resources like prep courses, summer college trips, and the like.  In the worst cases, these students and their families pay handsomely and gain access to the type of application "experts" who are probably hacking this site as we speak.  They "beef up" or "highlight" an applicant's "best" attributes, however strong or weak in reality, and they can "proof" college essays in creative ways.  Of course, these are the bottom-feeders of the process, and, by contrast, I know many principled, heart-in-the-right-place, and appropriate application "experts," and they help all kinds of students, regardless of school, socioeconomic status, or ability to pay fees.  In essence, these latter folks actually do help level the playing field - not completely, but getting there.

   So, after what I've sketched here, should you and your parents give up and concede you're up against the bulwark of elites and the institutions that simply admit early and reproduce them on time?  Nah.  You're going to make it, and here's why.  

   First, I know a lot of the readers on the other side of your application: admissions directors, officers, professors, and counselors.  These people are also principled, eternally hopeful, smart, and more than well aware of the "expert"-like shenanigans that take place out there.  Do one or two lying bastards slip through the Ivy gates?  Yes.  I admit knowing a couple of them, and they're still lying bastards.  But that's like 0.00001% of the number of applicants who apply every year.  Admissions offices in the top-tier schools know when they have a doctored application before them: essays, recommendation letters, and grades don't quite add up (and not in any good way).  So, lesson one: your applications are in good hands (esp. after they cleaned up that mess at MIT).  

   Second, I'll go back to the theme of this particular post.  I ended up in a top-notch school, but for a while there, I wanted to transfer to my brother's alma mater because I just knew my college wasn't the right fit for me.  I had done the work, yes, but I hadn't gone the extra yard of figuring out, for example, whether I would like a small, liberal-arts college better (I would have!), or, whether striking out for California gold, away from the East Coast, would have been a wiser choice (it would have, as I still dream of my Stanford acceptance and being an hour's flight from my parents).  In the end, though, the college and I learned to like each other just fine.

   In that vein, then, if you're aiming high, well, aim high!  But, if the early admissions letter doesn't bear good news, then perhaps the blessing in disguise is that you have more time to research the other places to which you applied - even, yes, your dreaded safeties.  Ultimately, what do you want?  Name recognition?  I can tell you from experience: I can't staple my diploma to my forehead and walk around the city without someone punching me in the balls.  I mean, c'mon, right?  Or, are you looking for a challenging, sometimes hard as nails, sometimes thrilling, ever emotionally and intellectually engaging college experience?  If yes, I can name 100 universities or colleges (just on the East Coast) which would fulfill that criteria.  It's not about the school, or its name.  Every one of them presents you with a ticket in this country (even in a depression) to do whatever the hell you want, especially in this day and age when the currency of some places has depreciated.  Who do you think screwed up our economy?  That's right: guys and gals who overpopulate the Harvard-Yale Game every November.  Being an Ivy Leaguer, like being an investment banker, isn't such a disproportionate plus anymore.  It's no scarlet letter, either, but employers from Manhattan to Mountain View to Milan know that your B.A. is just the beginning.  It surely isn't the end-all, and be-all of who you are, or any true predictor of your potential in a given field.  It's one stage in a long series of them, and hopefully, your college years won't be filled with regret about where you went, but only with the ear-to-ear grinning regret of why you couldn't stay any longer.