Are you... special?

I read a great article in the WSJ about entitlement/being special, here's the link (for people with access to Factiva this is available on that database) and here's a blurb:

Signs of narcissism among college students have been rising for 25 years, according to a recent study led by a San Diego State University psychologist. Obviously, Mr. Rogers alone can't be blamed for this. But as Prof. Chance sees it, "he's representative of a culture of excessive doting."

Prof. Chance teaches many Asian-born students, and says they accept whatever grade they're given; they see B's and C's as an indication that they must work harder, and that their elders assessed them accurately. They didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers or anyone else telling them they were born special.

By contrast, American students often view lower grades as a reason to "hit you up for an A because they came to class and feel they worked hard," says Prof. Chance. He wishes more parents would offer kids this perspective: "The world owes you nothing. You have to work and compete. If you want to be special, you'll have to prove it."

"They're just children." When kids are rude, self-absorbed or disrespectful, some parents allow or endure it by saying, "Well, they're just children." The phrase is a worthy one when it's applied to a teachable moment, such as telling kids not to stick their fingers in electrical sockets. But as an excuse or as justification for unacceptable behavior, "They're just children" is just misguided.

Amazing, huh? What do you think? Are American kids like this or do you think the article grossly overgeneralizes students today?

And in other news, Ben has got a good point about blurbs. I'd like to add that besides being over the top, they're often just lies. For example, on "Stumbling to Happiness" Malcolm Gladwell gives a blurb that makes this sound like a wonderful book - on that advice I (somewhat foolishly) decided to buy and read the book. Let me assure you that the book is nowhere near as good as Malcolm Gladwell's recommendation and that because of the slight I'm going to be much more cautious when I see Gladwell give his thumbs up to a book. Anyone else have a poor experience with blurbs?

Apples to Apples

I've always wondered if I sacrificed any future opportunities by having gone to Georgia Tech instead of a "more prestigious" school that I had gotten accepted at, like Williams College. I've come to believe that I didn't sacrifice any future successes, as I feel I made the most of my time at Georgia Tech. This article by Malcolm Gladwell, author of "Blink" and "The Tipping Point", confirms that belief. I strongly recommend reading this piece to get a better idea of the differences (or lack thereof) that a "prestigious" school can have on one's life.

I recommend skipping section 2, as it's long and a bit slow. Section 3 is the heart of the matter and here's an excerpt from that section:

To assess the effect of the Ivies, it makes more sense to compare the student who got into a top school with the student who got into that same school but chose to go to a less selective one. Three years ago, the economists Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale published just such a study. And they found that when you compare apples and apples the income bonus from selective schools disappears.

"As a hypothetical example, take the University of Pennsylvania and Penn State, which are two schools a lot of students choose between," Krueger said. "One is Ivy, one is a state school. Penn is much more highly selective. If you compare the students who go to those two schools, the ones who go to Penn have higher incomes. But let's look at those who got into both types of schools, some of whom chose Penn and some of whom chose Penn State. Within that set it doesn't seem to matter whether you go to the more selective school. Now, you would think that the more ambitious student is the one who would choose to go to Penn, and the ones choosing to go to Penn State might be a little less confident in their abilities or have a little lower family income, and both of those factors would point to people doing worse later on. But they don't."