The American Dream and College

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The American Dream and College

My junior year of high school was filled with high emotions, stressful moments, and tension about where to apply to college and where I would be accepted and ultimately attend. At a “Making the Most out of your Sixth Semester” forum that year, the entire junior class experienced lectures from the school’s college resource counselors about how to prepare for this arduous battle of college admissions. The way Sue Biermert, who is the College Admissions Counselor at my high school, opened the forum was by asking a question to the parents that put everything into perspective: “How many of you parents feel like you are successful?” Every single hand shot up from the 500 parents in the auditorium. Of those that had their hands up, she asked, “How many of you parents received an Ivy League education?” Every hand went down. I could see friend’s mouths sit there in awe that getting an Ivy League education is not necessarily the greatest factor at having a good life. Even though these shocked students were the ones hoping to be accepted by Yale and Harvard, they all simultaneously recognized that going to an Ivy League school is not a guarantee for success in life. The reality about American culture is that success is the result of individual experiences that suit the needs of each person, not necessarily the prestigious institution of learning that one attends.

The college resource counselors that night wanted to stress one central problem that we were all going to face in the next twelve months. Invariably, they highlighted with personal stories and anecdotes that the admissions process is the most untrustworthy and unpredictable game anyone can get involved in. ...

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...d reach the top. Unless there is a consensus in public opinion to challenge class reproduction, this system in our culture will grow exponentially more competitive annually.

America is not what it once was, and it is an extremely arduous task to carry on a job without a college degree. While there is a rush to get married and have a family still at a young age, people still realize that you need to know where your next paycheck is coming from to support yourself. The “American Dream” is still a looming theory that people are striving to attain, and those people are the students of America that are being told from our elders that this is what it takes to reach that point. While it may be dirty politics to do what it takes it get by and be accepted, American culture has become a love for the game in order to perceive that desired image of success.

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