Malcolm Gladwell wrote in the New Yorker a few years back on the topic of elite college and universities, their selection policies, and the correlation of how well someone will do in society. His thesis: elite colleges are no better than rest; in fact he argues they might be worse.
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, has had two number one national bestsellers in hardcover and paperback, The Tipping Point and Blink.
I was fortunate the see Mr. Gladwell give a similar speech at the National Association of Independent Schools annual conference in New York in 2008.
Here’s a link to the New Yorker article.
Here’s another, more recent, article (from the NY Times) on the topic.
Editor’s Note (2015): Frank Bruni of the NY Times wrote this article on the occasion of the publication of his excellent book, Where You Go Is What Who You’ll Be.
John Spear 