River wrote:Just out of curiousity, what exactly is this northeastern liberal elite and what are the schools they attend?
Mostly the Ivy League. Not sure about the
liberal aspect. but the northeastern elite was the subject of a series of posts by the west-coast libertarian, Conor Friedersdorf, at Andrew Sullivan's blog a few weeks ago. He also solicited feedback from readers, one of whom
suggested that the university mattered less than the preparatory high school; a fellow described his wife's career track:
After college, from which she barely graduated, she delivered flowers for a living. In short, nothing doing financially or in life. However, a move to NYC (as I was on an academic odyssey) led to an immediate job in finance at a major company. Mind you, this is a person with a degree in communications, who had not taken math since high school. As part of this job, she had a full six months paid to acquire a variety of licences and skills. The interviews for this position extended over a week and nearly every interviewer inquired not about college but Andover.
This pattern has repeated itself as she has changed jobs. Andover is always discussed. If an interviewer went to Exeter or St. Pauls, that must be mentioned. Her college has never been discussed. Even positions which require minimum GPA's, which she could never meet, are waived. She actually leaves this block blank often on applications, and it is never asked about. Currently, she is a manager at top hedge fund without ever having a degree in finance or an MBA.
Another reader said that this matched his own experience, but that Groton and Milton were of higher standing than St. Paul's. (
Here's a wikipedia article about prep schools. Of course, they're not all in the northeast. At least one on that list is located a half-hour from here.) I remember a nice fellow, ten years ago when I needed transportation to and from a Connecticut hospital in the midst of a long-distance hiking trip, expressing surprise that I'd never heard of the Hotchkiss School as he drove me past it. I am also reminded of a play we produced some years ago,
Bright Ideas, in which parents scheme to get their three-year old child into the right
pre-school (which will set him up for life) by poisoning the parents of the competition. A year later there were revelations of skullduggery along those lines actually happening in Manhattan.
Mind you, there were a variety of posts from many viewpoints in Friedersdorf's series on the subject of the Ivies, the prep schools, and just what it meant to attend them.
