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American admissions is uniquely complicated because Harvard turned selection away from exams alone and toward a power-preserving system of essays, recommendations, activities, and moral self-presentation.
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He claims American colleges will take international students primarily because they can pay, even if the admissions rhetoric says they seek passion and curiosity.
American admissions is uniquely complicated because Harvard turned selection away from exams alone and toward a power-preserving system of essays, recommendations, activities, and moral self-presentation.
Elite admissions officers may operate by this power logic, but most non-elite schools are mainly trying to enroll paying students.
Harvard and Yale operate like venture capital firms: they prefer risky applicants with possible world-changing upside over solid applicants with predictable modest success.
Yale admitted Jiang, in his reading, not because the visible application was stellar but because poverty, immigration, school transfer, desperation, insecurity, and transgression signaled high-upside trauma.
Only dissociated, actor-like people can convincingly perform the non-utilitarian passion that Harvard demands from people who are applying for utilitarian reasons.
"Colleges, again, just want the money. Okay? That's all they care about. If you're willing to go to American college and pay, how much..."
"...to explain to you why America has the world's most complicated admissions system. So in China, when you apply to university, you take the..."
"Like, does all the admission officers in American college doing this intentionally?"
"...So, this is like the school, this is the mentality of admissions officers for elite schools. But most schools are just like, they want..."
"Yeah, I'll explain later on, okay? All right. So, Harvard is, first and foremost, a venture capital firm, okay? Your investment firm. So, let's..."
"So, option one is, low risk, really good plan, solid returns, $500,000 a year, okay? Option two is, concept, vague idea, I have absolutely..."
"...to Yale. And then we're going to look at how the admissions officers would perceive my application. And how they would judge my potential...."
"So how did I get in? Well, because there was some information that they could also derive from application that made them interested in..."
"And guess what, guys? Canadians don't like that. Okay? Canadians want you to stay where you are, and that's it. So when I told..."
"Okay? So again, they know all this, okay? They know I'm an average student, and they know that I'm pushy and ambitious. Okay? And..."
"I would need to go make $2 million. If I made $10 million, I would see people around me who had $100 million. I..."
"I said, I don't care. I'm going to get my good grades, and I'm going to get into the Ivy League. I don't need..."
School says it teaches literacy, competence, creativity, and lifelong learning.
The lecture turns meritocracy from a school virtue into a trauma machine: Harvard invents selection as power preservation, Yale trains insecurity as ambition, and the winners become actors who can promise goodness while serving...
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