Education and Class

From an article from today’s NYT that has come to my inbox from multiple sources today:

The admissions team at Reed College, known for its free-spirited students, learned in March that the prospective freshman class it had so carefully composed after weeks of reviewing essays, scores and recommendations was unworkable. Money was the problem. Too many of the students needed financial aid, and the school did not have enough. So the director of financial aid gave the team another task: drop more than 100 needy students before sending out acceptances, and substitute those who could pay full freight.

Over 100 kids who would otherwise have been denied, admitted because of thier family income.  And over 100 kids who played by all the rules, got admitted to their “reach” school, and were  then were sent away.

So, if you’re mentoring kids who will be high school seniors next year, what do you tell them?  To reach and dream big or to be “realistic”?

As my favorite social philosopher B. Springsteen once asked,

is a dream a lie that don’t come true, or is it something worse?