Entitled Mediocrity and all that

 

I first came across this eloquent expression when I read a 2008 essay by William Deresiewicz on disadvantages of an elite education. According to the essayist, the elite schools both nurture excellence as well as ‘entitled mediocrity’.

 

Somewhere during the course of the essay, Deresiewicz stated that the elite like to think of themselves as belonging to meritocracy, but that is true up a point. He argued that for the students who manage to get into elite institutions, the education system itself ensures that the majority henceforth  get decent enough grades, even if all do not get the highest grades which the more hardworking and truly deserving  among them no doubt do.

 

As Deresiewicz said, it is the pressure on the elite institution as well to keep up its reputation of exclusivity, which ensures that once students come in, most of them also leave the institution with decent enough grades, and practically nobody gets thrown out mid-course for not being up to mark. The students also feel entitled that they deserve more than ‘others’ the hoi polloi, because their scores in the common eligibility tests were much higher. The old-boy network ensures that such elite institution educated students get to reap disproportionate benefits throughout their working career. Even a mediocre graduate of an elite institution gets to reap her fair share of entitlement in the job market.

 

Agreed that Deresiewicz wrote in the context of the American system, but what he wrote is somewhat universal. I was thinking of the mad rush to get into the IITs and the IIMs, the mind-boggling cut-offs for getting into elite colleges like St Stephens or SRCC in Delhi.

 

In campus interviews held recently for the graduation class of 2011 in Delhi University, highest packages were offered to Economics Honours and Commerce students of St Stephens and SRCC respectively. My son’s classmate from school, a very bright commerce student who could not get into an ‘elite’ college just by a whisker, point 05%, to be exact, got an offer of just half of what the SRCC student got. A fresh graduate is a fresh graduate, what difference in knowledge the recruiting companies expected when they offered such disparate packages, I wonder. All students interviewed and selected during campus interview held in their respective colleges wrote identical University examinations, and would all get degrees from Delhi University. This head-start for a would-be graduate from SRCC was a classic case of rent reaped by just studying in an elite college.    

 

Then my thinking gravitated to civil services. Once a person gets inducted into an elite civil service, she is on a conveyer belt up in career progression, if she does not try too hard to get into the bad books of the bosses, including political bosses. The system protects both the delinquent and the non-performer, and of course mediocrity, and more often than not, even rewards these qualities in ample measure. The old-boy networks that include girls these days ensure that clearing that one examination to get in ensures a lifetime of entitlement.

 

Irony, but such is life!!

 

 

P.S. Reference to the essay, if interested :

http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education