Dear Ivy League class of 2023,
Congratulations on embarking on this new phase of your life. As you begin, I want to implore you to recognize the privileges that you have had that have led you to this incredibly elite university. Most of you and your parents, unlike those caught up in Operation Varsity Blues, have not broken the law to get to where you are. You played by the rules. Still, remember that the rules helped you more than they helped most young people in the United States.
A near majority of you come from households that can afford to pay more for college every year than what the average American household earns in a year. Those financial resources in high school brought many of you music lessons, sports uniforms, a house or apartment in a high-performing school district, or maybe even a private education.
Your parents are more than twice as likely as other American adults to have a bachelor’s degree. Those college-graduate parents inevitably taught you something about how to get into college, as any parent with that knowledge would. Many of your parents were able to read and interpret the expectations of colleges for admission and may have helped you write your application essay — maybe even edited it.
I know this is not true of all of you — 15% of you will be the first in your family to graduate from a four-year college. Some of you attended schools in which many of your peers did not graduate, and grew up in families that could not afford SAT tutoring. You, too, should ask yourself, what supports did I have along the way that others did not? Maybe there was a family member who shepherded you through school, a teacher who took a special interest in your success, a scholarship to a private school. You, too, have experienced some form of privilege to make it to your esteemed institution.
Don’t get me wrong: I understand that most of you worked incredibly hard in high school and tried your best to succeed. Your parents did not lie, cheat or steal to help you get into college. But many other teens your age worked hard, too, but did not get into the Ivy League or other competitive colleges. Others never had the opportunity to work hard, because their schools did not offer the advanced classes you took, or their families did not have the resources to send them to summer camps in which sports coaches would scout them and then recruit them to elite colleges. Most 18-year-olds did not even have the audacity to apply to your college.
Your humility and recognition of privileges, however little or many you’ve had, will ensure you do not forget to recognize the talents, perseverance and ambitions of those outside the privileged halls of your university and those like it. And it will help you have empathy for those Americans who have not “made it” like you have.
As you start to vote and enter the work world, I hope this recognition will shape your decision-making. Do those who haven’t “made it” like you have really deserve the poverty, lack of job prospects, or lack of social supports they experience? Are they the result of their work ethic, their talents or of forces beyond their control?
Consider for a moment what we as a society owe to the majority of Americans who did not experience the same privileges as you, who have not been able to earn a college degree (let alone an elite one), or who have made mistakes but moved on and are attempting to rebuild their lives.
The next four years will change your life. Use the privileges you’ve earned to ensure more opportunities for those who have not been as fortunate.
Sincerely yours,
Natasha
Warikoo is associate professor of education at Harvard University, and author of “The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities.”
