Anthony Dick has a compelling review of the new Daniel Golden book on college admissions, here. A key graf, on how Golden inflates the importance of elite credentials:
Golden himself is a Harvard graduate, and so it is understandable that his view of things might be skewed to overestimate the importance of such a credential. He has had a very successful career in journalism, and no doubt his Harvard degree has helped him along the way. Still, there is a measure of condescension in his project: It focuses on elite colleges as if they were the main components of personal success — as if Golden couldn’t imagine suffering through life without his gilded diploma. Objectively speaking, however, the name on a person’s diploma is hardly determinative of his or her life prospects.