Ah, more newspaper "human interest" stories... they make so much more sense when juxtaposed...
Front page news: Rich, white, gifted Evanston teen gets into Harvard despite the great hardship of having parents who are wealthy enough to be able to homeschool, send her to Ireland to learn the Irish Harp, to Tibet to study Buddhism, and to Greece to learn philosophy.
Excuse me, but the fact that privileged (in both the economic and the intellectual sense) white kids get into Harvard is not news, people. And certainly not front-page news.
Meanwhile, the Trib puts this in the Metro section: Englewood African-American teen murdered at a drug- and alcohol-free party, apparently in front of a police officer while defending his younger brother.
Speaks for itself.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tell us some real news, Chicago Tribune!
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1 comment:
Where to start?
1) Has Homeschooled Girl ever had any...fun? Maybe it's just my redneck side coming out, but, despite her protestations about liking chocolate and having a boyfriend, she doesn't seem to have any time to kick back and do something mindless. And I think we all need a little mindlessness occasionally.
2) And no, CSI doesn't count for that. I watch CSI, so I know whereof I speak. Guarantee you she started watching it to learn about science.
3) As someone who interviews for one of the schools by which she was accepted, I can say with great confidence that being homeschooled helped her get in, because it made her stand out. And standing out is KEY. You have a slightly better chance of getting into, say, Harvard if you're from Montana than if you're from Massachusetts, because fewer people apply from Montana, and thus you stand out more. There is no shortage of wealthy kids applying to top schools - she stood out from the pack because she was homeschooled. So the idea behind the article - girl gets into top schools despite being homeschooled! Shocker! - is bogus.
Maybe I'm just bitter because the kids I've interviewed have, in my opinion, left this girl in the dust - no, they weren't doing anything with the Sorbonne, as they were too busy working part-time jobs to help support their struggling families - and they haven't gotten accepted to some of the schools that she has. They'll all have great lives, but seeing this girl be celebrated on the front page of a newspaper kinda galls me. As I said, though, I'm biased.
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