内容简介

Getting in is only half the battle. The Privileged Poor reveals how―and why―disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges, and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive.

The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors―and their coffers―to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they’ve arrived on campus. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This bracing and necessary book documents how university policies and cultures can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why these policies hit some students harder than others.

Despite their lofty aspirations, top colleges hedge their bets by recruiting their new diversity largely from the same old sources, admitting scores of lower-income black, Latino, and white undergraduates from elite private high schools like Exeter and Andover. These students approach campus life very differently from students who attended local, and typically troubled, public high schools and are often left to flounder on their own. Drawing on interviews with dozens of undergraduates at one of America’s most famous colleges and on his own experiences as one of the privileged poor, Jack describes the lives poor students bring with them and shows how powerfully background affects their chances of success.

If we truly want our top colleges to be engines of opportunity, university policies and campus cultures will have to change. Jack provides concrete advice to help schools reduce these hidden disadvantages―advice we cannot afford to ignore.

作品目录

作者简介

Anthony Abraham Jack, a native of Miami, received a scholarship to attend Gulliver Preparatory School, an elite private high school in South Florida. He went on to receive degrees from Amherst College and Harvard University. He is currently a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, an Assistant Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and the Shutzer Assi...

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精彩摘录

当面结识教授和行政老师，这件事非常重要。在我于英杰大学做调研期间，一而再、再而三地，我总能看到，建立师生之间的关系，其好处可不只是学生能在课业或成绩上获得帮助。在诸如此类的具体事项上有所收益，不过只是冰山之一角而已。关系，就是打开一扇门，走进去后，你未来的努力就能获得支持并取得成功。与关键位置的教授和行政老师培养密切关系，这条路所通向的并不仅仅是课业或成绩的帮助，还关系着推荐信、校内工作、校外的实习机会。甚至不仅这些，这样的关系还意味着更多：若是某位教授或院长对你有所了解，这就意味着在某些势均力敌的竞争中你能拿到打破僵局的支持票；或者是在分宿舍时获得某个窗外景致怡人的单间；或者是被引荐给前来招聘的公司管理人员并且帮忙拿到工作机会；又或者像玛丽一样，收到私人放映会的邀请，在那里，你可以见到奥斯卡获奖影片的导演。并且，学生越早开始培养这些关系，也就越有机会拿到这种旁人梦寐以求的好处。然而，这就是问题所在：大学生应积极地建立与教授的人脉关系，这种期待却很少被挂在嘴边，它仍是一种不成文的文化，也因此，在那些懂得要主动出击的学生和完全不懂这些的学生之间，原本就存在的不平等现在进一步加剧

——引自章节：第二章“您能为我在书上签个名吗？”

经验和接触，是两位强大的老师。如同来自高收入家庭的同学，寒门幸运儿在进入大学时，就已经做好了准备，愿意与教员和其他学校官员打交道，并乐在其中。他们的高中推崇独立思考，尤其重视师生之间的交流，故而他们在高中阶段就学会了如何接触老师，如何与老师建立联系，不仅是在理念中默记，同样重要的是在现实中操练。当他们走过新生宿舍的方庭去上大学的第一堂课时，寒门幸运儿就积累了数年的经验，在答疑时间去拜访老师，参加非正式的晚餐会，与师长们谈天说地。在那些来自高收入家庭的学生眼中，教授就是他们在学业旅程中遇到的导师，而寒门幸运儿则将教授视为推动他们进步的贵人。简言之，这两类学生都坚定而自信，也因此收割了很多利益。

——引自章节：减负,还是加压