I read pieces like this and wonder if the authors went to the same kind of high-end university as me. The answer seems to be that they didn't - even if it was the same name on the door, it was always for an arts degree. I guess I shouldn't be so surprised that a magazine writer studied English, but I'd be really interested to hear similar criticism from a graduate of a hard science, which really did feel like a meritocracy when I went through it.
I'd imagine that's because the admissions criteria colleges use (things like the SAT), does a much better job selecting for people with the right aptitude for hard sciences, at least at the undergraduate level, than it does of selecting for people with the right aptitude for English Literature.
My experience was incredibly similar to his, though I felt like the poor one in high school more than in college. I studied physics at a top public school, so sure a different beast: but the dizzying (and awesome) exploration I did, the meandering searching, endless conversing, questioning etc: very similar experience. I never read a book until after college (that is, a non-scientific book)
