Great book overall, although the author gets quite bitter in the end, could do without part 4..

I don't agree with all of what the author has to say, but this is nonetheless full of valuable ideas for young folks bound for or in college, and probably their parents, too. The core of it, to me, was the price paid by kids whose parents are vying for them to enter an elite college; people are just giving their selves up for the "golden ticket", and it may not be worth the cost of admission. (Psychologically speaking, of course: economically, it probably does make sense, which is part of why it's so pernicious.)

On the whole, Excellent Sheep makes a number of important and persuasive points, namely, that elite universities breed one-dimensional people. The arms race to have resumes the length of one's arm starts with parents, and then continues through and beyond college. Because there is little reflection given to introspection or personal life goals, only a handful of majors, which are likely to be the most lucrative, are chosen. More importantly, students develop blinders, unable to think critically or contribute as effectively to their communities because they have been molded to be doctors, lawyers, financiers, or consultants.

I also agreed with his point that colleges and universities's claim that they 'develop leaders' is overblown. They really don't. What would be far more useful is emphasizing and developing the traits of a good citizen. In abandoning a liberal arts education, an education that's really meant to be independent of major and develops the whole person, elite universities, mostly through peer pressure, squeeze their students into a mold.

Deresiewicz takes a condescending turn when he says that science and art have replaced religion and faith. In other words, people of faith missed the memo that everybody else (thinking people) has moved on from such primitive thinking.

On the whole, though, this book is worth the read and challenges the status quo of elite education in this country.

Very repetitive, but interesting nonetheless. Probably could have been half as long but just as compelling!

Stephen--I'll write a review in the next day or two.

Had many good points but had a hard time getting over the author's cynical view of the young adults of today.

Excellent Sheep addresses the existentialist angst felt by the "elite" of my generation. Although I didn't attend Harvard/Princeton/Yale, I managed to join the investment banking wave after graduating from a public university. Then, I jumped through two more hoops into private equity and an elite MBA program. The first part of the text diagnoses the rampant credentialism in the U.S. that drives talented and successful people to follow the same narrow path.

In Part 1, Deresiewicz exposes the meritocratic funnel system that's led to largely undifferentiated, risk-averse elites. Starting in grade school, kids must earn top marks, lead social clubs, and captain several sports. All to earn a spot at the top universities in the world. Successful kids cannot afford to fail and most often do not. Success alone, rather than learning or socializing or growing, is seen as a worthwhile pursuit.

Then, you get into Harvard. Now what? Welcome to a new rat race, where the funnel towards investment banking and consulting begins freshman year. Rather than pursue budding passions, students often plan schedules to avoid difficult courses without "guaranteed" As. Attaining club leadership requires joining early, so students look to join as many as possible. I had one friend join 12 his freshman year and cut his load to 5 leadership positions by senior year. Why? Too hard to give up that need for success, for more credentials.

Then, you graduate and join the elite ranks of young professionals on the path to success. Goldman Sachs and Mckinsey are lined up at the door with promises of money impossible to turn down for most graduates. Join the elite! But, all along the way, did you ever figure out why you set down that path? Did you truly stop to think about what you want to achieve in your life? Probably not. It's easiest to take the path that looks good and maintains flexibility for the next rung up the ladder.

Deresiewicz examines students led through the elite system and determines that our education system is failing them. We have a lot of driven, successful, intelligent individuals without passions beyond success. Is it all that surprising that so many are driven towards high paying jobs? If you don't feel a passion for your career, why not go for the highest paying one? Then, hope you find some meaning further down the line. Excellent Sheep hit home for me. I've lived the life Deresiewicz examines. I'm more scared of failure because I've rarely failed (in my own view). It's hard to take real risks when you feel such fear.

My rant above addresses the first half of the book. The second half is interesting but more radical. The author emphasizes that he understands the difficulty of changing the system from within and offers some Bernie Sanders-style solutions to fixing education. He offers strong arguments but doesn't address any potential concerns. He's not claiming a comprehensive solution but rather adding his voice to the cacophony of voices chanting: "This is not the way it should be done." The relative weakness of the second part (less than 25% of the text) does not diminish the importance of Deresiewicz's message. To anyone looking to understand meritocracy and the explosion of high-paying finance and consulting careers, I couldn't recommend Excellent Sheep more.

I'll preface this by saying that I believe this book is intended for middle-, upper-middle-, and upper-class students who graduated from Ivy League or top-tier private colleges. One of my main critiques was that it doesn't adequately address low-income students, students of color, students who are the children of immigrants, or first-generation college students on these campuses. However, I do think that the mentality that Deresiewicz describes in the first two chapters is a common one on "top-tier" campuses like my own, especially amongst middle-, upper-middle-, and upper-class students. In fact, that's where the strength of this book lies: its accurate description of and willingness to talk about the very real problems that plague these particular students on these campuses. The impacts on mental health are very real, and cannot simply be brushed off or ignored. At the same time, these issues are not the only ones that exist on college campuses, and are exacerbated for those students I know who struggle to eat or house themselves or obtain school supplies during the semester while also struggling with the mental health implications of being on a high-achieving campus. Deresiewicz does not do a good enough job of acknowledging this.

On top of that, I think that there were a good many parts of this book that assume that all students in the middle-, upper-middle-, and upper-class categories come from generational wealth and are white, some things that are, at least in my case, not at all true. Firstly, Dereciewicz often argues that students need to study what they love, be that English or History or the fine arts. While he does say that getting a well-paying job is important, that's mostly an afterthought. As a South Asian-American woman with an immigrant single mom, I'll be the first to tell you that getting a job that allows me to support myself is the main reason that I'm going to college, not "self-actualization." Secondly, Deresiewicz's argument that all students need to study the great literature and philosophy of the Western canon, and the Western canon only, was downright offensive. I go to a school that teaches a Great Books curriculum, and while I do love it, I have also come away feeling that I am an afterthought and not at all well read because of the emphasis on dead white men's writing. Additionally, Deresiewicz's ideas that you should attend a school with socioeconomic and racial diversity, and also that the best colleges to attend are small, private liberal arts colleges, seem to run counter to one another. I visited a couple small liberal arts schools when I was in high school, and immediately decided not to apply because of how uncomfortable I was amidst the overwhelming whiteness and exorbitant wealth that exists on these campuses (more so than in the Ivy League, which at the very least gives out need-based financial aid--another thing that Deresiewicz, confusingly, argues against).

I did love the section on the value of the arts (I think chapter 8), and Deresiewicz's discussion of the ways in which literature, music, and painting allow us to capture the whole messiness of human life in a way neither the natural nor social sciences can ever account for. It is an essay that many people, especially those that look down on the arts while enjoying their favorite books and TV shows, need to read. But I think that the discussion of the arts and the discussion of mental health on these college campuses were really the only strengths of this book: Deresiewicz ultimately never tries to understand the perspective of anyone who isn't a white man who comes from generations of wealth and education, and his book is less convincing because of it.

I have mixed feelings about this book. His fundamental argument is generally (1) college students are miserably unhappy; (2) they're unhappy because they have no meaning or purpose in their life but instead are trained from birth to compete and be good students but not good thinkers; (3) society as a whole suffers when the "leadership class" is composed of technocrats seeking competence rather than leaders pursuing ideals; (4) the existing "meritocracy" is simply rebranded aristocracy insidiously shrouded in legitimacy; and (5) the entire system serves the interests of the one-percenters but fails society as a whole.

In large part, I agree with his conclusions. I see shades of Piketty's Capital and Hayes' Twilight of the Elites, but this is a better written, more engaging, more fluid read. His views on the elite college admissions system certainly ring true to my own situation--I grew up a poor, rural, white, 1st-gen college student who attended an elite university, and I wholeheartedly echo his reflections on the state of "diversity" in elite universities: here's a rich, secular humanist white kid from Massachusetts who attended a prep feeder school, here's a rich, secular humanist Asian kid from California who attended a prep feeder school, here's a rich, secular humanist black kid from D.C. who attended a prep feeder school, here's a rich, secular humanist Arab kid from New Jersey who attended a prep feeder school, aren't we all so incredibly diverse?

While I agree with his description of the problem, I'm not sure I agree with his diagnosis. In particular, he asserts that the dearth of values/principles results from our technocratic fetish and emphasis on vocational training, and that the best way to resolve this is to find meaning and purpose through art, literature, and engaging seminars in the humanities. As a humanities major myself, I don't disagree with what he's saying, but he's essentially doubling-down on secular humanism, outlining what appears to be a stepped-up version that takes the good parts of religion (here's your transcendence, meaning, eternal principals, and community) but leaves out the thorny moral questions.

But I feel compelled to ask, rather than seek out a non-transcendental substitute for the real thing, why not find transcendence at its source? If the problem with our leadership class today is a lack of rootedness in values and character (as opposed to an ill-defined earlier time when this apparently wasn't a problem), why try to find those values in secular humanism and not in religion? He grants early on that religious institutions appear to be addressing those questions better than elite universities (and, somewhat ironically, he even slyly denigrates these second-class institutions, seeming surprised that the mouth-breathers can even formulate such weighty questions!). But he fails to follow through on the logic that if narrow-minded morons at poor institutions (tongue-in-cheek) can find the meaning he's looking for, then one can only imagine the results that could be obtained with smart students at good institutions approaching things the same way.

If the problem with college students today (and the leadership class tomorrow) is a lack of character, values, drive, passion, love, and community, it seems to me more an indictment of the drive to remove the transcendent from the public sphere.

Notwithstanding the above, this book made me think, and it certainly deserves its place atop the bestseller lists.