FREDDIE DEBOER: The Stations of the Meritocrat Cross. “I thought that this Atlantic piece by a current Yale undergraduate (likely paywalled, but I dunno) was pretty good. While it’s a little overwritten, the piece did a really good job of capturing the addiction to grinding and status culture that consumes our young people.”

Here’s an archive link to the Atlantic piece. “Yale is a place where everyone is a winner. Less than 5 percent of people who apply are offered a spot. You might think that this selectivity would make students feel confident and secure—if we had to beat out 95 percent of our peers to get in, we must be really special. But the opposite seems to be true: Students, fueled by insecurity, feel the need to over-justify their worthiness. And so they impose endless hierarchies on one another.”

That’s because although they excel in the rat race, they have limited real-world achievements to build genuine confidence. Requiring two years in the real world at an actual paying job — NOT an internship — would do wonders. Hell, Yale could require two years as a warehouse worker, it would be less than the current system demands of applicants, and societally useful as well.