E55: The 400K College Scam — Top Ivy League Admissions Expert Explains

College sits in the middle of the merit, DEI, free-speech, tuition, and young-socialism fight. We’ll ask how to get into Harvard—and whether it’s worth getting into.

My wife found your work first; immigrant parents start plotting in diapers. You coined “go Ivy or go free”—what’s the logic?

Most degrees aren’t worth the price. Without an elite credential, you can often get the education free or nearly free online. You’re paying for status and signaling, so take the cheap route unless the name changes your opportunities.

For the ordinary unconnected applicant, schools build rounded classes from kids with sharp domains. Is the play showing that what you’ve done points toward what you’ll do there?

Broadly, yes. Harvard went from roughly ten thousand applicants decades ago to nearly sixty thousand. Admissions is an attention contest: be memorable, but don’t manufacture it.

Can a smart, fairly normal kid who follows your plan reach an Ivy?

Generally, yes, if they do the work. Scores aren’t simply innate ability; serious SAT prep can move results more than two hundred points. Notice aptitude early and invest where the kid responds. One student’s real interest in beehives led to farmland work and environmental engineering.

My worry is the bee project becoming a costume for Dartmouth, then disappearing. Employers want the code to work, not another polished nonprofit story.

Performative projects and parents forcing squash are dumb. But narratives matter in hiring and startup programs, while hard skills still matter. Give kids structure; target talent, not passion. They often become passionate after they start winning.

I’ll defend part of this brutal system: it demands discipline, grit, action, and getting off the damn screen. “Follow your passion” can become doomscrolling.

At fourteen, particle-accelerator simulations and competitions pulled me forward because I was good at them. Encourage excellence while keeping academics solid.

What’s the plan for the suburban kid with average SATs, sports, APs, a girlfriend, and Iowa or Michigan State ahead—how do they reach an eighty-thousand-dollar job?

Work backward from the life you want at thirty or fifty, not the logo or major. Cheaper, lower-stress paths can work: a friend skipped college, trained on Ferraris, and now runs a thriving repair business.

When does the elite degree earn its keep—OpenAI, banking, medicine, law?

Finances come first; debt is usually a bad deal. STEM often pencils out better, and free engineering at Illinois or Georgia Tech can be phenomenal. Prestige matters most where there’s no clean competence test: banking, consulting, medicine, law.

Young people were sold college as the finish line, then got debt and a world that feels rigged. Does college still help the poorest tier?

Only if training leads to a specific job. A costly theater master’s for low pay is a disaster. Debt survives bankruptcy, housing and family formation feel out of reach, and that anger isn’t laziness.

Should kids fear AI or get excited?

Builders should be thrilled: a week can replace a year. Routine button-pushing, including corporate and legal busywork, is exposed. The strongest stack is technical skill plus social intelligence: math for new problems, judgment for people.

AI could make winners wildly more productive, but the power law gets ugly. Huge resentment?

Yes, unless successful people behave better. Technology raises living standards, but elites advertise yachts to indebted kids. Brilliant wealthy people can visibly choose hard problems and solve them.

What do you tell young people besides, “don’t complain”?

Structural obstacles are real, but this is also the easiest era to start something. The lifelong employee bargain is fading. Build a small business or join an early company for equity; control over wage, time, and upside gives you a shot.

Lightning round: Stanford or Harvard?

Stanford. Free Illinois engineering over MIT at one hundred thousand a year. Test-optional admissions are one of the dumbest ideas I’ve seen. If Peter Thiel offers two hundred grand to leave Harvard and build, go.

What’s the most underrated move with teenagers?

Church—faith in God. Without great role models, it can create a new identity: you can become more than your starting point. Help with homework, but don’t do it for them; keep challenge just beyond what they manage alone.

And if I could guarantee my kid Harvard, ten million by thirty, or a happy marriage?

Happy marriage, easily. I know people worth far more than ten million, and money doesn’t rescue an unhappy marriage. They’d make that trade immediately.