WHEN TOWN & COUNTRY AND TIKTOK ARE YOUR KID’S COLLEGE COUNSELORS AND WEALTH COSPLAY AT INDEPENDENT SCHOOLS

...ALSO, WHAT'S NEW "IN THE ZEITGEIST"

Town & Country and TikTok as College Counselors

For years, college admissions has been the amuse bouche for any middle-aged adult conversation, varying from the proverbial, “no one got in this year” to the lament over the phasing out of legacy admissions to the flat out confession that it’s hard to create a compelling  trauma story arc for kids whose hardest day was sitting on the bench in club soccer finals (for fun, check out Tina Yong’s TED talk, “The rise of the ‘trauma essay’ in college applications”).

The college race has become so much a part of cocktail party chatter that 120-year-old society rag, Town & Country Magazine, has seemingly entered the counseling game—not literally, of course, but definitely in theory. If you google the “Education” page of the magazine, you’ll find at least 50 thought-provoking as well as facetious articles on the subject. Some of my recent favorite pieces have included “Duke, Baruch, or Bust,” “Summer ‘Resume Building’ For Fourth Graders?” and “How to Cheat and Who to Call When You Get Caught.”

With AI potentially about to render the college essay obsolete, parents and kids need all the advice they can get. Enter the college counselors of TikTok.

A standout is Andreas (no last name, like Cher and Madonna) of Ivy League Roadmap. He’s earnest and handsome…he can be your college counselor for a price that will be “custom quoted tailored to your needs.”

Lately, someone even more interesting has caught my eye. She is Sanibel, a self-described author and journalist who has a very specific side hustle helping kids not just with college essays, but with the growing niche of sanitizing the profiles of privileged kids so that they don’t smack of elitism.

She helpfully advises wealthy kids to avoid essay topics such as: “How your mom taught you the importance of a skincare routine, “how you learned a second language for your nanny,” “how your therapist helped you accept yourself and not feel guilty about your family’s wealth.” She knows she’s being amusing, but these are real ideas that she nixed.

Wealth Cosplay at Independent Schools

Speaking of having to beat the privilege out of kids’ profiles, I have been thinking a lot about the wealth narratives prevalent at independent schools. My statistically significant  sample comes from a smattering of friends with kids at independent (aka “prep”) schools around the country.

We all agree that something happened after Covid—the kids came back feral, and many parents came back wealthy AF. Hence, the school fund-raising teams take you to Starbucks to discuss seven and eight figure gifts like they are the lint in your pocket. The pressure has everyone cosplaying like they are part of the .01%.

And, yet, there remains an earnest desire for a diverse student body. For whose benefit? I know a prominent parent at an equally prominent school who (repeatedly) emphasizes that she thinks that kids of all socio-economic backgrounds should have a place at independent schools so that her kids learn not to be taken aback when they get to college and their roommate, for example, rebuffs their idea to go out for a sushi lunch. She wants her kids to understand that most people aren’t able to enjoy some omakase on a whim—indeed, most college kids have to stick to whatever is offered on the meal plan. So this parent is committed to a diverse student body so that children of privilege learn not to be tone deaf jackholes. Hmmmm….

When I attended an independent school, the population was much more middle class. While there were certainly socio-economic differences between the kids, they didn’t feel as jarring as they do today. I harkened back fondly to this time in history in my farewell remarks delivered to my fellow Board members as I ended my term as a Trustee at my own children’s independent school. I’ll include an excerpt here.

I would like to end by sharing a chapter from my own life that began a long time ago. In the early 1980s, a painfully shy, Coke bottle glasses-wearing, velour-track-suit clad, eldest child of an immigrant family—ME, in case it wasn’t obvious—started her first day of sixth grade at an independent school often compared to this one. My dad had heard about the school’s excellence from neighbors, and he wanted that for me. He zealously hand wrote my application with his engineer’s mechanical pencil, ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS, and I somehow got in. He never once mentioned the cost, but I knew it was punishing, and he made every possible personal sacrifice so that I could attend. Going to that school changed the very course of my life.

I lost my dad just a few months ago. In our last days together, I was surprised that he specifically mentioned my school and how proud he was that I was able to go to an institution like that. And on the day he passed away, not knowing exactly what to do, I whispered THANK YOU in his ear because my friend told me that hearing is the last thing to go, and I wanted him to know. Of course it was thank you for many things, but at the very top of that list was that he dreamed that dream of education for me. I share this personal story so that we may be reminded that for the majority of the families who send their kids to this school, it will be among the greatest gifts they are ever able to give them, the impact of which will be felt in ways we can never predict. And I hope that when things get tough, that the both the tenderness as well as the power of that idea will serve as the wind at your backs.

In the zeitgeist…

Everyone is:

• Putting their content behind a paywall—You can’t ready anything unless you are a paying subscriber. Former model and current Hollywood wife Molly Sims, for example, won’t even tell you what brand of jeans she wore to her kid’s lacrosse game unless you pay her.

• Wanting teachers to stop pretending that AI doesn’t exist and that it isn’t going to become better really fast. To English teachers around the world (and I say this with love): the book report is no longer a relevant assignment. It’s time to come up with something new. Let’s teach our kids to think/compete in the times in which we are living.

• Loving the philanthropic flex of the billionaires ex-wives club—Melissa French Gates and MacKenzie Scott (Bezos)

• Covetous of the dream job of “Culture Editor,” yet another job that did not exist when many of us were coming up. Check out Taylor Antrim of Vogue.

• Disappointed about the double standard in women’s tennis

• …while at the same time into tennis—especially after the fantastic film, Challengers. Public Service Announcement: Pickleball is not tennis.

• Offering those weird sandals that we used to buy at the mall for $5—but slap “The Row” or “Alaia” on them and you can charge $1000/pair…did anyone say fashion victim?

• Newly fascinated with 90s icon, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, 25 years after her death.

• Impressed at how Selena Gomez turned her Rare Beauty company into a $300 million, incredibly well run beauty behemoth that is rumored to be neck in neck with Charlotte Tilbury for number one beauty brand. I knew she was going places ever since Wizards of Waverly Place.

• Obsessed with HACKS and how this smart show deals with dreams deferred at any age. It is a master class in relationships, womanhood, vulnerability and overall humanity. Save the three seasons for a long airplane ride because it just got renewed for season 4.

• Curious about SANKALPA. I’m exploring this as a tool to both calm my anxiety and increase my productivity.

Xo

-P

Instagram: @priyaadesai1