Be all that you can be

Ta-Nehisi Coates has been wrestling with Ross Douthat's NYTimes column about Sarah Palin, meritocracy, and democracy. His most recent post on the topic, "The Importance of Being Ivy League", riffs on Douthat's implication that Obama's Ivy League law degree makes him part of the elite, whereas Palin's homely college experience makes her just plain folk. Somewhere in the comments somebody pointed out that "Ivy League" is a misleading phrase for referring to elite schools, and they mention Reed College, MIT, CalTech, Berkeley, Michigan, and Duke as non-Ivy-League schools that would qualify. That made me think about how I had actually applied to some of those elite schools.

( The few, the proud )