Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

“The system manufactures students who are smart and talented and driven, yes, but also anxious, timid, and lost, with little intellectual curiosity and a stunted sense of purpose: trapped in a bubble of privilege, heading meekly in the same direction, great at what they’re doing but with no idea why they’re doing it.”

This sums up the premise of the book. Deresiewicz sees accomplished students with great resumes, who also feel lost and have no sense of purpose. It ties to his title (“talented” = excellent, “meekly” = sheep) and the main theme of the purpose of education. Deresiewicz goes on to explain why this is and how it can be changed.

“From someone who was in the process of transferring out of Stanford: ‘For many students, rising to the absolute top means being consumed by the system. I’ve seen my peers sacrifice health, relationships, exploration, activities that can’t be quantified and are essential for developing souls and hearts, for grades and resume building.’ From a student at Yale: ‘A friend of mine said it nicely: ‘I might be miserable, but were I not miserable, I wouldn’t be at Yale.’’”

These two quotations from students’ firsthand experience illustrate one of the strengths of the book. Deresiewicz has ample experience with the Ivy Leagues, having been both a student and a professor, but he doesn’t rely on his own stories. While researching the book, he talked to many students at universities across the country, amassing a large quantity of personal anecdotes from a wide range of people. To this, he adds data from research to support his points.

“Isolated from their peers, these kids are also cut off from themselves. The endless hoop-jumping, starting as far back as grade school, that got them into an elite college in the first place—the clubs, bands, projects, teams, APs, SATs, evenings, weekends, summers, coaches, tutors, ‘leadership,’ ‘service’—left them no time, and no tools, to figure out what they want out of life, or even out of college. Questions of purpose and passion were not on the syllabus. Once they’ve reached the shining destination toward which their entire childhood and adolescence had been pointed, once they’re through the gates at Amherst or Dartmouth, many kids find out that they have no idea why they’re there, or what they want to do next.”

These are some of the details that form the picture Deresiewicz creates. Students are so busy building their resume and working to get accepted at the right school that they have no time think about the process or what they really want out of it. They’ve focused solely on the destination, not the process, which leaves them wondering what it’s all about.