re: Many Ivy League freshmen have never read a book

I a trying to think how many books I read per year in HS. it was definitely 5-6. Probably 3 or maybe more a semester.

I was in honors english but still.

I took fiction in college as an elective course and it was great because you just read.

I remember the midterm it was on Madam Bovary, Robinson Crusoe and Diary of an Ex Colored Man. And you basically had to read a segment and say what book it was from. People were losing their mind aabout how hard it was and I got a 100%. it was fricking easy if you even read part of them book.

1 was in 1st person POV.
1 was 3rd.
1 was written 300 years ago.

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Department of Education has a budget of over $70 billion dollars.

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This would have actually been better spent in the Ukraine. It would have done less damage.

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you are gay Anyway, Frankenstein is bad arse, you should probably reread it.

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I barely make time to read stuff I enjoy

My middle school was super baptist and we read garbage. For summer reading I banged out all the Harry Potter books, only to find out they weren’t allowed because the devil.

I am dyslexic so anything reading or writing was chore in school. Still is but it’s not like I am lawyer so I get by

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a vacuum, I agree with you. I dropped in that bit in response to the first line of the OP:quote:They're not sending their best…

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I dropped that in there because, frankly, I don't think the caliber of students in colleges (especially “good colleges”) is as high as it used to be. And there are better students… home schooled, privately schooled, etc… that could go to Ivies but would never get admitted, for various reasons. In sum, the Ivies are not the place for the best anymore.

Plenty of smart kids read books. My kid read a 1000-page book this summer just for fun.

The problem is that “elite” colleges don’t care about these kids anymore as much as they care about pumping up their DEI admits.

My 7th grader is required a ridiculous amt of reading. He hates it, but it will benefit him in the long run.

That’s hard for me to understand. When I was ten, my mother went to the library, borrowed some of the classics that she had loved as a girl, and put them on back of my bed. She told me that I should read them. I ignored them for about a week, then one day when I was bored, I picked one up. That was the beginning of my love of reading. I don’t know how many books I have read, but it’s probably in the thousands now.
I made sure to do the same thing for my children, and they all love to read. Schools can assign books for kids to read, but it won’t teach them to love it, most of the time, because it seems more like a chore. When a parent encourages a child to read about a subject that interests him, he is far more likely to learn to like reading. And yes, I gave my son differently things to read than I gave my daughters.

How this legitimately possible

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being in engineering all the mandatory classes in liberal arts all

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I'm a CivE by degree, that wasn't part of the curriculum when I was at LSU

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learning begins in the home. The parents need to make reading a priority,

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this, my mom conned me into getting a library card circa first grade, made it seem like I was a big shot to be credentialed at such a tender young age, the library had a "club" that kept track of how many books you read and I couldn't get enough reading, still love to read today