S4E135 How the wealthy get down. College

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (0s): Good morning. I'm hoping that I have good connection. Let's fix this here. I'm coming through a crazy area and I should have just waited. I don't know what I'm gonna title this. I, I, I, I, I just picked a word because I was just trying to set it up before I left. But you know, I was watching the TikTok and people were talking about being wealthy.

Okay? And what it's like being extremely wealthy and trying to matriculate into these universities, these institutions that are really difficult to get in unless you're legacy or you have big donors, et cetera. They were talking about, apparently there was Heather Dub from Real Housewives of Orange County. I haven't watched that in so long, but I do remember her and how she comes off and stuff like that.

And apparently things haven't changed. And let me just say this, people aren't making certain things up, right? When you talk about those who are just like wealthy or who are like, I grew up, I never knew I was, I don't know if I would say I was poor, but I didn't have a lot of money. I mean, my needs were met and everything like that, but I, yeah. And so when I went off to college, let's just say I was exposed to so much the kids and I did not go to Harvard, okay?

But these kids who are used to attending these private institutions, they're used to growing up a certain way, right? They have access to everything, the best, everything. And what I have learned, you know, I'm old now, right? you know, I'm 48 years old. I've learned that like they, they had access to people getting them tutors and like I never had any of that.

They, their process to get into college was so curated, right? It was so curated. They had the right tutors to get them, like to basically put them in positions so that they tested like extremely high on their SATs. They had people that like, they were well coached on how to get into college. I remember growing up, I don't even know how I got accepted into all these colleges because no one held me.

Like, let me rephrase that. I shouldn't say no one helped me, but I was filling in applications. I'm sure maybe my high school might've helped out a little bit, but like my family didn't help me with anything. And when I look at things now and I was able to help my son, of course, but like I, think about like how a lot of these parents, like they write the essay for their children. They have people that do nothing but help them like prepare to, you know, test well on these standardized tests.

They, and then like the wealthy, like they are donating so much money to these universities. And, they like the wealthy kids. Like someone had mentioned this, and I do believe this 'cause I forgot something had, someone had said to me when I was in college, like there are kids who create businesses and, and non-profits or whatever you wanna call it, right? like you are like, wow. Like they're just so amazing.

And then I, think about things like my oldest, he was working at the local grocery store. He took piano lessons and stuff like that, but like, you know, he needed to work. Sorry, that's one of my alarms. It's going off. So it's messing up my video. If he wanted money for his car to put gas in his car, stuff like that, he needed to work. So there are like kids out here who, they would go work for people, they would do free internships.

And I was like, what? What is this thing you say called a free internship? 'cause I can't work for free And. they would have like these awesome opportunities. They're getting like letters for admission, like, you know, referral letters or whatever. Like from like me, it'd be from like chairman of some board or something. I remember when I was helping my son prepare to, to for school and to try to get into this honors college, of which he's no longer in the honors college.

But they were telling me when I first, they did a solid And, they were like, we're not gonna accept your application into this honors college. Go back and do it again. And I had checked all the boxes and I thought that, you know, he had done a good job, listen to me, I checked the boxes. But it was really me going back over saying, Hey look, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this. And. they said you're gonna need more. Because you have students who are coming here who get letters and rec letters of recommendations from people who are like CEOs of this and chairman of the math department for that.

And all kinds of like crazy stuff. Needless to say, these wealthy kids have so much money and access to a different level of networking. Their connections are on some next level stuff. And when you're ordinary and you don't have those connections, all you have is your tenacity. All you have is your brilliance given to you by God. But like based off of, I don't wanna say limited exposure, I would say different exposure, but limited for that environment.

So when people talk about privilege, it is definitely real because these kids at a young age, these wealthy kids, they know how to work around the system. And, they know money talks and opens doors, connections, everything. Knowing the right language on how to speak the right boarding schools. These kids were attending border schools. I remember I was having a conversation with someone at work of several people actually. And I had to explain to them like especially growing up in the north, how they value education.

Now that doesn't mean elsewhere in the country or around the world that they don't value education. But in the north education is, is like a flex, right? And I remember when I went to college, I can't even make this up. When I was in college, I was a freshman and I was in math one, which is basically calc one, which is like calc one and part of calc two, right? So all the math is accelerated and I was on a little bit on the stroke bus that first semester. But like I remember I met this woman and she was always so well put together.

She was nice, she was polite. Like she didn't have like much of a personality, but she was like two or three math classes ahead. Like, and to her that was normal. And here I am in an engineering school, And, they, and you know that it's normal to take calc, like calc one or whatever. And she was like there, there like almost like I was in remedial math. And she's like, and if you ever need help, like for her that was like, oh my, it must be so hard for you having to take this remedial math.

Like that's how it came off, right? So of these kids was just, and, and that's anywhere you go. But generally speaking, like her world, that was the norm. Like there were kids, oh gosh. I mean there's kids around the country who are used to just being flown everywhere on private jets and everything like that. But to get into like these institutions, you have to really like have access like, right? Like so they say that, you know, they're no longer going to be looking at legacy.

I don't believe that's true because places like Harvard always, I get these schools in big name like private schools. How are they expected to get their money? How are they expected to have these healthy endowments if they don't have those big time donors with their legacy kids? So I'm not so sure, excuse me, I'm not so sure. I believe that legacy, they're gonna pull back on legacy. I mean it might be like 1% or something. Now these are just my opinions, these are my Botox.

All I know was they had so much access and knowledge in everything. I remember my suitemate used to yell at her parents because she was like, stop slipping money to me. Like she, I guess had this conscience where she was just like, I can do this on my own. If you keep giving me money, I'm giving it to the homeless. Now keep in mind they're like pay for her education. So she's thinking that she's like independent and like, I appreciate the sentiment, I guess.

And meanwhile I was like, if you ever wanna give up all of your hundreds of dollars that they're slipping to you as like a little, what do you call it? Like a little here, just take this as some change or something, right? Let me tell you, it was just like the amount of money that her parents were trying to like sneak into like different pockets, different coats and stuff like that. Because she was just like, please don't do it. I'm trying to make it on my own. And, they know money talks.

And that was like small change to them. I remember she was opening up something and she was losing it because they slipped just a little bit of change to her, right? And it was like six, $700. And then she opened up something else and there was some like more money in there or something like that. She was just so disgusted. And she's like, stop trying to give me money. That was like on the low end right now, like the really uber, uber wealthy people who are probably like a billionaire or something like that.

I'm sure they're getting, they're not getting that kind of money. But the point I'm making is the kids who have access to money grew up with extreme wealth. It is a completely different world than what I would also say to you now, this is just my opinion based on my collection of experiences. And I can't say for certain that these were the wealthy people, but I can surmise they were because they had everything. There were people who, what is this?

Oh, somebody's texting me about a book that we're supposed to be reading there. There were people like these super wealthy people, They like their personalities. like you, of course you've got drugs everywhere. But like I found that some of the women were a little bit, they were very polished, very polite. But like I said, it was a completely different world. They had everything. Like they're all like, I hate to say all, but they were all like oblivious to the ails of a common person, right?

Like They wanted to feel like they were doing something good, but they didn't really know how to connect, right? Like they, they just lived a completely different life, a completely different world from the common person. And it was almost, I hate to say it like an inconvenience, but they, these wealthy kids exist in spaces that like most people have no concept of. We would not know how to navigate in and out of these spaces.

The language would be different. I I, I liken it to like how black people know how to communicate without talking. And there's, there are certain words and things that we say when we are a mixed company and we get it right? Like that most won't get like when there's things that we're concerned about. Like it's just a way of communicating and it's just a way of letting them know like, I don't know about this one, don't do this, whatever. Right?

So there are things there, there are things that they say, things that they do like that makes sense. Like even just like when you talk about where you went to school and, and if you know people, whatever, like that lets them know what time it is. Like, and I'm, this is just based off of my collection of experiences. It makes me think of like Heather Dubrow. Now I'm bringing it back to this house where I think, 'cause I was, they was showing clips of her. I mean she's pretty much the same from what I can see based off of those previous seasons when I actually used to watch that show years ago.

She doesn't know how to connect with people. She comes to office cold, cold and snobbish. And because she has access to so much money. And so the way she moves around people is completely different. She can, so, but I don't know. I I just wanted to just throw that out there when I was talking about like privilege or whatever it is, right?

Like people who are in those spaces, like it's just different when it comes to, I wanted to talk about the schools for a second. I'm sorry. My eye is so itchy right now. People who are attending, like, who apply to schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, that type of thing. Like there, there's regular people who are working really hard. And then like I said, there's the rules for the extremely wealthy. Like I would challenge that they are not even writing their obligations.

Like they're not writing those essays. I made my son write his stuff to get to school. I made them write it. They, the people like these wealthy kids, I, they, their lives have been so, 'cause they gotta keep all this wealth within the family. So like they, they have to get into these, these schools like the connections, the the opportunities, it's the networking, like all that stuff.

Like they have to get into those schools. but I would, I would bet, well I don't have a lot of money. I've got about 3 cents. I would bet all 3 cents. They're not writing those applications. They're not, you know, they're not doing the essays. And when you think about schools like Harvard and Yale and instance stuff like that, look at the, they have to sometimes go out and get foreign people because they don't have enough Americans doing it. But like these kids have access to sports like water polo and squash.

I call it fencing, but it's, what is it, foil or whatever you call it. you know, look, frost is kind of a big deal. So here I am, my very brown daughter plays this lacrosse, this sport. And I'm like, she's always the only one, right? She loves the sport, but she looks around. But you rarely see someone who looks like her rarely. Anyway, with that being said, I just wanted to throw that out there.

It was just something to talk about. Something other than all the other stuff. 'cause I'm gonna be honest, like I'm you, well lemme just lemme speak on this for a second. You've got all these women out here who don't look like me whining and crying because the election didn't go the way they wanted and now they wanna have a four B movement against men. And it's such a mockery because I feel like every time there is a movement, they wanna go and co-opted something because they're upset.

I'm like, well they do the work here, fix it. If you are concerned about certain things, fix it. But to co-op a movement that originated from South Korea, right? And I, lemme tell you something, I don't know if they've given it a name, but I feel like the Japanese are in on it too. 'cause they're not having children. The Chinese aren't having children, right? And so now you got a bunch of women out here whining and crying, upset and asking black women like, what can we do?

And I'm like, don't you ask us, don't you start, they're wanna participate in this four B movement. And I'm like, what is happening? I'm like, every time I turn around there's a co-op of a movement. I'm like, they need to stop. I'm like, Get collect your breath and figure out how to solve problems. Solve, solve problems. Now don't come asking me, don't come asking us. I'm resting. I'm resting for four years.

Don't bother me. Okay? you know, I just wanna get my rest on. Don't, I'm definitely not marching or anything like that. So don't even send anything over my way. Y'all need to go figure some things out, okay? But all this getting out here on social media wanting to be crying because things didn't go your way. I'm like, wait a second. If you would put the energy into solving whatever problems you think are ailing you here, you wouldn't have to go co-opt these other movements.

Cut it out. Now if you're doing it because that's genuinely how you feel, that's fine. But I'm like, the whole situation is a situation. I'm like, give me a break. Okay, that's all I've got. And goodbye.

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