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  • I Hate the Ivy League

  • Riffs and Rants on Elite Education
  • By: Malcolm Gladwell
  • Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
  • Length: 5 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (91 ratings)
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I Hate the Ivy League cover art

I Hate the Ivy League

By: Malcolm Gladwell
Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
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Summary

From Malcolm Gladwell’s hit podcast Revisionist History comes a compendium about one of his greatest obsessions: education.

Malcolm Gladwell has long relished the opportunity to skewer the upper echelons of higher education, from the institution of U.S. News & World Report’s Best College rankings to the LSATs to the luxe Bowdoin College cafeteria. I Hate the Ivy League: Riffs and Rants on Elite Education, upends the traditional thinking around how education should work and tries to get to the bottom of why we often reward the wrong people. The higher education system follows a hierarchy that was created to primarily benefit top-tier, elite, well-off students, but Gladwell wants to find out how we can do a better job at educating the middle and make education more affordable, fair, and open to all. 

Why is Gladwell so obsessed with American education? The foreword and afterword of I Hate the Ivy League explains, framing this carefully curated selection of Revisionist History episodes. If you’ve never listened to Revisionist History, this collection is a thoughtful introduction to the long-running podcast, and if you’re already a fan, it allows for careful re-examination of the important issues at hand: how do we really determine what matters most when it comes to educating our children? 

Please note: This collection includes content that has been released in the podcast series.

©2021 Malcolm Gladwell (P)2021 Pushkin Industries

What listeners say about I Hate the Ivy League

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Brilliant but misleading

I love revisionist history so I snapped this up as soon as I saw it. More from Malcolm on an issue he is passionate about! Ideal! But so disappointed to find out that it’s just a collection of his podcast. It’s a great podcast but fans beware as you probably have already listened to them all!

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Gladwell is a genius

I’ve never listened to a bad Gladwell book. He is a genius when it comes how strangely we behave as humans and as a society.

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Really interesting insight into America and it’s Ed system.

Really interesting insight into America and it’s Ed system. Seems to promote a predictable and elitist gene pool

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Great book!

Malcolm Gladwell’s signatures storytelling, well argued discussion and really interesting angle looking at the problem with US education. I particularly enjoyed the analogy of football team. If you want to make an improvement in a football game, improve your worst player on the team. So why isn’t the same theory so obvious for the education? Because a lot of it is a historic mess of how much money a university has, its ranking (yes, it’s highly correlated with the previous one), what they spend the money on, its admissions and graduation rate, drawing the divide gap even larger.

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Now I also hate the Ivy League

Ok sure, I would listen to Malcolm Gladwell narrate paint drying if such a thing existed. But only because I know that he would somehow make that interesting, and I will end up caring about it. He has a magical way of taking a topic to which I have given little thought, explaining it in a simple but non condescending way, and instilling in me a sense of wonder, or fascination, or in this case irritation. Does it fix the problem? No. But once again I walk away with a reminder to look at things more deeply, and don’t just take good news stories on face value.
I’m looking at you Princeton.

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  • Jo
  • 15-03-24

Fascinating and well-read

Such an interesting topic, well-researched and entertaining. I love Malcom Gladwell books and this one didn’t disappoint.

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Very interesting review of US schools

After listening to this audio book, what struck me was how complicit and bought into the belief that these the Ivy League schools are the best. Thank you for pulling these stories together and I will now think more about where I can make the biggest difference not support the biggest bank a/c

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Interesting and good listen

Very interesting to know how ranking of the best universities and colleges of the USA is done.

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Great listen

It was a really great read, really thought-provoking, and was able to capture me and get me thinking from the outset

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Top Quality

Malcolm Gladwell did it again, another top quality set of observations, great research, interviews and always leading to an important point. Keep them coming.

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