Tutoring the Elite

I work a few hours a week at the writing center of a highly selective university. Earlier this week a senior in her last semester came in for help on her psychology paper, which criticized a study for ignoring the differences among its subjects. This is unfortunate, she wrote in her conclusion, because "without differences we'd all be the same."

I suggested that some of her readers might actually know this without reading her paper. She stared at me blankly. Apparently that was news to her.