Growth Mindset and Ivy League Admissions

I'm reading Carol Dweck's  Mindset for a faculty Reading Group that I'm in.  So, the main thrust of the book is that there are two kinds of mindsets: fixed and growth. Fixed is about competition. You are up when you are up and down when you are down. Everything is win loss. The other mindset is a growth orientation. You are working to constantly improve. And the wins will come when they do.

I've seen another formulation of this idea in Stephen Pressfield's War of Art. Pressfield argues that there are two kinds of mindsets: hierarchical and territorial. The hierarchical mindset is all about winning. If I remember correctly, Pressfield uses the example of a high school. It's easy to be hierarchical when you're in high school. You can rank first in your class (as I did sometimes), but once you leave a relatively small system, it's very hard to maintain that hierarchical mindset simply because there are so many competitors.

So, Pressfield argues that one should be territorial. By this Pressfield means that you find an area in which you want to work and you keep returning to that area day after day. That area  could be your garden, your art, your writing. It's your turf. And you keep working it. I've liked the idea of territorial mastery.

Dweck's work is similar to Pressfield's. Grow or stay in your territory and work it. And good things will happen. 

Now, I want to take a look at territoriality and growth in an area in which I know a little bit about: Ivy League Admissions.  So, when I got into Penn back in the 80s, I was very fixed in terms of my mindset: Must get into an Ivy. I wasn't quite sure why, but I knew that was a goal. And I got it. I applied to both Princeton and Penn. I got wait-listed at Princeton and admitted to Penn. I have to say, that it wasn't easy to gain admission to one of those schools. 

Years later, while I lived in Orlando, I spent four years interviewing for Penn. I interviewed 48 candidates for admission. And these kids were unbelievably impressive: championship debaters, valedictorians, artists, founders of non-profits. Very few got in.

About a year ago, I responded to a Quora request asking for information about how to get into an Ivy. Well, what I said was, yes, you have to have your wins (grades, activities), but you also have to follow your weird. What I meant by that is that you have to follow your passions. And as I think about it, what that really means is working your territory because you love it and being into your passions. It's about having a growth mindset. You don't do things because you want to get into an Ivy. You get into an Ivy because you're recognized for doing things, things you care about. 

So many kids today are dying to get into Ivies. They want a formula. Dweck, I think, would argue that there isn't one. One simply should follow one's passions and let the chips fall where they may.