Culture Clash

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/academia_vs_business.png

I remember a story my AP World History teacher told me back in high school. He was an alumnus of Yale and in his spare time he interviewed seniors in high school that had applied to Yale. Sometimes he would end up interviewing a student who had, as a high school student, already read scholarly works extensively. These students most often always attended private high schools, and either had parents in academia or parents who were rich. Other times he would interview students who were middle class or poor, with little academic stimulation other than what they got at school. These students had massive potential to succeed, but did not have the same instilled knowledge. He asked us this question: which student should get the better recommendation if they have the same GPA and SAT?

My uncle brought up a similar predicament. He was distressed about the fact most college students will have to learn how to write a research paper at some point. He says that most people who get a regular job will never have to know how to write a research paper, unless they themselves enter academia. He says that colleges should only be focusing on preparing students for their careers, instead of relying on old methods of teaching, which were only important a century ago, when most people who graduated college would enter academia in some form. This brings up the clash of the academic culture with a newer culture which tells people to achieve academically only for the sake of getting a job sometime in the future.