节目开始时，肯和约翰描绘了今天的大学招生情况。他们引用了一些令人恐惧的数据，说明精英学校对学生的选择性，并指出，给高中生施加被录取的压力既不好也不健康。约翰描述了这样一个恶性循环:申请一所学校的人数越多，就会越挑剔，这就会带来更高的声望，进而导致第二年申请人数更多。肯想知道，把青少年置于这样的环境中会产生什么后果。

在他的介绍之后，米切尔·史蒂文斯回答了约翰关于大学招生发生了什么变化的问题。当前的经济形势使得像斯坦福这样的精英院校不仅录取人数紧张，而且录取人数普遍紧张。米切尔解释说，学院或大学就像夜总会:它拒绝的人越多，它就越受欢迎。

Ken wonders whether the prestige of a school even matters. Do elite schools deliver something to their students that can’t be gotten elsewhere? Mitchell answers that it’s true that prestige matters and lists three reasons. First of all, graduating from an elite college or university pre-sorts you in applicant pools for the rest of your life. Second of all, it creates a web of relationships that you can cultivate for the rest of your life. And thirdly, it affects who you’re likely to marry or remarry. From an educational angle, John adds that he doesn’t think it matters much unless you have ambitious research interests; undergraduates should focus on the quality of teaching, not the prestige of a university, because that is the factor in their choice that they will be most affected by.

The discussions sparked by audience questions range from consideration for the ethics of affirmative action to the common yet vague criterion of leadership potential. John concludes the show with a hopeful word of a advice. High schoolers shouldn’t be discouraged by rejection; students can have fun at college anywhere. Ken, on a more serious note, chimes in that a wonderful fact about America is that there are so many great universities. Society shouldn’t be so obsessed by the marginal utility granted by a school’s prestige.

• Roving Philosophical Reporter(寻找5点40分):凯特琳·埃施通过与帕洛阿尔托的婚姻和家庭治疗师丽莎·迪马里诺(Lisa Dimarino)交谈，了解了高成绩高中生所处的高压环境。
  
• 60-Second Philosopher(Seek to 48:58) : After reflection on how things were different when he was a boy, Ian Shoales counsels students that their only hope in the sinking job market is to, somehow, get rich quick.