I studied at Harvard and the answer is that they want to pretend to be so smart and talented that they don't need to work. The image is of the effete aristocrat who enjoys life without lifting a finger.
Think of George W. Bush: Got into Yale (Harvard too!) because his blue-blood line always did. Mediocre grades. Lots of alcohol and drugs. (Quit that later.) Avoided Vietnam with the cushiest fun job as a fighter pilot who never flies out of Texas skies (and mostly skipped that too). Led some companies funded by his rich family. President twice.
I believe you and the author are describing two different types of students. The author describes students who want to work and succeed but are unable to cope with "real-world problems rather than contrived academic examples," whereas you seem to point to students who want instead to luxuriate in their self-perceived social class.
I haven't read everything here but Harvard students probably play signaling games where one might also want to signal that they are wealthy enough to not to work for money.
The wealthy raise their kids so that they will naturally signal this.
The university is more like a playground to meet connections and signaling that you are not focusing on work but socializing may be beneficial.
Sure there are people like you paint. But this is a wide psychological phenomena that comes up in all spectrums of privilege. Impostor syndrome, the “gifted kid” memes with chronic anxiety, and here students who start flailing once the non-structured life of adulthood creeps up on them.
Sprezzatura is the name of this. A "certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it."
> A 2019 National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Peter Arcidiacono found that 43% of students admitted to Harvard College were either athletes, legacies, members of the "Dean's" or "Director's" lists of relations of donors or prominent figures
More than you think. Each high school, back in my day, have a quota that can get into Ivy League. They can’t accept everyone that is smart other else it will be in the tens of thousands. Every year, there would be 1-2 that go into even though they were borderline. They got in because their family donated a million dollar building. They didn’t even make it a secret. I went to an elite college prep school. The really smart ones I know got in through scholarships to help balance the scales. It’s just business at the end.
It's not an either/or. Very few people have the connections necessary to get into elite schools with, say, a 1.0 GPA in high school (or an equally terrible performance on whatever your preferred measure of merit is). But Harvard is filled with merely moderately above average legacies who would have otherwise ended up at a good state school or equivalent.
Think of George W. Bush: Got into Yale (Harvard too!) because his blue-blood line always did. Mediocre grades. Lots of alcohol and drugs. (Quit that later.) Avoided Vietnam with the cushiest fun job as a fighter pilot who never flies out of Texas skies (and mostly skipped that too). Led some companies funded by his rich family. President twice.
Who wouldn't want that?