So long as we are on the topic of independent schools, a document related to the search process for a new head of school at Worcester Academy crossed my desk recently, and there were a couple of lines that made me smile: "the Academy has never lost sight of its deeply held philosophical tenets: WA has traditionally (for over 175 years) eschewed the image and fact of a socially elite institution." The author of the document, Stephen DiCicco of Educational Directions, Inc., observes that among students at Worcester Academy, "there is not a sense of entitlement that one occasionally encounters in schools."
I graduated from that school in 1990 and have been back only rarely since then, but both lines seem apt. It's striking to me that some of the same themes that echo frequently on this Web site — stick "elitism" or "sense of entitlement" into the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page and spend some time browsing through the results, if you have the time — turn up in the school document.