Hustle culture hurts: How elite schools turn pressure into a personality trait.

In the months before I hit rock bottom, I was working three jobs, taking 18 credits, and serving in a leadership role for my student consulting group. There wasn’t enough time in the day to complete my assignments, so I made concessions wherever I could. My Friday nights were spent skimming SparkNotes at my cafe job while dinner— expired pastry leftovers — heated in the oven.

Here’s a tip: If you need to skim SparkNotes, you’re doing something wrong.

For years, I lived under the illusion that attending an elite school required me to seize every opportunity, regardless of its mental toll. Saying  “no” felt like wasting privilege, so I accumulated extracurriculars at an alarming rate. My burnout taught me that while education is a privilege, wellbeing is a necessity.

Today, I want to talk about the dangers of hustle culture and the systemic changes necessary to dismantle it at elite schools. To begin, we’ll take a deeper look at the origins of the problem: the systems and institutions that reinforce our toxic mindsets. I’m talking about grading curves, selective student organizations, competitive recruiting timelines, even LinkedIn itself.

A week in my life as an overcommitted sophomore. My calendar was unhealthy and unsustainable.

A case study on how business school celebrates hustle culture— to a toxic extent

1. A grading curve that makes success exclusive

Only 40% of students can receive an A- or above in Ross core classes. 

Say the words “Ross curve” to a room of undergraduate business students at the University of Michigan and you’re guaranteed to elicit scoffs. At the Ross School of Business, core classes are curved such that only 40% of students will receive an A- or above.  That means that regardless of your raw scores, you can only achieve an A if you fall within the top distribution of students. 

Generally, this system benefits students on the lower end of the scale, with the remaining 60% of students more likely than not to receive a “B”-range grade. I can attest to this. During my last depressive episode, I scored so poorly on my managerial finance exams that I considered a course withdrawal. Thanks to the curve, I passed, with a final grade that greatly over-embellished my competency with the material. I share this point to demonstrate that I am a prime example of the benefits of the Ross curve, and I still condemn its use.

I’m not trying to bite the hand that feeds me, but when schools restrict academic achievement, instead of adopting a mastery-based system, they transform their students from peers to competitors. High-performing students treat study guides like trade secrets. Meanwhile, those who are consistently at the bottom consign themselves to receiving minimal-effort Bs and choose to focus their attention on extracurricular pursuits instead. 

I recently read a Ross alum’s piece in the Michigan Daily which perfectly described these two extremes:

The BBA culture is like a vast ocean. BBAs can choose to remain on the periphery by treading in the safer waist-high shallow areas, but inevitably, everyone is forced to get soaked and swim through the turbulent waters at some junctures. The midterms and finals are like the moon and sun, exerting a gravitational pull made most apparent when hundreds of BBAs huddle outside of classrooms as they wait to be funneled in by proctors.

The “gravitational pull” described here is the same force that drives BBAs to spend lecture crafting stock pitches and responding to emails, only to vigorously memorize a semester of content in a week’s worth of studying. What can’t be chronicled in short-term memory banks is crammed in a 3x5” fine-print cheat sheet, a supplement which in my experience is allowed for more exams than not. In talking to my BBA friends, most agree that their fullest learning comes from extracurricular pursuits and recruiting prep, not lectures and discussions. That’s not a reflection on Ross’s extraordinary faculty but rather of a broken system. When grades reward results over processes, students are taught to play the game, not build the playbook. 

Speaking of extracurriculars, that reminds me…

2. A club membership process that mirrors the rigor of applying to full-time jobs

Days into my first semester, freshmen and sophomores were already strategizing on how to achieve the coveted business club triad— acceptance into a consulting group, finance club, and professional fraternity. I didn’t even know what consulting was, nor did I realize that the student organizations I dreamed about joining touted a two-round interview process and 5% acceptance rate. While I’m endlessly grateful for my club, I’ve seen the recruitment process reach an absurd level of intensity from the perspective of both an applicant and a club leader.

As part of the application to join my student consulting group, I completed two case interviews— that’s an interview format in which candidates are presented with a hypothetical business situation and asked to analyze it and propose solutions.  The rigor of the process, which I’ve heard upperclassmen retroactively compare to recruitment for full-time jobs, was ridiculous to me as a first-semester freshman. I was still learning break-even equations and discovering that my “creatively-designed” resume was very, very far from the industry standard of professionalism. How was I supposed to compete with peers who had months or years of experience in consulting?

My first resume scored a 55% on VMock, an AI resume review platform, which gave me great confidence as I applied to clubs.

As a club leader, I recognize that recruitment is meant to evaluate candidates’ critical thinking skills, not their polished speaking ability and recitation of terms like 'KPIs,' 'pain points,' and 'frameworks.' My concern is not the difficulty of the process but of the limited resources available to help candidates navigate it. Clubs’ lack of transparency regarding recruitment expectations makes the process feel near-impossible for students outside the 1%.

The secrecy and exclusivity that surrounds clubs is only compounded by the general student body at Ross, who either scorn selective student organizations or liken them to billion-dollar value MBB firms (that’s an acronym used to describe the Big Three of management consulting). I’ve attended Ross Club Presidents’ Council meetings in which I’ve been called a “capitalist” for leading a consulting group. I’ve also watched friends create spam accounts just to boost their clubs’ standing on Ross Rankings, a moronic platform that allows students to vote on their favorite orgs.

Student leaders have the power to create systems that prioritize equity and mental health first. That’s why, this summer, I’m developing an all-encompassing guide for prospective consulting club members. No first-year should have to contend with the confusion and imposter syndrome that has plagued virtually every business student I know. I urge other club leaders to lead with inclusion in mind. Together we can tackle hustle culture from bottom-up, developing future leaders who will go on to change the corporate world for the better.

Speaking of the corporate world, let’s talk about my third point:

3. A hyperfocus on recruitment for name-brand firms

Elite schools attract high-performing students by advertising their employment outcomes. The Ross website touts student placements at high-caliber firms like Amazon, BCG, and Google. When first-year students begin their academic careers, they receive constant messaging from the university, recruiters, and their upperclassmen peers about the benefits of the Ross network. This cycle spins on and on, creating an echo chamber in which six-figure base salaries at name-brand firms are viewed as the standard— the baseline to consider oneself “successful.”

As someone recruiting for a non-traditional career in sustainability and impact, I constantly need to remind myself that my values and goals are as valid as those of my peers. I’ve agonized over my career decisions and spent countless nights wondering if I’m making the right choice. The blank stares and doubtful faces that greet me when I say the word “sustainability” don’t make the choice any easier. I have the utmost admiration for my peers who achieve the Ross ideal, but business schools also need to provide as thoughtful of resources to students whose placements might not earn a spot on advertising brochures.

Truthfully, Ross has a spectacular range of offerings for business students working in non-traditional spaces, and their efforts have only improved since 2022. I’ll name Business + Impact, the Center for Positive Organizations, and the Erb Institute as my personal favorites for sustainability and impact. The problem arises when internal resources and external messaging don’t align— prospective students shy away from exploring non-traditional careers out of a fear of stigmatization. We need more messaging from our schools, employers, professors, and peers, that authentically celebrates the unorthodox. That means real conversations about opportunities beyond consulting and finance and course curriculums that treat sustainability as a valid professional pathway instead of a buzzword. 

The bottom line: Elite universities and their stakeholders (that means you) have the power to bring mental health to the forefront of hustle culture. 

Here’s what that means:

💪 Advocate for an education system that awards students for mastery, not competition.

📚Increase access to student organizations by developing equitable processes and sharing resources that serve all students, not just the 1%.

🗣️Share messaging that celebrates the unconventional and diversifies our definitions of success.

Change begins with a conversation— and that begins with you. Please consider sharing this post to spread the message. You can also subscribe to my blog, or following me on Instagram (@kailamorris_) and LinkedIn (Kaila Morris) for weekly updates.