The Real College Admissions Scandal

Yesterday, it was revealed that underachieving children of the rich and famous had been accepted to elite (or not so elite) colleges and universities through fraudulent ACT scores and athletic scholarships.

Many are noting the horror that our "meritocracy" would behave this way:

"These parents are a catalogue of wealth and privilege,” a federal prosecutor said. "For every student admitted through fraud, an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected."

However, I think J.V. Last said it best in his email newsletter:

So what's happened is that we've replaced one sort of corruption (non-merit based admissions) with another corruption (fraudulent merit-based admissions.) Honestly, the new system is worse.

Under the old system, Richie Rich would go to Yale or Georgetown or Harvard and there would be no illusions as to why he got in. Universities collected the children of wealthy families because it was good for business.

At some point that all changed and the college admissions system decided that it was going to be based on "merit." Only the best!

Except that choosing to believe in merit didn't alter the foundational fact that admitting rich kids to your school was still good for business. So now colleges had to pretend that the children of wealthy families were actually better students, somehow, on the merits.

And the result was the giant college prep industry that thumbs the scales for the wealthy in entirely legal ways . . . and also illegal ways.

The corruption here is that, as a society, we were so unhappy about recognizing an unpleasant truth—that wealth carries undeniable advantages—that we created a remedy of which once consequence was the creation of a pernicious fiction—that the wealthy are better.

It's a perfect example of how egalitarian impulses can lead to anti-egalitarian ends.

Every time you drive by the Princeton Reviews and Kaplans of the world in Manhattan Beach or Santa Monica, every time an ad for a tutor in Pasadena or Sherman Oaks pops, it speaks to the sham that our college admissions process is one based on merit. Rather than be worried about race-based allotments for admissions, we should instead worry about the innumerable advantages the privileged have on the day they sit down for their SAT.

Did those children get a breakfast? Did they have a safe home to sleep in? Did they have their own bed? Did they have a ride to the test or have to walk? Do they get to take it in a well-lit, heated, and well-monitored classroom? Did they get the necessary teaching to prepare them for the test? Did their families hire tutors, get test-prep books, or quiz their kids? Did they get to go to a camp over the summer instead of working, babysitting, or staying at home?

The idea that because celebrities paid someone to take the test so their baby girls would think they were smart enough to get into U$C is hilarious. What about all the children who got in because of the inherent advantages they have over the children of equal intelligence struggling south of U$C's own campus?

The real scandal is that our SAT-based meritocracy is a joke, a gift wrapping of a system that still favors the rich (regardless of wealth) and occasionally welcomes in the 1% of the underprivileged who manage through sheer guts and luck to thrive. Without understanding that we cannot have true justice or true equality.

As long as we have a society geared towards the successful completion of a test on a given Saturday in a 16-, 17-, or 18-year old's life, those of us who don't teach the kids that have those advantages have a calling to teach those test-taking skills that Kaplan does, to ensure that the background knowledge and vocabulary that frames the questions permeates our own instruction and classrooms, and to do the best we can at providing the high expectations and socio-economic aid that supports the children of the this generation.