I was in a dining hall sitting across from a fellow first-year student, a Black woman from New York City. We were having the kind of awkward lunch that characterizes those first days of college, when you’re wondering if someone could be a friend. She joked about her mediocre math grades in high school, mentioning that though her school offered them, she’d never taken any A.P. classes. How, then, had she managed to get in?
I asked her that exact question, between bites, because I hadn’t yet learned that these things aren’t talked about so openly at schools like this. She said, “Oh, affirmative action.”
“Don’t you feel bad that that’s why you got in?” I said.
She seemed confused and said, “Why would I feel bad about that?”
8
First, an admission: I was second generation. I took a city wide test (with no prep or coaching - it didn’t exist then), achieved a high score, and was accepted into a NYC “elite” high school. There were no allowances for political correctness - acceptance was simply based on the test scores. Parents were blue collar, their industry (millinery) collapsed, we had very little money, so I attended one of the colleges in City University. I had to work full time to support myself, so I got my B.A. going to school at night. Graduated with honors, and was selected for the National Honor Society in my chosen field. Continued on in night school at CCNY (with some help from my employer’s educational support program), and earned my M.S., again with honors. There was no favoritism, no legacy, and no opportunity to “buy my way in” (not that we could have afforded it - my dad drove a yellow cab). While I fully realize that the world, the U.S., the economy, etc. has changed in the decades since I graduated, I personally find the amount and volume of whining about this issue to be incredible. Guess what: everyone is NOT equal in ability, just as everyone is NOT the same height. Guess what: sometimes you’ve gotta work hard to get what you want, rather than have the path smoothed out by your parents. Guess what: sometimes you get lucky with your life, and sometimes you don’t. Guess what: human society is not a pure meritocracy, never has been, and never will be.
85
@stevevelo - Correct! I also went to CCNY - no legacy admissions, no athletic admissions, no admissions based on donations, no admissions based on extra-curricula activities, no essay required, no letters of recommendation - admission totally based on high school grades and SAT scores! Fantastic student body!
1
Not knowing anything specific about Cornell, the author's story about someone getting into a highly competitive college even 20 years ago, possibly with no qualifications other than being a legacy and her family having given contributions, and without a very impressive record, is very unusual. The odds of admission at highly competitive schools like Cornell are just too stacked against any applicant for a really unqualified mediocre student to get in.
When you are dealing with one in twelve being accepted, and one in six for athletes and legacies, anyone who gets in is incredibly fortunate and likely incredibly accomplished.
There is no question that it is even harder to get into any highly competitive college from a public high school in an economically disadvantaged area with a very low graduation rate. Clearly, more students from these types of schools need to be accepted into elite colleges.
You are still dealing with odds stacked against anyone - including legacies whose families have given large contributions. Most of these advantaged successful applicants beat out several other applicants just like them for the place they won.
The numbers are crazy. The college craze is crazy. Many people get top educations at public institutions with much less prestige and go on to very successful careers and very prestigious graduate and professional schools.
6
This reminds me of my first semester teaching college. I was called into the Dean's office to explain why I had given a student a B+. She was definitely a B or even a C student - a B+ was a very generous grade. But she had been talking to another student, who bragged that he'd missed a lot of homework assignments, turned in papers that were too short, and still gotten an A-. So she filed a complaint accusing me of unfair grading. Well, the other student had missed a couple of homework assignments, which was why he had an A-, but he turned in multiple drafts of all his essays, made good use of the feedback he got on them, and was overall an excellent student. He just liked to cultivate the image of the slacker who skated by on no effort. Some people like to brag about getting things they didn't earn, whether it's true or not.
1
How did I get into college? I''ll tell you.
When I graduated high school, there was no money, I mean none. for me to go to college. I had three younger brothers and we were barely surviving, so I got a job at Southern Bell telephone Co.; decent pay and decent working conditions. I saved my earnings for 15 months and was able to enroll at Florid State U. and pay for my first year (I had skipped third grade. so I was age appropriate for the class). They took me back the following summer at the telephone co, so I was able to go back to complete sophomore year at FSU. Really flat broke this time, moved north to Illinois and got a job as a secretary, got married, had two children and heard that a top rated University in the area had long had a program of continuing education, so I looked into it and was accepted. Northwestern University was a life line for me: a class act; helpful, encouraging administrators, stimulating instructors, I contribute yearly to their scholarship fund; they are the Best!
I earned a Masters degree in Social Work at another school in the area which has a specialized program In social work education and worked as a School Social Worker in a large, local K through eight multicultural public School District for 20 years.
I would say in response to this column: stop whining and complaining; it takes so much valuable energy. I'm the first High School grad in my family; so are my brothers; a mechanical engineer, a lawyer and a business owner.
37
@MJG I was also from a no-money family and received a scholarship from Northwestern, on top of a first class education. That was 40 years ago. There are schools touched by this scandal that obviously discgraced themselves, then there a schools like NU that have helped people up the ladder for decades. You bet I give every year. That's because I use my NU education every day.
1
What a bunch of whining. She got into the college of her choice and is upset that someone else did too, without taking her exact path? Why should anyone care? What about all the other non-legacy kids who got admitted without taking as many AP classes or working as hard as she did? There's a bell curve, and the author is somewhere in the middle of it, and she is judging anyone who didn't work as hard as she did - even though thousands of people probably didn't.
From the college's perspective, who is the better bet? Someone raised by past graduates who went on to great success in life and made great contributions to the school, or someone new who took extra classes in high school? What is the legacy rich kid doing now? Probably something significant.
I could not care less who goes to Cornell or any Ivy. I went to a state school, got a degree, and found my own way in life without ever judging my fellow classmates based on how hard they studied or where they came from. My parents never did anything for my school, just like the author's parents never did, so what's the problem?
Nobody wants to say it, but defining 'Meritocracy' as "every child starts over with no merit given to their family's past actions" means that we are assuming the only way to measure someone's worth is by their grades in school. So if Donald Trump got straight A's, that makes him a better person than any of us who didn't? If Hitler's kids had straight A's, would you admit them? I wouldn't.
12
Preferences and quotas.... Oh well
1
"... a girl who laughed at how little I knew about how the world really worked."
No. The "girl" only knew about how HER world "worked". And the anecdote never says that the "girl" "laughed".
"... inherently unfair ..."
The author uses the word "unfair" four times, but never uses the word "fair". The whole OpEd seems to be more about getting back at that "girl" than about fairness.
11
Asian students need to score 150 points higher than Whites, 270 than Hispanics and 450 than Blacks, that's even more unfair, and most of them are first generation Americans.
12
Life is tough and just because you are bright does not mean that you will get accepted to the college of your choice. Those are the facts of life. Apply to a good state college and be happy.
6
You learned "too late" that world is not a meritocracy? Seriously? That was one of the first things my elementary-school-educated mother told me. Also, "too late" for what? Too late to decline Cornell's acceptance? Too late to throw a tantrum and refuse to go to college at all just to protest that world is not fair?
You sound ungrateful for the opportunity you were given. An opportunity no one owes you.
13
Ms. Crucet,
Are you 100% sure that you were admitted based on your grades, AP credits and extracurricular activities and not a quota or bias towards disadvantaged first generation individuals of your sex and ethnicity?
Just asking.
14
Oh get over yourself. Many of us were the first of our family to attend college and some of us won academic scholarships too. And wow — many of us were from white, working class families that never earned more than $15K per year. You read that correctly. But two things have changed from that time regarding public education. Public school teachers unionized and Universities became profit centers instead of learning institutions. One can argue till blue about tangential issues, get caught up in racial insignificances, carp about micro-agressions, or blame “insert your personal demon here”. But refuting those facts will remain illusive.
7
What a lot of people here in the USA don't realize is that the word "meritocracy" itself is actually a satire. It was invented in 1958 by a British sociologist to criticize how the elites there were using their privileges in the education system there to maintain their aristocracy. Check out this podcast in OnTheMedia: https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/on-the-media-meritocracy-word-college-bribery-scandal
4
Here is just the regular white-guy,middle-class version of this, which won’t get much attention:
65 years ago, my father graduated from a small state college, but my mother, (at least as bright,) did not, (she dropped out her senior year, to give birth to me).
They worked their butts off too, having grown up on dust bowl farms in Kansas during the Depression. First working for others, then eventually starting their own small business, which they ran as partners.
I learned from them that only by hard work can one succeed. I did all those kinds of things this author did, 70’s style, and like her gained admission to the most prestigious out of state school that my family could afford. I was not a first generation college graduate, but close to one, and was a first generation doctorate.
Decades later, my alma mater had risen from among the top 10 percent to the top one percent of colleges; (astute investments by the endowment fund’s managers in tech start-ups, like Microsoft and Apple, had swelled the schools resources by 10-fold, after inflation).
So, then, my daughter, with entrance exam scores better than mine had been in the 70’s, and nearly perfect, looked at the school’s new acceptance stats: she had a 50:50 chance of getting in on her own, but as a “legacy,” her chances would be almost guaranteed.
She decided not to apply.
She instead attended a college that was a great fit for her, and she worked her butt off there too.
So proud of her grit. Just like her grandmother.
9
Your last paragraph is everything.
1
Could be that tied for worst off in the elite college sweepstakes is the middle class white or asian kid. No money, no legacy, no affirmative action.
11
Dear author: I hope you don’t impact your bitter attitude towards your students. Most of us white students at elite colleges got there through hard work and respected everyone for their hard work in getting there. If someone happened to have their family name on a building it was an anomaly. You come across as unsympathetic and we want to support young women like you. Don’t make it hard on students in your position by taking everyone to task with such a broad brush.
12
Ever notice how virtually every opinion piece by someone under 30 is always written in the first person?
5
The hard way.
I was first generation college too.
I was always "really smart in school", but I had nobody to push me to apply to a place like Cornell. Where was that anyway?
My blue collar father told me he could pay for U Mass, so I applied only to 2 schools- the U Mass flagship campus at Amherst and the commuter option - U Mass Boston (the underfunded stepsister.) Got into both,
Mom nixed Amherst ("too much drinking !") And off I went to U Mass Boston.I was 17. (The average age was 27)
I graduated Summa Cum Laude. Dad bought me long stem red roses and had tears in his eyes.(He died shortly after)
I worked in hotels for 5 years and then put myself through a decent law school. (21 years to pay off those loans).
I always knew the rich had a different set of rules and short cuts I could not imagine . Seriously, what else is new ?
I have had a really great career in public interest law, have traveled the world, and have absolutely no regrets.
I played the cards I was dealt as best I could.
My fortune was that I had parents who loved me and instilled in me a love of learning, and that I was healthy enough to always work.
No fancy academic pedigree? So what.
That doesn't really matter in the long run.
15
The college admissions system in America has so many unfairnesses built into it that Ms. Crucet’s claim to be “shocked, shocked” about legacy admissions rings hollow. Asian applicants are just as incensed that they are held to a far higher standard than other groups. Asian students are just as shocked when they learn that other groups don’t need to have perfect GPAs, SAT scores and ridiculous extracurricular scores to have any shot at admittance to the Ivies.
6
You forgot to mention that you got a preference for admission because you are a first generation college student.
8
Whine whine whine. Give me a break. So how did you get into Cornell? Did they offer you a scholarship? Lots of us white people went to a high quality state university (no scholarship) where we got an excellent education. And for those who didn't have the initial qualifications for the state's flag ship university they could go still get in by the junior college route. I went on to get a Ph.D. at the top chemistry university in the country, and you know what; I was better prepared by the state university than my fellow graduate colleagues who went to Ivy League schools. So what if there are legacy admissions, the bottom line is not getting in, the bottom line is what you learn while you are there.
8
"Don’t you feel bad that that’s why you got in?” Curious how that potential friendship turned out.
3
Thanks for sharing this story. I wish though you could go back in time and back to that lunch with that girl and tell her what she and her family really are: miserable cheats.
2
I'm curious what the author feels about affirmative action.
8
The funny thing is that I have neighbors in my rich white NJ town who truly believe that their kids are at a disadvantage because no one wants the rich NJ kids and, for sure, think that this author has the advantage. Ha!
3
Life isn’t fair. But we should strive to make it a little more just and fair every year. Why should higher education remain a place of unjustness and privilege? White america howled with indignation over affirmative action, we should be just as outraged over wealthy privilege.
3
This college admissions scandal is not nearly as interesting to the rest of us as to the opinion writers of The Times, apparently. I would have thought 2, 3, or 4 op-eds would have been enough, but I believe we've blown past any reasonable number.
3
NYT needs to stop with all the articles saying white people are bad when it comes to college admission.
Just try being a top performing white (or Asian) kid whose family lives comfortably, but is not wealthy, not first-gen, who is not a recruited athlete, or a legacy. For these kids, it is nearly impossible to gain admission to the top schools - far harder than probably any other group.
10
It’s frustrating to read yet another Ivy-League-Graduate’s-New-York-Times-article about the white privilege that I—at 45 with a GED and some art school—have yet to reap rewards from.
Someone, please tell me how to cash-in on my whiteness. I want a summer home.
7
Any article that begins "As a" betrays the righteous indignation that is coming. From birth to death the playing field is lopsided. Ask any woman, any black person, and person in a wheelchair. What maters is what you do with your own life, and how you carry yourself. Blaming others is not a solution to the stuff that happens.
4
those legacy students pay for you education.
7
That Legacy student understood that she and her family had paid for you and perhaps dozens of others like you to get in who never paid your full weight. How much money have you sent back to the school in donations so that other deserving students like yourself could attend?
7
Whoever told you that mastering high school level academics was done to get in to college told you a lie. You learn that level so you can function as an adult in the world.
Signed,
first gen rural college student..ie the rare birds who don't get any funding, and for the most part, don't have AP anything.
2
#WWIFBAT?
“Why would I feel bad about that?”
2
So you worked hard, got accepted to Cornell (presumably with some financial aid made available to you), and became a college professor published in the NYT. Oh what a cruel unfair system!
8
Wow! What I notice most is the complete lack of gratitude. To her teachers in Miami, to Cornell, to her professors. Just an undying sense of grievance.
“. . . college admissions process — with its overreliance on scores from tests that are widely regarded as biased against low-income students, students of color and students from single-parent households — “ How, exactly, is the SAT biased? Widely regarded as such by whom? How is the test an example of white hegemony? The top scoring students from around here are low-income students of color, but they are of Asian descent, which counts for nothing amongst the social justice warriors that the NT Times prefers.
Test prep can be found for free online and at your public library. I bought a $20 book to study for the LSAT and did quite well on the test. Thank God, I decided against law school.
The endless drumbeat of grievance in these columns has become tiresome. If you don’t like Cornell, don’t go there. And I speak as a first generation US citizen, raised by a single mother in Oakland, with no support from the state or my father. So, yeah, I was poor, and others had huge advantages over me. I worked and went to junior college. Then I worked and went to my local public university. And I’m so very grateful I could do that with the help of my teachers, instructors and professors. And yes, it took hard work and determination.
Give a boost to low income or first gen. college students. No one else!
3
The college admission scandal is a cristallisation of the generalized corruption of the USA . Everything is for sale. Politics, justice, education, sex, health care, etc..
3
News flash;
Life ain’t fair.
3
Will a person of previlege ever admoit that he got in because of his lineage? Like children of some foreign leaders, sons of thr rich like FakeDonald, George Bush and his da, even Kennedys - teddy and John. I got in because of my good grades at tyhe high school and graduate level to to poceed for a Ph.D. Rich people donate, not so rich bribe. Dontions are nothing but a tax-deductible bribe.
1
After writing this heartfelt piece about how kids should only get into college based on merit, I expect Ms. Crucet to write a piece decrying affirmative action and athletic scholarships you know the ones that never seem to be "so often tied to whiteness"
Perhaps before Ms. Crucet starts talking about whiteness she should look at the admission policies of traditional black colleges. Do they have legacy admissions? Do wealthy black parents spend millions on application coaches?
When will liberals realize that the constant mixing up of class issues with race is what is keeping us from doing anything about inequality and making things like college admission fairer.
6
At USC, one in six students is first generation. Sixty-four percent are other than white.
3
This whole uproar over legacy is nonsense. It's more about envy. Someone else has more than you and you are envious about that. I've run into plenty of people over the years who've had "legacy" advantages over me. The only feelings I've had were of sadness and pity. They'll never know the joy and pride of truly succeeding by diligence, hard work, honesty, and, of course, some luck.
The world has never been equal, and never will be. No school, or anything else for that matter, has ever had a truly level playing field. Whining about that is what losers do.
3
I guess we can stop wondering how people who seem as ignorant after their Ivy League-esque educations as they must have been before they got them, e.g. Trump, Bush (who in his first year as president didn't know there were black people in Brazil), et al.... Every school is full of these people--and the fact that universities have set up this pay-to-play system is a bigger 'crime' than the resent scandal.
1
The author’s full story is conveniently ignored. She struggled to pay the application fee to Cornell, but you can be sure she paid nothing close to what legacies did in terms of tuition, books, and living expenses.
I’ll bet you she received virtually a full ride. She’s smart, driven, and geographically diverse coming from Florida—and clearly does not identify as white.
Her heavily subsidized education was paid in part by current legacies, in part from an endowment heavily supported by alumni and in part by alumni and others taking advantage of tax deductions that she snidely refers to.
How does she think the Ivies — so dedicated to getting first generation college-goers— are able to fulfill their mission without offering some benefits to those who’ve supported them for generations?
It looks like the author got something else in college in addition to her education: a sense of entitlement.
5
Tell me, who is more deserving? The extremely intelligent but lazy good memorizer, the charismatic, the extremely diligent but not so smart, the person with connections? The smart but corrupt? The honest but inept? Who deserves the university education, the carreer? Who of these would you want to be president? Or as your lawyer? Judging from the past, that is not an easy question. Seriously. How would you pick your own future lawyer.
2
This oped doesn't pass the sniff test. Capo Crucet is 38, which means she was applying to universities in 2000 or so, when affirmative action was in full swing. She's Latinx (though she doesn't mention that in her piece, nor her SAT or ACT scores). As a result, she was afforded enormous advantages over similarly situated white kids. Plus, the application fees to Cornell and other topnotch schools at the time were nearly the same, as were their tuitions. How could Cornell be the only fine school out of state to which she could afford to apply, either on tuition or application fee grounds? Rice? Cooper Union? The service academies? I'm sorry, but this sounds like a polemic in search of facts.
9
This is one of the best pieces I've read about the buy-your-way-in scandal. I especially love the ending, where Jennine Capo Crucet realizes she should have been the one laughing—or, maybe more appropriately, rolling her eyes. I wonder what that girl who sat across from her at lunch is doing with her life.
3
The great irony is that I was accused of being an affirmative action admit by privileged white students. I wish I knew about this back then.
2
While most people probably agree that legacy admission is wrong, what is it with everybody who goes into academic English as a field having a massive chip on their shoulder?
3
What a shame you allowed this experience at Cornell to cloud your thinking so terribly.
I know Cornell pretty well. Both my daughter and SIL went there. Their son is now there (yes, a LEGACY!). Neither my daughter, nor her husband came from wealth. My late husband was a secondary school math teacher. Yes, she went to private schools - he taught there and that was a benefit. She went to Cornell on a 4-y ROTC scholarship, one of 10,000 awarded annually. She was an outstanding student and is today, highly successful. And she will be the first to tell you that much was due to her education at Cornell. Her husband did not come from wealthy. His father had received a PhD from Cornell so I suppose he was a legacy. He's also very, very bright.
Now their son is there. He was both a multiple legacy and a "supported" athlete. He needed neither to get in - outstanding grades and test scores, many other activities that showed amazing leadership qualities in one so young. He's in one of the hardest colleges at Cornell, and he made the Deans List his 1st semester, gets two A's and one A+ in his math and computer science classes. He did this while spend 2-3 hrs daily, 6 days a week on his sport.
Please don't tell me that none of these people "deserved " to be there, and got there due to wealth and privilege. You got into Cornell using "privilege" and you have squandered that privilege by allowing yourself to carry a big chip on your shoulder. Shame on you!
4
What, to me, odd feelings this author has expressed. Would the freshman friend at the awkward table, if “deserving”, in any way changed the arc of the author’s life?
Seems to me the President of a University should have some limited discretion to admit the odd lesser qualified important donor relative, for the overall good and future of the University. It sure didn’t keep her from attending, did it? And, likely, these limited exceptions are additions to a class as opposed to filing a number of limited slots. You Mainer ask the admissions officer how many are accepted, accept then don’t show or last just a few weeks; it happens every semester, every year.
Heck, I didn’t have squat at school; worked my way through three degrees. I suppose I envied the frat guys and their money a bit at the time; but it didn’t keep me from advancing myself. I couldn’t have cared less if their wealthy dad got them; if they were an idiot, we all soon knew it.
So, get over it. Everyone isn’t equal. Do what you can and remember life is short, don’t waste it worrying about others.
3
Reading this article, I couldn't help but notice that the targeted advertisement at the top of my screen was for "Intensive Summer College Prep - 4 weeks coaching to get into 50 top US colleges."
4
She’s a “legacy”.
The author is “Cuban-American”
Others are athletes.
Some have money.
The whole system is skewed in so many directions, and the author benefited from it as well.
8
I believe privileged parents are hoping their kids learn just one thing while they're frolicking at ritzy colleges.
How to play pool.
Gene pool.
2
Do the “rest of us” a favor NYT and publish a list of schools you can’t buy your way into. This will save everyone so much time applying to crooked schools that stack the deck in favor of the rich. And then maybe bring those crooked schools down a few notches.
1
Wow! Once again a writer is calling on the wolves to help fight the dogs. Jennine: You are an associate professor. You may have a reasonably decent salary for your community, but you will not likely be sending your kids to private school or for trips around the world. If they are like most faculty children, they are home, alone, eating hot dogs and cold cereal while you are in your cubicle reading and writing. Perhaps they will have your ambitions and work as hard as you did. I am sure they will, but when it comes time for college, don't you hope that Cornell will take your association into consideration as well? Even just a little?
3
Congrats! Have a couple of degrees from Berkeley. Brothers - legacies into Stanford. It was all good. I became an Attorney/CPA while they became Phi Beta Kappas and Doctors. A little stress around the time of the Big Game but otherwise recovered from the competition. Bright hardworking upper middle class brats oblivious to the students left in our wake. The upper middle class supports this iniquity. Gosh what a great ride it has been and it has got to stop.
Ms. Crucet thinks she got into Cornell solely based on merit. Really? Does she not know that top tier colleges set aside a share of each class for first-gens such as herself, and minority students? I like to think I was accepted to my elite college on merit. But maybe it helped that I was the child of city college graduates, went to public school, had a name that ended in a vowel. Maybe they needed me for the gender balance. Who knows?
My daughter is in high school. We are not wealthy. By academic metrics she probably should be accepted at every college she applies to. She won't, because schools want different things, and they should. Giving a hand to disadvantaged students is good. This summer I will take her to see some colleges, including mine. What if she loves it? Should she apply? I strongly agree that only top notch legacy students should ever be admitted but do people really believe that all legacy kids are rich and stupid? Maybe every college should mandate that all legacy, first-gen, minority, athlete, and 'non-binary' students wear their high school transcripts on their chests so everyone knows who 'deserved' to get in. Wouldn’t that be great for school spirit!
My school does extensive outreach to alumni. Maybe it is hoping for that million-dollar donation but I suspect what it really needs and expects is that all of us reach into our pockets each year and send a few bucks to "pay it forward." I always do. I hope Ms. Crucet does the same.
7
Hmmm... have you considered that being a "first generation college student" and a "latina" probably gave you a considerable boost beyond any merit you possess. Perhaps your acceptance is also part of the myth of meritocracy.
Of the 3.6 million high school seniors due to graduate this fall, there are probably tens of thousands with straight A's and loaded down with AP tests who will never make it into the Ivy Leauge because they have no special boost. No legacy. No preferred skin color. No first-generation status.
7
Absolute proof that meritocracy is a myth: George W Bush, Donald Trump. Class over.
1
It is very hard to listen to this endless whining about privileged white people. My father was the son of an illiterate Montenegrin peasant. He graduated from law school in interwar Yugoslavia, a poor country by any standard, joined the anti-fascist resistance, spend two years in an Italian fascist prison, barely escaped execution in a concentration camp in Belgrade, taught himself four languages, became a career diplomat; I, in turn, became a professor in the USA thanks to its meritocratic system. I have helped many students of color and other minority students over the years whether with basic skills (writing) or intellectually by teaching them history, politics, sociology. I have never had a complaint in twenty plus years of teaching at Oberlin college, a pretty leftist school, despite my often dissenting views, which are basically moderate centrist. Of all places, the United States was one place in the world that allowed people like me to make a career on the field I love, sociology. The college scandal is truly appalling but it is neither the full truth, nor even an approximation of it, and the self pity is misplaced. I have now lived and worked in Russia for four years: on every other corner there is a plaque for some intellectual victim of Stalinism who ended up serving time in Siberia because of their views. Get a grip on reality and stop whining: fight injustice by all means, but don’t argue that the United States is a feudal or racist society.
5
We are first generation white immigrants whose son got to Cornell completely on his own merit and we are paying full ride.
Every time this woman writes about bias and white privilege (and I've read a few of her columns) she glosses over the fact that she also got a leg up in the admissions process by being a first-generation college student and a minority. She also got an almost free ride to Cornell.
Yes, the admissions system is not fair, but please stop playing the victim.
6
So merit driven education. Yes or no?
1
Wait. Why do you think that Donald Trump had his lawyer threatening any entity that holds his scholastic records? To say nothing about his daddy buying him a case of bone spurs to keep him out of Viet Nam?
This college admissions scandal really makes one wonder about the quality of the education at the schools involved. If students like the air head daughters of Lori Loughlin can get into USC and openly talk about how they were there to party and not for the academics how can one take the person with a degree from USC seriously?
2
The author is clearly proud of her admission accomplishments and dismissive of all other “wealth and whiteness” applicants that have taken advantage of the system. I’m sure a first-generation female Latino college applicant from a underperforming Miami high school had no special considerations in the admissions process then or today....
The pendulum swings back and forth. Post this recent scandal you can be assured many talented, hard-working wealthy, white kids will be penalized for the crimes of a few at the expense of admissions guilt and backlash.
The author is quick to point to the bias of the system in her personal favor and blind to the other bias that benefitted her and other like her.
5
It's a pity this article descends into race-shaming -- and it only takes 5 paragraphs for that to happen. Not all whites are in the posh suburbs of New York.
Also, I'm a college educator myself. We accept unmerited white people from a variety of backgrounds. I have been tempted to say to some of them, "Wait, How Did You Get Into College?" but the Admissions Dept. already answered the question.
2
Andrew's Law: "In rugged individualist capitalism, ruggedness operates to suppress riggedness."
To say this term 'MERIT" (and Meritocracy) is Orwellian Newspeak, particularly in an era of neoliberalism, is such an obvious axiomatic truth that is a cliche even before it is uttered for the very first time.
Whose interests are served by that terminology, and in what ways? Are some people being fooled by it? If so, how, why, by whom, and to what end?
Our educational system has by consious design operated as a kind of crucible of social darwinism, mimicking the competitive economic system, from pre-med weed-out courses like notorious o-chem, to curved grading, the competition ethos cultivated.... Everything hammers into the student "meritocracy", but what do these scandals show?
If one would minimize the point, I might invoke in response a little known rule in the track-and-field world: at all major events, wind conditions are carefully monitored and recorded; for records to stand winds must be close to neutral, because even slight tailwinds easily make or break records in contests measured in hundreths of seconds. In school, money and cheating easily play bigger roles than those tailwinds.
1
When I wanted to play an instrument in Junior High (when we were allowed to borrow an instrument from the school), my mother asked me what I wanted to play. I said "Clarinet". She said I should not choose such a popular instrument, because I would never get it. I choose "Tuba" and I didn't get a tuba, but I got a Baritone and Baritone lessons, and a place in the Marching Band. Same applies to getting into college. Ask for admission to the Cornell School of I&LR.
1
When the author talks about the conversation with the legacy, the author asks the legacy if the legacy feels ashamed about her heritage. The legacy responded perfectly: "Why would I feel bad [about that]?"
Later on, the author describes this as being laughed at. I don't know if this means the legacy literally laughed at the author's naivete, or that the author is interpreting the legacy's past refusal to feel shame as laughter or scorn.
Yes, the legacy was born with advantages in getting into a fancy school. That doesn't mean that they worked any less hard in high school (lots of non-AP classes are hard, and lots of schools that don't offer them are very competitive and prepare children well).
But that's not my point. The point is that people shouldn't be judged on what their parents gave them -- poverty or privilege. People's "merit" lies in how they take what they were given and contribute to society.
And no one, no one should be expected to feel bad about their family or heritage. One of the purposes college serves now is to help people from different walks of life understand parts of society they've not yet been exposed to.
5
I didn’t go. My parents never went and, in fact, did not finish high school.
Not having a clue one about even how the SAT was scored, I walked in to take it at age 29. I got into a public college and went on to do a Masters finishing in 92. Managed to keep student loans down to about $20,000 which I thought would be manageable.
So, road out of poverty? Ended up temping, found out struggling to make payments on your loans and then catching up was as awful on your credit as default. Years of struggle and an associates in programming later and at 50, I was a professional academic researcher, my loans paid off, and I bought my first modest home. That was in 2005. You know how that went.
Laid off at fifty five. Do you know how many people want to hire a geeky inarticulate fifty-five year old woman who looks 55. None, if you’re asking.
I escaped poverty because I married someone I love dearly who absorbed my losses and we’re perking along ok now. But I’m not forgetting the single woman I was never had a chance. And neither do so very many others who begin college in poverty.
My story times many thousands. This is not the problem of individuals. This is a national crisis.
6
I take issue with the conflation of race and economic privilege. Sure, more white students get a leg up thanks to 7-figure donations than POC. However Ivies gladly accept money from wealthy people of color in exchange for a spot in their schools (which likely undermines Affirmative Action but that's another story).
Many white students work hard to earn their spot in college, and the author’s “tied to whiteness” comment is counterproductive, like suggesting Affirmative Action or athlete special admission is “tied to” being African American. Yes, one of these stereotypes is significantly more harmful than the other – but neither fosters feeling of community among students at these schools who should be destined to do great things, across racial & socioeconomic lines.
I was admitted to Cornell on merit (thanks to parents who value education - another privilege, I know). I did well and was involved at my public HS, worked, studied for SAT using books from the library. I chose state college, because Cornell was too pricey & my middle class family did not qualify for support despite tuition being more than half my parents’ take home pay.
So, not all whites are tied to wealth that buys a spot in a private school; many of us are hard-working, empathetic to the plight of the underprivileged, and aware the color of our skin offers us a degree of privilege. But the insinuation that being white and being a lazy, wealthy heir to billions go hand in hand is tiresome and insulting.
11
I was a legacy at a major Ivy school. Actually, I guess all Ivy schools are major. However, my legacy was not. At the time of my application, my father, who had to drop out after one year to work in a family business when his father died, could barely rub two one-dollar bills together. My high school grades weren't great, except in an area that the college wanted to build up. My legacy status got me noticed, but once noticed, I believe I got in under my own power. My academic grades in college were pretty bad, yet I did manage to graduate and to learn things far beyond academics, things one only gets in an environment that encourages independent thought and intellectual exploration. I have also come to believe that one can get a good education anywhere there are good teachers who understand the value of independent thought and electrical exploration rather than simply teaching to the test. While certain good schools lead to certain career paths, none lead to certain success. Success will always be up to the individual. Some lines from a poem express it best: "Each [of us] is given a bag of tools, a shapeless mass and a book of rules; and each must make a life of their own, stumbling block or stepping stone." The school counts, but the student counts more.
5
I find it surprising that Ms. Jennine Capó Crucet should emphasize her non-whiteness so much in this essay. Her many photos online and her very elegant sounding last names (Catalán?) suggest that back in Cuba—and in Latin America in general—her family would clearly be considered 'blancos' and, consequently, enjoy at least some of the social privileges that she so disdains in this essay.
10
@SF This is a pretty typical pattern. A lot of identity politics is basically people people working their identity crises in public. Acceptable for a 20 year old but yes pretty absurd for someone in their 30's.
4
One of the variables given scant notice in this whole 'scamming' story, ugly as it is, is that far too much of the American public has fallen prey to "best colleges and universities" lists, like U.S. News College Rankings. For years it has further hyped "the best schools" by number. And colleges spend big to move up a number or two.
As a result, parents fail to recognize there are boatloads of outstanding places their kids could have incredible educations, perhaps even better for them than the so-called top ten. The goal should be not a name or a ranking -- but what's the best match between the student and the school. Of course we have a hideous split between rich and poor -- that's where we are with our corporate capitalism and its resultant corruption.
5
I just wish that some Human Resources professionals would comment here to point out that - yes! - the college you go to does matter at the first step in a hiring process.
If a job is posted, they get 400 resumes, one of the first things often done is scan the school and the big-name recognised ones are in the "keep this" pile. THEN they dig deeper. So the people that say public universities or local community colleges are just as good in the end -- are wrong.
Susan
Expat in Ireland
3
All this debate between legacy entitlement and merit....A poor kid with great “merit” won a gene lottery. A rich kid with great “legacy” won a birth lottery. Both kids got into an elite school by winning lotteries that the vast majority of humankind have not won. Is one kid deserving of all our sympathy and the other kid deserving on none? At the end of the day what matters is not whether one graduated from an elite college but what one can do to help those who have not won a lottery.
2
I remember as a young man working my way through college and thinking about a career my mother telling my it's not what you know, but who you know that gets you ahead. I didn't believe that because at that point in my life, growing up in a working class family, everything I had, I earned, and I thought that's how life works. I've since come to realize how stupid I was to not see the plain truth of what my mother told me about how the world works. It's how the world has always worked. I think it's inherent in all human culture and always will be. Full disclosure - my father was active in his union and pulled some strings to get me a union card (in high school, my first real job) ahead of others on the waiting list. So there you go. Guilty as charged. It's everywhere.
1
Wow. I love the comments here. They may say more about white privilege and entitlement than perhaps the actual article.
Woe unto you and beware, he or she that suggests to suburban whites (and others) who so embrace the myth of meritocracy that it is all a fraud!!
I find notable the hostile reaction, never mind one’s politics or background, as the the author’s message means that what all of these readers have built their life around for themselves and their children is a fraud. Confirmation bias is alive and well. “If I achieved it or my children achieved it then it must be because we deserved it.” Keep telling yourself that, White America. (And, full disclosure, I am white, suburban, and had privilege growing up and I know it, which is why I have compassion and charity for those without, because it’s just my random luck.)
3
I can accept a certain degree of inequity, and I get that rich people tend to get, well, privileges.
I don’t like it, but I accept that it’s part of the way the world works. I do find it absolutely insufferable, though, to have the Kushners and the Trumps of the world—and these moms and dads that paid bribes—strutting about as though they really were a superior, harder-working race.
I mean, look at the sheer incompetence of Kushner’s and Trump’s business careers. We’re not hardly talking Buffet or Diamon or Jobs here. We’re not even talking Mr. Facebook, whose recent adventures don’t really suggest a lot of brains at work.
I like my élites to actually BE élite, not just the children of wealthy parents. They could at least have the decency to behave like honest leeches, as so many Rockefellers have.
3
Sorry, I don’t have “White guilt” and I refuse to. I grew up poor and worked hard to get into college (as a first generation college student) at a state school. I had to drop out when I could no longer afford tuition because my student loans did not cover my needs. I worked a low wage job for several years before finally being able to afford to finish my degree, part time.
5
"This clear bias, based on wealth and so often tied to whiteness, doesn’t strike students, their families or college administrators as inherently unfair and even dishonest."
This kind of generalization is unfair. It is presented as a fact, when it is no more than a notion. Not that wealth and whiteness are not inherent advantages, or that there is bias around these spaces, but that students, faculty, administrators, don't see it. There are literally thousands of college administrators, including college admission officers, who see this as inherently biased, ethically wrong, and in some cases morally bankrupt. And I'm willing to wager that the USC athletic liaison who is implicated in this knows her actions were dishonest. She did it for the money. She's not clueless, she's greedy.
1
The author should consider the fact that for every student exactly like herself academically, there are thousands of others who didn't get in. They are not "choking on their macaroni" served in a top school.
Life was actually more fair to her than it was to them.
5
There is more to life than aspiring to be an elite.
2
In my adjunct days, I once taught in the mornings at an Ivy and in the afternoons at the giant state U just up the road. The smart students in both were equally impressive; not a one at--let's call it RU--could not have handled the courses at the famous and expensive private campus with ease, even distinction. Intelligence is remarkably democratic. The worst undergrads at both places were miserable specimens: they couldn't do basic college work, didn't want to, wouldn't try. The difference? Drop out of RU, and you'll end up stocking shelves in an Amazon warehouse. No one drops out of the Ivies. Even the least presentable rich kid or legacy gets through, somehow. It may take a few extra checks from the family, but oddly enough, they all end up on Wall Street, or the social equivalent. I believe schools should simply be open about this. Say in the catalog, explain on the website, that college in America is a two-track system. Then that has, gets. The rest of you: do the work, go to office hours, scramble to pay your shocking tuition bills and loans, and pray. We badly need sunshine laws for a rigged game pretending to be anything but.
3
I salute you for your hard work and diligence that it took to be admitted to Cornell. I agree that the white girl should not have gotten in because she was “a legacy student.” But, please realize and understand that you might have been admitted under affirmative action and denied a hard working and diligent white student their place at Cornell, someone with the same or more credentials than you. However, I think it all evens out in the end. College admissions at Ivy League schools are dicey; we never really know who deserves to be there and who doesn’t.
6
Who told you that lie of meritocracy? It used to be take X GPA and Y SAT score you got into U.C. schools in Calfornia. That is close to meritocracy although GPA grading is not consistent and SAT is culturally biased. But really. Why believe in meritocracy? What evidence did you have it was true? Hustle and grit can make you money. Is that important? You dont need any special education if that is the goal.
Meritocracy is a word the wealthy created to help keep the non wealthy in their place. The idea of economic advancement to the point of being wealthy predicated on "merit" is sugar plums dancing in their heads. The wealthy are not stupid and guard their wealth and power well.
1
Again and again over the last week the Times editorial page has lambasted only one aspect of the myth of meritocratic college admissions: accepting underperforming (usually white) wealthy, often legacy, students. This angle conveniently fits the Times' Trump-era narrative of a rigged system. I get it, but this particular story is much broader and while the Times kicks the rich white privilege dog over and over, the larger perniciousness of the college admission system is lost. The fact is the myth of meritocratic admissions applies to every single applicant in one way or another, as every elite college strives for a "balanced" class to achieve an ever-expanding list of diversity objectives (race, gender, geographic origin, sexual orientation, educational background, and on and on). Please, let's hear more about the larger problem that drives everyone (not just rich whites) to game the system.
1
It's all about the Benjamin's..... that's the sad reality and the sooner we realize that money in our society creates lots of opportunities and choices -while also creating a lot of bias and implicit problems ... it is in politics ruining that,,, is an now revealed to be perverting college education... we know it perverts and host of other aspects of everyday life -like medicine- and others we perceive guys Holy Grail cornerstones of our society. Life isn't fair that's reality not all of us are good-looking or smart or have wealthy parents this is just a microcosm of how we have what we have in the White House.
Excellent essay. Thanks.
1
The author deplores what she perceives as “this clear bias, based on wealth and so often tied to whiteness,” but there is clear bias against non-Hispanic white students.
The perception that the college admission system advantages “rich white kids” is used to justify race-based affirmative action, but the system disadvantages far more poor white kids than poor black kids or poor Asian kids. The U.S. Census Bureau 2017 Poverty Report (Table 3: People in Poverty by Selected Characteristics) shows that 26.4 million white Americans, 8.99 million black Americans and 1.95 million Asian Americans live below poverty level. Whites make up 70.72 percent of Americans below poverty level. Among Americans under 18-years-of-age, 8,041,000 whites, 3,184,000 blacks and 537,000 Asians live below poverty level.
Universities with holistic admission programs award all students points for economic disadvantages, but poor non-Hispanic whites students and, in some cases, Asian students, are the only ones who don’t get points for race and ethnicity. Rich Hispanic and rich black student get preference over poor non-hispanic white students.
5
I'm a dinosaur in this discussion, a graduate of the class of '65 but I was the first in my family to go to college. In retrospect, my awakening to the inequities of college admissions came in my junior year, when it was explained to us that each Ivy would accept only one student from our Brooklyn public high school because for reasons no one articulated but we understood: they didn't want to be inundated with Jews. I wasn't that student. These students were national math competition winners, double 800s (when 800 was perfection on the SATs) were common for those who did not even get a second glance from the Ivies and these guys did the New York Times crossword puzzle IN INK before first class. I got my crack at New Haven in graduate school, where pure ability and application not legacies and bribes are the criteria.
Here in California Asian students are suffering from the same exclusionist criteria. I wish the application process was done blind. That is, the admissions office can know only the record of the student without any indication of ethnic background and for that matter of whether family members had attended that school. Rank bribery such as the "philanthropy" practiced by the Kushner family, which neither before nor after their son was applying to Harvard ever had made donations to to the school, is when viewed by inequities no different from what the Singer ring was doing.
1
Great column. Makes me think of our recent supreme count justice Kavanaugh - he rented beach-houses as a teenager, went to a private feeder school for Yale and then claimed he was not privileged. Lots of problems with this process, a big one being that you get some mediocre talent in high places making decisions which affect our lives. That said, there are some reasonable schools where you can learn and advance, if you are really focused you can become top-tier, at least intellectually.
I wonder whether the author has stopped to consider how little she actually knows about the qualifications of her "legacy" lunchmate. Her SAT scores? Her overall GPA? The quality of her entrance application essays? The musical instrument she might play? Other special skills that she might contribute to the curated project that is Cornell's first year class? A hallmark of an educated mind is the questioning of conclusions and assumptions and the recognition that, at times, the evidence before us is inadequate to support the conclusions we might like to adopt. It just may be that the "legacy" lunchmate was more qualified to study at Cornell than her off-hand, self-deprecating comment might indicate.
5
Wait, how do you think they got rich in the first place?
1
70 percent of Harvard students receive some form of aid, and about 60 percent receive need–based scholarships and pay an average of $12,000 per year. Twenty percent of parents pay nothing. No loans required. At Cornell, at any given time 40 percent, or 6000 students, receive an average award of $40,000.
I was on financial aid for my first couple of years at Harvard- and frankly, I was never anything but grateful for the legacy students who not only helped pay my tuition-they were great contacts that helped with summer jobs and jobs after graduation - and coming from a town with a lot of banks and churches, and only one restaurant that serves dinner on Friday night-I needed that help.
The colleges and universities that have generous financial aid should not be the target of our ire-instead, look to the schools that cost $70,000 a year that provide little to no financial aid. They are the ones burying their students in hundreds of thousands dollars worth of debt. Their lack of financial support is a big reason why students are desperate to get into the Ivy League schools. That leaves a giant affordability gap between state schools and a Harvard for a family that will struggle with college costs.
https://studentloanhero.com/featured/us-colleges-generous-financial-aid-packages/
2
The average hardworking, disadvantaged Latina from Miami would likely be evaluated differently (i.e., more favorably) by Cornell and every other school than the average, hardworking, advantaged, legacy from just about anywhere.
3
The opinion writer has a very narrow view of merit. She also neglects the huge role of financial aid at many institutions.
2
I went to an elite liberal arts school 30 years ago. You should have seen the look on Mr. Legacy’s face when he realized in the dining hall he was accidentally sitting at the bumpkins’ table. He beat a hasty retreat and never sat with us again.
3
I'm disappointed and confused why the writer is being criticized for her feelings that her hard work was essentially being diluted by someone of privilege. It's just another example of how the 1% can't see past their checkbooks.
It's obvious that Ms. Crucet got more out of her hard work and dedication than her lunchmate, who will undoubtedly glide through her existence saying "yeah, I went to Cornell...yawn."
Please don't let the naysayers attempt to take you down a peg or two, and please continue to open others eyes to the inequities of systems that will most likely never be made equal.
2
Does it matter that Cornell is a private school? Did Cornell offer you a scholarship? My guess is that your legacy friend pays full tuition which subsidizes scholarships.
2
Please remind me again why it matters to anyone, and especially me, how I got into college. What matters to me is that that I kept at it until I graduated with skills in something I enjoyed and met great professors and young people along the way. That time and experiences were the wave that has carried me forward through the rest of my life. They don’t pay you for what you don’t know, and you won't learn unless you remain curious and enjoy what you are learning. I’m now very happy at 75 and I still don’t care how I got into college, only that I enjoyed the experience and made it through and it has made all the difference to me.
1
These stories are getting a little old. I grew up poor and was the first to attend college in my family, and I’m white. I didn’t have any of the special accommodations afforded to people of color, nor any financial support from my family or scholarships. But I also didn’t hold grudges against legacy kids or people that got in due to some accommodation. I didn’t think it was unfair because I didn’t spend my time complaining about how life is unfair, I had other things to do, like studying. There were a lot of rich kids with cars and fancy ski vacations while I was trying to scrape together the bus fare home. In the end, we mostly ended up in the same place in the work force. That’s life.
Sorry your experience of working hard was only to get into a good school, and not for who it should have really mattered - yourself.
9
Do we really want university admissions to be a pure meritocracy? Take the slice of people with the best grades and the highest SAT scores. Do we really expect that group (to the exclusion of others with slightly lower scores but other characteristics to recommend them) to be the most qualified to be the next generation of leaders? Shouldn't social characteristics, money, and family history of achievement also make perfectly valid contributions to the success of an individual?
Take George W.Bush, for example. He was likely a legacy admission to Yale. He went on to become president of the United States based on his family's wealth and political connections. The scales were very tipped in his favor. Knowing this, wouldn't we want someone destined to become president of the US get the best education possible?
While I appreciate this article and the fiery attitude of the writer, I'm asking myself, so what? Is there anybody here who doesn't give someone a "second chance" based on who they are as opposed to their worth as a human being? How many celebrities are making millions of dollars after being caught doing illegal activities? There are comedians, singers/rappers, movie stars, and TV personalities who should be rotting away in a prison cell, and instead they're getting sympathy from the masses saying, "They've changed! They're good people!" All of that based on....wait for it...wealth.
So why the outrage here? Because "we" were sold a bill of goods and now realize we got the scratch-and-dent offer as opposed to the brand-new-in-box one? Until "we" start judging EVERYONE based on merit, why should the privileged feel differently?
Make no mistake. I'm not one of them. I'm a minority who worked two jobs to pay for his own schooling at a top university, and still bust my tail every day at work so I can live a middle class life. And I'm glad that criminal charges have been filed, but if we're all so naive to believe any part of this playing field is level, while "we" still tilt in favor of others, "we" have no right to be upset about anything.
2
It is important to have ideals but remember:
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Imagine if there was no legacy entry. How many dollars less would the school have, how many more students would be required to pay full tuition, what research would go undone, what facilities would not be there?
Finally, the girl in the cafeteria should be noted for her humility. She’s on third base, but made no pretense of hitting a triple.
4
I attend an preppy boarding school in New England whose culture reflects much of that of the college admissions process. I can relate to the author's baffled reaction to her classmate explaining legacies and the individuals' preordained privelege carrying them to the top. My freshman year of high school, I had to navigate the realization that money and connections runs the world. And while as a first generation low income student it is my utmost hope that more hardworking students from similar backgrounds to mine can have the opportunity to take the place of kids who get in based on the money their parents have in their bank account, the world of the rich and affluent is much more complicated than those that cheat the system, and so is the environment in which students of low income communities live. For example, I acknowledge that I am able to attend my school thanks to the trustees and donors who have sent generations of their children to my school. Additionally, I recognize that many of those legacy kids are hardworking, but at the same time may accept and embrace a world of privelege rather than take into account that there are students who don't have the money to pay for tutors and countless testing. Furthermore, I know that in low income communities, it is hard to gain awareness of opportunities such as mine, because although there are excellent public schools in my home city, boarding school provides the premise to become well connected and move up the ladder.
1
@DL
I never pretended that I was writing an expose or analysis of the European higher educational system in a space limited comment.
Meritocracy follows perfectly from your detailing the output/input ratio in the schools we are talking about. If there are educational standards to be met to graduate from universities let them be there. There were plenty of people I went to school with or taught after at Columbia and Harvard who clearly did not merit to graduate. If the examinations were fair and there were no donor parents calling department heads for jacking up grades who would object to attrition rates that are way above zero?
There is a point to be made about the economic conditions of the students at home affecting the performance of the students a academically. Hardly an issue in today’s Western (and even Eastetn Europe) though. They have come a long way at least for their citizens not to worry about basic needs while they are studying.
We want to perpetuate the class structure in our society by maintaining percentages as close as possible to steady state (we are deviating in the opposite direction in the Trump and GOP ran USA that worries me). That is the formula that had worked so far. Keep the middle class happy, have a couple of rags to riches stories for the poor and maintain the oligarchy of the 1 Percent.
Is that better or worse than Europe? I don’t know for sure. Still mire Berkeleys, UCLAs and UCSDs are the way to go in my humble opinion.
1
The idea that we are seeing a revelation about meritocity and college admissions is extremely funny. Anyone who is not blind has recognized that college admission is all about wealth, social class and connection.
I graduated from a Chicago south suburban high school with my 850 classmates in 1973, and knew from the start that the universe of possible college choices was limited to junior college and a few local public and private four-years schools which accommodated working students. For me it was 30-hour week in a grocery store and as an occasional janitor to pay the bills.
It was understood that high end private schools such as University of Chicago and Nortwestern were not for me. I could not make enough money to pay their tuition and, realistically, the education I received at parochial and public schools in the south suburbs did not qualify me academically.
The best school I could afford was DePaul University, which Then prided itself as a school where over 70% of its students held jobs and many, like me, were first generation.
What has changed in the last 56? For one, DePaul has consistently raised its tuition and state funded tuition aid has disappeared. Lower income and lower class students are now victims of predatory loan programs and predatory for-
profit colleges.
Finally, I see that William Singer, the person at the center of the admissions scandal, contributed $150,000 to DePaul University where his son was a student.
Curious.
3
I am a Cornell alumnus who was neither an athlete nor a legacy applicant.
Ms. Crucet did not mention whether she received financial assistance from Cornell, but it is virtually certain that she did. Before off-loading the considerable chip on her shoulder, she might have paused to consider the extent to which donations from "legacy families" made possible that assistance.
7
I think that in some ways I was very lucky to learn that ahead of time. In high school back in the dark ages our school's most brilliant students--the ones with 4.0's when that was the highest grade you could get and 1600's on their SATs along with perfect scores on the subject tests and the best extracurricular resumes--found out that certain schools would not take them. Why not? It was a decent but very much middle class school and most of them were Jewish. We won't even consider the message that the black kids at the school had gotten where most of them were steered to the vocational track. Seeing poor and middle class friends get rejected from those schools and seeing the richer kids with worse grades get in taught me a lesson: college admissions are not a pure meritocracy.
5
If the author is young enough to have taken AP courses in high school (didn't exist when my generation went to school), then she is of a generation where tens of thousands of applicants to each college or university had the same grades and test scores. It really isn't so extraordinary these days. My kids had the same but didn't go to Ivy League universities. It is totally possible that she was admitted because of her ethnicity.
5
Cheating and scamming the system and buying your child's admission to undergraduate university is bad enough, the latter apparently legal, all of it unethical. And where is the discussion of graduation school admission? Same deal...I have witnessed this.
I am sorry for the applicants who now question how their middling grades, middling standardized test scores and lack AP classes taken equate with their admissions to the 'best' universities. It will haunt some of them forever. Sadly, others won't care and will extend this unscrupulous behavior to the next generation. Maybe they will be the Ivan Boesky's and Bernie Madoff's of their generation.
I am not sorry for my children who worked hard, applied on their own merit which put them at the top of the statistics for admission to leading universities, and were rejected from what many consider 'top' schools. They received fabulous educations because of the people they are: they chose to make the most of wonderful opportunities offered by the universities they attended. I am happy to report that they have fabulous jobs (that Ivy grads would be thrilled to have but are often rejected as applicants), and better yet, are happy and well-adjusted. Finally, they are now in a position to maintain a highly philanthropic relationship with their alma maters.
4
This was my first reaction to the recent Varsity Blues scandal as well: The difference between the bribes and other methods used in the scandal and the legal, socially-acceptable methods more commonly used (legacy, development, unconscious bias, etc) is nominal only.
How about one more opinion piece along the same lines: “Wait, how did you ‘earn’ your wealth?” The manipulative, extractive, exploitive industries of tech, finance, consulting, and corporate law (those same industries to which many modern college grads aspire) fall into the same category of “legal, socially-acceptable”, when they actually belong to the same class of moral and ethically reprehensible behavior.
Few fixes exist for these problems. When offered an easy or undeserved path (easier admission, high paying job that re-allocates rather than grows the economic pie), few of us choose morals and ethics over ease. How many of us are willing to consider situations from behind Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance and reject unfair advantages in the spirit of fairness and equity? The more that we view our fellow humans as disposable competitors rather than people equally deserving of happiness, life, and opportunity, the further we move from a moral co-existence.
2
What a wonderful lesson you learned that day freshman year. I hope you and the legacy girl became lifelong friends, and her family's foundation now supports the work you are doing with underprivileged students. Or did your sense of moral outrage prevent you from seizing the opportunity?
3
@HH As others have said this is a perk designed to entice people to a job with relatively low compensation-not compared to most people but compared to what people could make in the private sector. Professors make more than most people yes, but depending on the field they generally make way less than people who share their education level but who work in industry.
------------
I disagree with you - even for the professors.
.
However, we all know that the hundreds of physicians who work for UofR Strong hospital are not getting any less compensation than doctors who work for other hospitals and private practice.
1
Graduate here, of a great state university in the Midwest who got in by grades in the simple times of the 70’s.
Wonder if the same article would be published if the fellow student when asked the question instead had been a non economically disadvantaged minority. And responded that she was there because of affirmative action?
Would the student be smug in sharing this as a matter of fact statement, or be defensive and avoid responding? Would she dare to mention her mediocre academic record and how she got her break?
Most are not legacies. Those wealthy misbehaving folks are real but outliers. What is common are striving parents and students who take SAT prep courses and strategize carefully to gain legal advantage by hard work, carefully written essays (with outside eyes editing and suggesting), and Insincere community service and extracurriculars. Affirmative action for those who can invoke it is but one more maneuver that the fortunate who can invoke take full advantage of.
4
This is written for effect. A valedictorian doesn’t automatically understand the concept of legacy? She remembers what they were eating at some mundane lunch? Sorry - not buying the pretense of outrage nor its lasting imprint.
10
That‘s why we have publicly funded universities in Europe. Rich people still have it easier, but the playing field is a bit more level.
2
Maybe I’m naive but I think the majority of kids at these institutions are great hardworking deserving kids like the author. My child applied to Cornell and wasn’t accepted. Had a 4.0. enough AP credits to be almost a Junior entering college , good test scores Also a gifted all state athlete. Someone like the author got accepted and beat my child out so there is still meritocracy. We happen to be a pretty well off family and can pay full tuition so that didn’t help him. Although i think this scandal and behavior is disgusting let’s just have some perspective. I think a lot of legacies worked as hard as their parents. My child is now going to my alma mater so technically is a legacy at our great public university. The kid works extremely hard and takes nothing for granted. I think many kids even of well off parent and legacies are like this. I guess i’m just tired of generalizations made about groups of people especially kids who are legacies through no fault of their own. Sure there are cheaters and influential people who likely reduced the number of spots for more kids and that is unjust but Meritocracy still exists. The author is proof of that.
6
On this subject everyone seems to agree this is widespread and rampant. But nobody wants to do anything to change it. The colleges have gone out of there way to say they were unaware, blameless (Looking the other way doesn't make you blameless). But the colleges could actually do something. The named schools could say that for 1 year, the upcoming year we will not be accepting any Freshman so that we can begin a complete and thorough review of every aspect of our admissions process. In June of 2024 there will of course be no graduating class, no inspirational commencement address. Instead they could proudly proclaim that they have become truly inclusive and welcoming for ALL students, that they have no employees who hold golden tickets for purchase, that they have no secret "side doors." That would be doing something beyond cheap talk.
1
I have to laugh at all the outrage over this. Why would the college admission process be any different than how legislation, tax code and regulatory changes get implemented.
In 1976 the Supreme Court said money is speech. It's no coincidence that the 99% have been losing ground since.
4
@jmendi before you can have change you have to have outrage. Laughing about it is accepting it. What you are promoting is complacency - a sure way to make certain nothing ever changes. My daughter was interested in Cornell in 1996. We actually met with someone representing the school. Being a person of color she was told she would have to be perfect to gain entry - all A's, a stratospheric SAT score and about a billion hours of community service work. Should I laugh about all these unqualified people buying their way into elite schools or should I be outraged?
So the rich kids get in because of daddy's money. The poor minority kids get in due to affirmative action programs. And the smart, non-black or latino kids in the middle miss out.
My Asian, Jewish son got a 36 on his ACT (a perfect score). He had 4s and 5s on multiple AP exams (5 is the highest possible score), very good grades, played sports and was active in multiple clubs and community service groups in high school and worked 12-20 hours per week (full time in the summer) and still did not get in to the school he applied to early decision - and it wasn't even an Ivy League school.
He will go to a state school instead and will presumably still get a great education and have a great college experience. To be clear, I am not complaining. I am grateful that our collegiate system offers multiple paths to success.
But when the author says, that the college admissions process has an "overreliance on scores", my son's experience proves that is not true. His ACT score is higher than the average ACT score at every single college in the country.
Every school admissions officer we spoke to said the exact opposite, that they take a holistic approach to admissions. They also said that they seek out students of color (as long as that color is not Asian) and students who would be the first in their family to go to college.
Smart, middle class kids who are not black or Latino, and who are not star athletes, get overlooked the most.
11
you can learn a lot in university. one thing you can pick up, especially in the Northeast, is that bellyaching about the difficulties of the rigged and mystery-cloaked admisssions process is a comparatively recent development. originally, there were no actual requirements, appliations, or anything else. scions of wealthy families, or those who somehow had the call to become Protestant ministers, just showed up at the gates of Harvard or Yale and walked in, possibly at any time of year, or after the crops were in. it wasn't until many years later that people from conventional walks of life got the idea there was an advantage to higher education, tyat learnig cojkdmbe both vakuable and useful, that it did not necessarily have to be about preaching, medicine, or law, so and the game of musical chairs began. the first rules were, of course, no women, no blacks to speak of, and, naturally, no Jews. it's basically been downhill since. nut no matter how mich change we've seen, the basic product at selective academies remains the same: mythical exclusivity.
Human society is hierarchical. There have always been rich people and poor people, and probably always will be. We may not like where we find ourselves as individuals, but even if we want to change things, we still have to start from where we are.
College is one of several ways that people with power and influence extend these advantages to their children. Surely this is obvious.
At the same time, however, college allows a small number of talented and hard-working people to move up a rung or two on the ladder. It also provides the not so talented and not so hard-working with rationales and apologetics, but that’s another story.
The American system of education is vast and complex. It is surprising, but also not surprising, that the author of this piece had to confront the poverty of her childhood in a cafeteria conversation.
I am puzzled, however, by the thoughts expressed by the author and some of the commenters, that it has only now become desirable to explain to young people that legacy students exist and that other families are richer than their own. A quick glance through American literature shows that this was once common knowledge. I’m thinking of F. Scott Fitzgerald and This Side of Paradise, but this is just one of many.
It has always been important to explain the world truthfully to children. The deeper question here, and one carefully avoided by the author, is why her family allowed her to maintain her illusions as long as she did.
1
Cheating and illegal activity in college admissions is abhorrent. That said, it should not be used as either an excuse or a deterrent for getting a college education if that is what you want. What this op-Ed leaves out is the value and wonder of the college learning experience, regardless of how your roommates got there. Life is not fair in that those with more money have a big boost in all of life. But, in California, where I live and volunteer with less advantaged high school students, there are many many programs to help first generation students go to outstanding public universities. As abhorrent as the conduct revealed this week is, let us not make it a reason for young people to not work hard, or be defeated. I did it getting both an undergrad and law degree from UC Berkeley and have seen many of the high school students I volunteer with do the same. Don’t encourage victim hood.
5
Because of doing applicant interviews for Yale in Arkansas for years, but also because I am a retired psychologist interested in measurement, I have tried to notice what the admissions people are up to. Most of the comments generated since the current admissions scandal broke, reflect a simplistic view of the process. The admissions people at elite schools have a lot of issues to balance. Their primary goal is to find kids who will do well academically, but who are also likely to go on to do good things after graduation. Grades and test scores function as a floor, not an entitlement. A few super bright kids are nice, but taking advantage of opportunities and getting involved are better predictors of long term success. Being likeable counts in college and in life You need diversity on a number of factors, not just ethnicity. You need jocks to field a number of teams, but mostly football players to keep the alums happy. I think they ask if the place would be better for this student being around? Yes, if your family might give a building, you get a bump, but legacies are not primarily about money; it's about institutional loyalty. Our current flap is not about the admissions process, but about dishonest families trying to game it. My bet is that the admissions people will revise their procedures based on the experience.
68
@rawebb1my daughter worked for the Admissions office and was an engineering tour guide at Yale who also conducted interviews as a DC alum..she was fortunate to know the Admissions staff and would always await a response about whether her "picks" were accepted...she wrote honestly about her "take" on an applicant and Yale loved for her to conduct interviews. She is African-American and graduated with an engineering degree. Many of the students would walk past her in the coffee shop where she conducted the interviews. She would allow them to sit and stew about the lateness of their interviewer (how dare), before approaching them to conduct the interview. Many were quite shocked that she was their interviewer. It took the students out of their comfort zone but revealed volumes about temperament and entitlement...
25
@NativeWashingtonian I love that. I'm presently waiting to hear how the three wonderful young women I interviewed this year will fare. That's the hard part: Yale is taking about 5% of its applicants, so you know most of the kids you see will not make it. Maybe because I live in a backward state, but I am not seeing kids who appear to have spent their high school careers working on their applications, and their families are sure not bribing anybody.
5
@rawebb1
I disagree. I think "Our current flap" is very much about flaws with the admissions processes at highly selective schools, simply brought to our attention most recently by criminal (not merely "dishonest families") trying to game it.
9
As the first in her family going to college, the author herself was given "bonus" points in the application process. The only student to get into Harvard from my childrens' large public high school in the last 7-8 years had similar grades, activities and test scores as countless other kids but was unique in being the first in her family to attend college. I received a similar bump when I applied to a prestigious school and was accepted 30 some years ago. I also received a generous financial aid package. Where did that money come from? The families that gave generously to the university in the past.
143
@CAM
There are plenty of wealthy individuals and families that give to universities (including ones they did not attend) without the expectation that their children get preferential admissions treatment. That should be the norm.
One could argue that the overall "life bump" from having university educated parents is much greater than any one-time additional admissions considerations for a first generation student. I know what I would have picked had I had the option when born.
3
Or maybe neither of you should’ve been laughing at the other while you took satisfaction in knowing that working hard and making an achievement means more to you than it does to someone skating through life. I find the current debate strange with its implication that college should be the same for all people. College has always been the place where many want to get the least for their money, and I’m glad about what it says about me that I tried to get the most. Maybe that’s why I’ve been the most successful and dare I say happiest, and part of that means not holding a grudge against those who bought their way in and then phoned it in while there, only to now ten years later have situations that reflect how much effort they put in then.
20
Last year Princeton received over 35,000 applications for the Class of 2022. More than 14,000 of them were students with a 4.0 gpa. More than 17,000 of them were students with SAT scores over 1400. Fewer than 2,000 applicants were admitted. 92 percent of the applicants with a 4.0 and 92 percent of the applicants with 1500 or higher on the SAT did not make the cut. 75 percent of those who were admitted had SAT scores of 730 or higher in Math, and 75 percent of those who were admitted had SAT scores of 700 or higher in Reading. 23 percent of those admitted and 20 percent of those enrolled qualified for federal Pell grants. 17 percent of those admitted and 15 percent of those enrolled are first generation college students. 11 percent of those admitted and 14 percent of those enrolled were legacies.
4
can a wealthy plastic surgeon in Bel Air buy one of those 2% of slots already allocated for no-show applicants for his brilliant but slow-to-apply daughter? if so, can I buy them all and then scalp seats to the highest bidder?
I appreciate what Professor Capo Crucet has written. College admission is (indeed) a complex issue. The reality is that (depending on the university) a significant number (in some instances, upwards of 50%) of those entering as freshman do not graduate.
If we look at college as the opportunity to get a better job, the key (often overlooked) factor is about two thirds of the jobs available for filling at any time DO NOT REQUIRE a four year degree.
When someone (irrespective of family wealth) does not succeed in college, it is often the fact that this young person was not ready to succeed. Maturity, working hard, collaborating with others, etc. are all ingredients contributing to ultimate success. At some point, the student has to demonstrate sufficient independence to do what it takes to succeed.
I hasten to add that my college experience was more than forty (40) years ago and it came after a stint in the service. Since I was certainly not a legacy, whatever I achieved was earned. Most successful people have earned it the same way; through hard work, perseverance, a strong (human) social network, a supportive spouse, etc.
The increased transparency that may result from this episode ought to enable us to see that there is a right way to do this. Privilege (whether white or otherwise) will always be with us. The ultimate success is up to the individual student and NOT THE SIZE OF THE CHECKS from their benefactor.
The meritocracy in our college system lies in the fact that almost anyone can start taking courses at a local community college. If, however, you want to get into the most selective colleges, it is not going to be a strict meritocracy because there are too many smart applicants for too few slots. But if highly selective colleges prefer to admit athletes, or tuba players, or students from a particular ethnic group (perhaps like Dr. Crucet) without paying their high tuition, they have to get the money from those who can pay, such as from the children of wealthy donors. It's amusing that Dr. Crucet sees the privilege in a legacy student to be unfair, but her own admission to Cornell to be completely earned.
6
Sure, college attendance is weighted in favor of the wealthy, like every other advantage in society. That isn’t exactly a revelation.
Most colleges actually make conscious and significant efforts toward ethnic diversity and back that up with financial aid, which is more than we can say for a lot of other aspects of society. (Of course conservatives are doing their best to impede or eliminate such efforts.)
There are also other pressing problems that go deeper than just the headline of admission to “elite” colleges, one of which is the fact that world-class public universities like the University of California used to be affordable to all, but now are out of reach for many since the wealthiest individuals and corporations no longer pay their fair share of taxes.
Encouraging first-year students to draw dividing lines among their classmates as to who is most deserving to attend does not seem productive.
5
I think your last comment is what “intersectionality” is most about: determining who is the greatest “victim” and ranking people on that basis. Eg, is a Trans Native American more oppressed that than a blind Zoroastrianist (sorry if physical disabilities or religion don’t merit PC favor)? And then who merits greater government intervention.
1
Most of us who came from poor and minority families had a much different experience in school than what you see in the standard college brochures - less time for sailing and tennis, more time spent washing dishes and reading. We also paid attention to choosing a useful major early, and we focused on finishing the course requirements before our financial aid eligibility ran out. We were survivors... and I think we built up more academic discipline and focus than our more affluent classmates - good preparation for the work world.
52
There is much to be said for a work ethic, making your own ‘connections’ and of course, the golden rule.
3
This reminds me of an amusing take from long ago of a friend who had got into an Oxbridge college on a state scholarship. At dinner on his first evening he was shaken when the Master stood up and said he had an announcement to make: "I regret to inform you that we have two students here on state scholarships, (pause) I very much fear that they are going to raise the academic standing of the college". (He did)
44
This is clearly apocryphal. Up until 1998 any university in the UK, including Oxford and Cambridge were entirely free to all students. Even when they started paying fees, it was only about $1500 a year.
3
My granddaughter went to library to take practice tests for a SAT subject test. Practice tests don't make you smarter, but they do help you get higher scores. If your kids can't do well, send them to community college where they can take remedial courses of necessary. The SAT is a little tricky, but I am told the ACT just requires critical reading, knowledge of correct English, and no math skills beyond Algebra Two. If your kid always tested at the advanced level on state standardized tests, a few practice tests should be all that is needed. Students who are barely proficient, should go to Community Colleges or Trade Schools. Not everyone is academic. We need people with diverse skills.
20
This attractive narrative hits all the right notes of the "self-perpetuating, closed elites rule the world" meme.
But in many cases it's untrue.
Take mine. I grew up poor in a tiny, backwater Appalachian town. Three members of my graduating high school class made it to college. The other 45 didn't.
I had no "connections", legacy, athletic scholarships or indeed any similar advantages. But I was smart -- with academic merit of a measurable kind. This got me admitted to an Ivy League college.
Yes, it was sometimes daunting to be among so many wealthy and privileged students.
No, they were not welcoming. They even had derogatory names for country bumpkin financial aid kids like me.
I could have been bitter. But instead, the wealth and privilege I saw for the first time strongly motivated me to compete and succeed.
Which I did, graduating at the top of my class, getting into an Ivy League professional school and then having a wonderful career.
From a dead-end, poor small town I had the chance for international experiences, a role in some important global developments and the accumulation of some wealth.
Here's the key point. During my careers I would have been labeled part of the "elite". It wasn't a self-perpetuating, closed elite because I was part of it.
There are many, many other stories like mine that teach there is no closed elite.
So when I meet smart country bumpkins, I tell them to go out, work hard and compete. There is no limit.
307
@Stuck on a mountain YOU should be writing an Op-Ed. That is what first generation kids need to know. Invaluable advice.
16
@Stuck on a mountain
Agreed, I share a similar experience and the only individual solution is to work hard and compete. But there is a limit in the aggregate and this editorial points to it.
The American meritocracy is mostly an illusion.
Think of it this way, two people out of millions win the jackpot in Vegas. So therefore, people should just gamble more? The house and the wealth have the odds and the better approach would be a more equitable game.
19
@Perhaps how on earth does college admission count as winning a jackpot? Millions and millions of kids go to college every year, not just two. The meritocracy is not perfect but it is working well, as @Stuck pointed out.
A more accurate Vegas analogy would be to ask why casinos comp the rooms for high rollers. It's because they spend more, thereby enabling the casino to remain in business for all of us to play. I'm certainly not willing to blow the kinds of money that high rollers do, so I am glad they are part of the ecosystem. They enable the rest of us to enjoy a higher quality experience at a lower cost.
In the collegiate world, my family never donated a building or a science lab or even a textbook, so I consider myself fortunate that other families did. We all benefit immensely from those things, and the benefits (to us) far outweigh the trifling cost of a few legacy admissions.
2
Any donation that has even the faintest whiff of being quid pro quo should not be tax deductible.
2
Is there reliable data that demonstrates the universality of advantages from Ivies? We all know that the best profs at these places often teach 20 students a year. So it may not be that. Or is it the contacts, the secret society, aspect that makes the Ivy parchment so much more valuable. And for that matter, what kind of value. What's the return on paying $75,000 at an Ivy versus, say Temple at almost half that price. Or is money no impediment to everyone who goes to the Ivies?
1
Not only are there well known separate admissions advantages for the wealthy, there are also a not-so-well-known grading advantages. For four years I worked as a teachers assistant for undergraduate premedical classes during my graduate degree (at an Ivy league school). At the end of my first teaching semester, I was shocked when I was asked to "re-grade" a students final exam after all the final grades for the course had been submitted. When I pressed for a reason, it eventually got out that the student in question was from a wealthy donor family and their parents had placed a call to the head of the department I worked for demanding that there must be some mistake if their child wasn't taking home at least an A-. I flat out refused to re-grade, so they asked another TA, and that student magically got their A. Over the four years I taught this was actually happened with startling frequency, and the students were always the wealthy connected ones whose parents placed calls to the head of the department. Furthermore, the same students were often listed as having some special learning disability that allowed them unlimited time, private proctoring in special locations, and the ability to even start taking the exam, stop, and come back after having studied for the specific questions. The whole ordeal I witnessed was outrageous, but not more outrageous than the fact that I, as a non-legacy first generation student, was the only one who seemed surprised.
557
@ab - I remember vividly proctoring a history exam at UCLA one year. The class was not one I taught, but rather one my dissertation advisor did, and I happened to be free for the duty. Imagine my surprise when, as the students were settling down, I was approached by a person in a tracksuit, wanting to tell me who in the class belonged to what particular sports activity, hoping that I would consider the facts. I was the proctor, not the grader. I told the individual to leave, conducted the test and on its conclusion, informed my advisor of the attempted intervention. My advisor, an extremely senior academic, called John Wooden. John Wooden scorched the individuals concerned and made the athletic department's position on grade manipulation very clear indeed. Any attempt to do so or effort by one or another coaches to do so would result in either dismissal or termination. This was the policy of the day. It is remarkable that it is so no longer.
57
@ab I’m also an educator, and I agree that wealthy students should not have advantages in terms of grading.
However, students with learning disabilities should not be lumped into the same basket with those whose parents demand a re-grade. Students with physical disabilities, dyslexia, or executive function challenges (disabilities that may be invisible) truly need — and are guaranteed by law — extended time or other modifications to assessments.
Extended time and other modifications are intended to level the playing field. While there are certainly a few who are inaccurately diagnosed for cynical purposes, the vast majority of students with diagnosed disabilities should not be maligned as cheaters.
9
I am astounded at this story and a bit incredulous. I have been teaching at a large private research university for over 40 years, and I have never once been asked to change a grade by anyone in any position of authority. It would be unthinkable.
Some students have asked me to explain their grade more fully or to assess a paper graded by a TA on which they felt the grade was unfair, but no one other the student has asked for any such consideration.
I don't say it did not happen, but it would be very unusual and way outside the bounds of acceptable academic behavior.
25
I do believe in meritocracy, but the article misses a fundamental point. Most higher education relies to a large degree on private funding, even public universities can in some cases have multi-billion dollar endowments. Legacy children are more likely to donate more money and pay full tuition than first gen children. So the schools need to run some challenging models to make sure they balance helping society while ensuring they'll have enough money to achieve their respective missions (and schools do not all have the same missions). I do feel for the qualified student losing an admissions spot to a less qualified student, which happens for a variety of reasons, money being one of them. This isn't an easy matter to sort out and won't be done anytime soon, but on the positive, awful cases like the cheating scandal we're witnessing will indeed make higher ed stronger in the long run.
32
@Public U grad google the endowments of ivies and ivy level schools (Stanford) who have more money than small countries...the upper middle who pay full tuition (at Yale that means income of less than $150K) their money is not being used to subsidize financial aid specifically. Think of it this way, a person who has no children and lives in a bunker pays for public education, public highways, military, ICE etc
and has no say re: where the money is spent
4
I went to an elite school and had no illusions about the fact that some people bought their way in. I was in a class with someone whose last name adorned the university's medical school. Most, however, get in throo the front door. I don't know the percentages, of course, but certainly less than half get the kind of help that's more than a nudge. And at elite schools, coming from a disadvantaged background is itself a lot more than a nudge, of course.
What I didn't realize was how smart and hardworking a lot of these rich kids are. One woman, whose father donated $100 million to the school the year after she graduated, was one of the smartest people in my class and I had no idea she was a billionairess until after we graduated.
While i didn't go to private school (i went to a public high school in a small town in the midwest), I definitely got the feeling that these upper class kids were in pressure-cooker private schools, and I'm frankly happy i got to avoid that. I ended up in the same place after all.
Lastly, I'd like to say this: we want the dumb rich kids in the elite school classes. One of the prizes of being a hardworking lower-class person is to win a spot next to these people of unearned privilege and be able to be their smart friend. That alone is half the value of an elite degree. As long as they keep the truly unmeritorious to 10% or so, I think the system is working ok.
253
@Big Cow
'One of the prizes of being a hardworking lower-class person is to win a spot next to these people of unearned privilege and be able to be their smart friend. '
That is the best defense of wealth-based admissions I yet have encountered. Both our kids went to Ivies, and were the smart kids. We had an egalitarian stick up our fundaments and paid the full ride out of principle, just because we could. Long story there. But it is true that some rich kids are brilliant. Others, not so much. My older son, at Brown, had a Saudi friend who apparently majored in pornography.
7
@Big Cow One of the best medical students I taught came from a wealthy family whose relatives gave their names to various well-known devices, procedures, tests, etc. in medicine. You would not know it: she was as humble as she was hard-working.
12
@Big Cow. It's also possible the author's interpretation of the discussion are not entirely accurate.
That the legacy woman would recount a very different version of the conversation. That perhaps she found the author was being aggressive with her and was pushing back. The questions the author peppered her with were unquestionably rude, and perhaps she was goading her on.
Why are we accepting the author's version of an emotionally charged lunch as gospell?
16
I went to the City College of New York (CCNY), which is part of the City University of New York. When I attended admission was solely based on a combination of your SAT scores (math and verbal) and your high school average - no legacy admissions, no admissions based on donations, no admissions based on athletics, no essays, no consideration of extra-curricula activities, and no exceptions. The academic competition for grades was extremely intense - in fact, after finishing at CCNY, I attended graduate school at a nationally ranked top ten major university and the graduate students at this university were not nearly as good as the undergraduates at CCNY. Since I was an undergraduate, admission procedures have changed considerably, particularly in the important area of taking into account racial balance, but the idea of having a public university where admission is almost solely based on academic merit is one that still should be considered.
5
Like the writer, I too attended Cornell; also as a first generation student with top scores and having been focused and accomplished in public school. Like the writer, I met a legacy student my first week. We became friends, he took me skiing for my first time. Then he withdrew after the first semester. The demands of the school and the pressure of the legacy was overwhelming. Could he have found a way to coast? Perhaps, but what a way to get through life. I don’t envy that at all.
4
As a parent of three children who has been through what I like to call the "nuclear arms race of college admissions" I remember well having to decide what aspect of this crazy process we would absolutely have to participate in in order to see our children hopefully admitted to a school that they both desired and were qualified for. The guiding message from college admissions offices was that there were specific activities or classes they wanted to see on the child's record. For all the admissions office talk of "following your passion", choosing a really tough class or pursuing your real interest was the kiss of the death because failure and risk taking were not options. So, let's also assign some of the responsibility to college admissions offices for the fact that children are expected to acquire experience and demonstrate ability in areas for which they have limited or no talent or interest just to fill out the almighty application with the prerequisite subsidized mission trip, or community service. Then enter standardized tests, grounded in socio-economic privilege which favor good test takers. Not every person is a good test taker. How many deserving students have been turned down because of a test score versus an exemplary academic record? College admissions needs a reset, starting at the admissions office door. However, while no one will admit it, it will always reset back to donors and money in spite of all the hand wringing.
2
The legacy sounds like the classic case of a person born on third base and goes through life thinking they hit a triple. Hopefully if that individual is in competition for something she really wants, the tables are turned and someone who did the work wins.
1
The GI Bill. As one of eight children of a poor, white Appalachian family headed by a widowed mother the only door open to me when I graduated from high school was the army. After college I left the U.S. again but this time to work. Today I’m an expat with my own company and looking forward to renouncing my US citizenship in the near future when I get citizenship in my new home.
3
Ultimately, think of it all this way, and hopefully take some measure of comfort:
The true measure of your success in life is not how far you have come, but how far you have come FROM WHERE YOU STARTED.
Special kudos to those who came from backgrounds with little to no advantage. You have truly achieved something special.
4
"tests that are widely regarded as biased against low-income students, students of color and students from single-parent households." Widely regarded by whom?
5
Oh, the students who get hosed by them, and pretty much everybody who studies them, people like that. Not by the kids they privilege, though, so there’s that.
FYI: single best predictor of college success? High school grades. Those tests have one real function, the function for which they were designed...to identify talented students who would otherwise fall between the cracks.
4
Rich people's children have many benefits. That's part of the reason parents desire to acquire wealth is to give them those benefits. Cheating is wrong. But making money and spending it on providing your child the best education you wish to pay for is not. Perhaps public universities should be merit based, but private schools should be left alone.
2
There are quite a number of comments here suggesting that since these institutions are private, that their admissions policies should not be scrutinized to quite the same degree.
Forgetting for a moment that most courts would not interpret the law in this manner even for privately owned businesses that provided services to the public (ie restaurants, hotels, etc), what is not being mentioned is that virtually every college and university receives some type of federal funding.
Years ago, hospitals were forced to eliminate rooms where patients and visitors could smoke cigarettes indoors, including in parts of the country where winter temperatures routinely could drop to -17F. The justification for this didn't have anything to do with health, but rather that hospitals, as recipients of federal medicare dollars, were subject to the same rules as other federally operated buildings. There is little to no reason why the same principle should not apply to college campuses.
7
I’m reminded constantly about the uneven lines here in our community.
My Aunt along with many Asian, Black and Latino students were kept in one section while the privileged,business and
land owners were in another.
Daring teachers would send my Aunt to the privileged section
to enrich my aunts math talent. She is now 97 years old, one of the first women CPA’s in our community.
I think of the those teachers who took that chance to
help change the life of my aunt, risking their careers,
4
This is surely a complicated subject with no easy answers. We are talking about *private* institutions that need to balance many needs and meet a budget. Why can’t a private institution give a spot to a benefactor’s kid to get a great education?
5
@Alan "Why can't a private institution give a spot to a benefactor's kid...?" Because it takes away " a great education" from a hard working, deserving student, because it makes it okay to use money to cheat ( and yes, it is cheating, just as much as bribing college coaches or correcting SAT answers). Just because it is a private institution doesn't make it okay.
3
@Tess Being a "private" institution comes with it some extra responsibilities that a "public" institution does not -- private institutions are responsible for their own budget.
A quite small amount of this is from tuition, a big chunk is from government money given for specific outcomes, and the biggest chunk is from the private institutions own fund raising ("development") work.
To put it another way, nothing's free, including the education the private institution does, and what the private institution is doing with these legacy or developmental admissions is completing the transaction with families or individuals who have paid ahead of time by built the private institution through their work or financial contributions.
Short version of my response: without this contribution from legacies and rich people, the private institution wouldn't exist! So of course it compensates people who give to it.
(Government money is typically a transactional grant given by the government to the institution for a specific purpose -- for example $50 to research how to make better radar systems or improve wheat growing efficiency. The university has to deliver *that outcome* with the money.)
The myth of meritocracy is a fact of life. It affects every aspect of our lives, not just college admissions. It affects where we'll work, who we'll marry, where we'll live. Yes, a few rise above and move out of the class they were born into, but without money, it's difficult to make the connection necessary to get ahead, and without the connections it's difficult to make the money. This should be a surprise to no one.
4
Like the author, I am also a first generation, minority Cornell graduate.
The college admissions scandal last week was about several colleges' employees accepting bribes in exchange for getting unqualified students admitted to these schools. As far as we know, the colleges themselves knew nothing of this. It's unfair to judge the entire university system on the experience of a few colleges or judge the individual schools on the actions of a few employees.
A generous donation to schools from parents to get their children into those schools seems unfair to most of us. In Jared Kusher's case, it's $2m to get into Harvard. But that money is a benefit to the entire school. including students with financial needs and minorities. Perhaps a similar $2m contribution to Cornell is what allowed me to enroll there with financial aid from the school. Also, admitting Kusher doesn't mean not admitting another, more qualified, student. Colleges don't have a fixed admissions cap.
Schools like Cornell actually make a strong effort to recruit and admit minorities like the author and me to give us a better chance to compete in this world while diversify their alumni and legacy pool.
No, a diploma from Cornell doesn't say I'm smarter, harder working, or a better human being than one from SUNY Upstate. But I'd be lying to myself if I didn't think it opened many more doors for me and my children.
I am grateful to Cornell for giving me so many opportunities.
16
@Larry The same effect would occur if the parents were taxed more aggressively and our institutions were better funded through those taxes. We once created tax payers with our colleges and now we produce mostly interest payers.
"Colleges don't have a fixed admissions cap"? Just not true. By definition admission is limited.
2
@Larry " Colleges don't have a fixed admissions cap. " Surely they must have an admissions cap. Possibly the Kusher's $2m donation allowed them to increase the cap, but more likely it did result in a more qualified applicant not being accepted.
@Larry Dude, how wrong could could you be? The ratio of teachers to students, and class sizes, are a selling point of selective colleges. There’s no such thing as “we expand the size of our student body to accommodate the children of megadonors.” A place given to Kushner is a place denied to a middle class or low income kid. There’s this philosophy in America which is something like, why should I care that the super rich get some advantages, like million dollar tax cuts, when I, as a working class or middle class person gets a couple hundred dollar tax cut, because everyone wins, they get the mansion, I get crumbs, so what? The lack of fairness, of equal opportunity, income disparity, hurts the whole system of capitalism and democracy. The system falls apart if corruption discourages new generations from trying to succeed and instead turning to drugs or crime because they don’t see the point in competing in a system whose outcome is fixed. Apologists don’t help break this corruption. We adults have to work to keep the system fair for future generations. Universities were supposed to give the middle class opportunities that may not have existed in Europe or the Old World, not perpetuate an aristocracy.
Well, yes, preference given to legacy students seems unfair (though at most institutions those offered admission are still quite talented, and one could argue that private colleges should be able to do what they want).
But I wonder if Professor Crucet feels the advantage given to minority group, economically disadvantaged, and first-generation applicants is also unfair?
12
I attended Cornell ('87, A&S) on an Army ROTC scholarship. I graduated from a public high school in a small town and worked hard to succeed. I was amazed at some of the wealth and privilege on campus. While I didn't realize at the time the corrupted process by which many of them were admitted, I was appalled by the rich frat boys who would show up late for class still hungover from last night's party, cheat their way through school, then go on to careers in business or on Wall Street where I assume their lack of ethics helped them to continue to succeed (I entered active duty upon graduation). It constantly angered me. That said, they were vastly outnumbered by the many students who genuinely deserved to be there, and the education I received was priceless. The professors were top of their field. Despite the bad apples (which needs to be addressed), for those who are looking to actually get a good education, the elite schools do have something to offer.
11
Thank you for at least mentioning the biases in standardized tests. So many of the recent articles about the way the upper classes game the system focus on legacy/sports admissions and large financial donations without mentioning that the SATs are not a true measure of merit but instead are a measure of wealth privilege.
@todji
If what you were saying about the SAT was true, you would not see such a large number of students whose parents are teachers and engineers- solid members of the middle class- scoring so highly on these exams.
5
I remember applying to college. I limited myself to University of California campuses. Theirs was back in the 80s. I wrote a 1.5 page personal statement, sent my high school grades and SAT scores in, and checked off which campuses I wanted to apply to (each check cost $15, I think). I waited and eventually heard back: rejected from Berkeley, accepted at a few others. I went to UCSD.
It’s gotten much more competitive since then, but in spite of the involvement of Berkeley and UCLA in this latest scandal, this sort of legacy business really is vastly less prominent at UC schools. They are also much larger and enroll far, far more low income students than the ivies. UCLA alone enrolls more low income students (as measured by Pell grants) than the entire Ivy League combined. Other UCs do as well, Berkeley comes close. And while they don’t have the same aura of exclusivity, as research institutions The UC system compares favorably against many ivies or privates. Really, UCSD, Davis, Irvine have exceptional breadth and depth of research and PhD programs.
Let’s stop lionizing the ivies. These institutions combine large endowments with tiny class sizes to remain exclusive. They offer generous financial aid, but to a small percentage of low income students in an already small class size. For social mobility and research on a meaningful scale, look to the other coast.
16
@Jeff - I don't believe Berkeley was identified as one of the institutions involved in this scandal. UCLA, USC and Stanford are the California institutions involved so far.
I think one of the best pieces of advice a college access counselor can give is to encourage first generation students to apply to state schools or any college. There are many paths to success and graduate school that don't include the Ivy League.
16
@Bette The Fret You want first generation students who are more likely to be low income and/or persons of color to go elsewhere and give up the dream of attending an Ivy League school. What so the wealthy elites can keep it for themselves? Why not call out the schools for allowing persons of wealth to buy their child's way in. You seem to be giving the colleges a pass, while wanting school counselors to do the dirty work of telling first generation students that their goals are too lofty, that they should stay in their lane.
Thank you for this article. It is well written and hits some major problems we face as a nation. None are new and unfortunately seem to be imbedded in who we are.
The myth of meritocracy is needed to maintain normalcy in the society. Otherwise people wake up and rebel against it.
When you tell people, say from Scandinavian countries, the way our college system works, legacy candidates, sports recruits, racial quotas et al, they find it hard to believe. And why shouldn’t they? After all, so many in continental Europe went to totally free universities (that are called that there) and managed to become Einstein, Freud, Schroedinger, Tesla, Heisenberg, Pasteur, Poincare, Landau and Perelman.
I got my doctorate from Harvard and undergraduate degree from Columbia on full scolarships. My daughters went to Harvard and Yale. I met my wife of 32 years at Harvard. We know more admission stories that point to the inequality in the system than I care to remember even.
Time to reform what we can and emphasize pure merit based admissions to publicly funded superb institutions like UC Berkeley. They are as close as we can get to the Heidelberg’s, University of Vienna, ETH of Zurich and the ENS of Paris that we can get. Schools where my list of visionaries above partially cover.
9
@Blunt Your story just glances over the reality of the EU education. I have spent a lot of time at EPFL Lausanne and ETH Zurich. Yes, they are free. However, the attrition rate - those who do not pass 2nd year qualifiers for undergrads - is 50%. They do not have remedial classes as well. So they start with a class of 2000 and end up with 1000 people graduating. Same was back in the USSR where I went to school - we started with 75 kids in our Nuclear Physics program, only 35 graduated. Others were kicked out. However, it was free.
1
@DL
I never pretended that I was writing an expose or analysis of the European higher educational system in a space limited comment.
Meritocracy follows perfectly from your detailing the output/input ratio in the schools we are talking about. If there are educational standards to be met to graduate from universities let them be there. There were plenty of people I went to school with or taught after at Columbia and Harvard who clearly did not merit to graduate. If the examinations were fair and there were no donor parents calling department heads for jacking up grades who would object to attrition rates that are way above zero?
There is a point to be made about the economic conditions of the students at home affecting the performance of the students a academically. Hardly an issue in today’s Western (and even Eastetn Europe) though. They have come a long way at least for their citizens not to worry about basic needs while they are studying.
We want to perpetuate the class structure in our society by maintaining percentages as close as possible to steady state (we are deviating in the opposite direction in the Trump and GOP ran USA that worries me). That is the formula that had worked so far. Keep the middle class happy, have a couple of rags to riches stories for the poor and maintain the oligarchy of the 1 Percent.
Is that better or worse than Europe? I don’t know for sure. Still mire Berkeleys, UCLAs and UCSDs are the way to go in my humble opinion.
1
Legacies gets an advantage just like minorities, first generation and lower income students. And donations benefit also the students who otherwise could not afford expensive colleges.
20
If we are being honest, almost no one defends legacy admissions, including the overwhelming majority of white students and their parents.
Legacy admissions are a vestige of an earlier time, and to the extent that they award a disproportionate number of wealthy whites entry into a freshman class, they disproportionately hurt white and Asian students who would be competing for the same spots when an admissions committee is constructing a "diverse" class.
Once again, a story that at root is about class privilege is being twisted to make it into a story about race.
10
No point in vilifying this rich legacy family. Their donations are -in part - responsible for paying lower income students' tuition.
The real problem is that higher education is not free, like it is in almost every other civilized country.
19
@S
It might be free in other countries but it is definitely NOT open to everyone—only to those who pass admission exams and who are definitely qualified. (Of course, I imagine that they have their own admission scandals.)
2
So how many thousands in student loans did the writer rack up by attending Cornell? And is the status worth the lifelong debt?
This is the issue about which to advise students. There are schools for legacies, and if they really want to enter, they will pawn their lives away. It's much better to go to community colleges and graduate from local state universities. Traditionally black schools also offer better prices. They are closer to a life of relative freedom from debts.
Sure, a two-track system exists in the US that is distinguished from perhaps all other countries. The poor should not fall into the trap of joining the rich for a few hours per day. If the stronger students attend community institutions, they will raise their quality also.
8
Cornell alum here, graduated in the last few years. You’re right in saying you don’t have to attend an ivy to get a good college education. However, I can say from my experience that Cornell gives generous financial aid to people who come from similar backgrounds as the author. I wouldn’t have attended Cornell without the grants and scholarships I received, and they let me pay what I could manage without signing my life away to crippling debt. Cornell students receiving financial aid definitely aren’t the majority, but most Cornell students aren’t legacy students, either. There are legacy students who are exactly like the author describes, but I also know ones who are incredibly smart, hardworking people who deserved to be at Cornell as much as I did. But I’m not defending the system, just some of the students. Legacy admissions is so problematic and the system needs to change, but I think discouraging first-gen students from applying to these schools is accepting the current system and allowing it to continue to be a barrier for people. Cornell still has work to do, but there are students, organizations within and outside the school, people in admissions, working to make it better.
Why does it come as a surprise that social class is a main factor in admission to schools/colleges/universities? Why does it come as a surprise that the social experience is most important to the "gentlemen's C" group? And so on.
1
We are a middle class family who lost everything in the Recession. We are pretty broke, having had to relocate for jobs more frequently than we would like. My daughters (twins) go to a very good public high school, and have worked really hard - 12 APs, oboe, leadership positions, excellent SATs and ACTs. . .and we are being waitlisted at colleges, while their peers who are not white are getting in. My point is that the race part of this discussion absolutely works both ways.
47
@Robin you should be outraged. Let’s not sugarcoat this and be PC about it. This process handicaps white and Asian Americans plain and simple. It’s why Harvard is being sued.
But also take the long view. If your kids are smart enough to be in those classes, do well on their tests and are motivated enough to go college - they will be fine. The university does not make them successful. They make themselves successful.
3
My guess is the problem is not their non-white peers, but their white peers whose parents have money and connections.
1
@Robin
Yes, "privilege" also works against you in college admissions.
1
“Education teaches one to learn how to learn.”
Am the first person in my family to attend college. Knowledge was my only goal. Shared knowledge to 1000+ students as a Computer Science lecturer. Always encouraged students to embrace learning and leave room for blessings.
Surprisingly, things learned in high school like Algebra (for abstract work), Biology (for learning a train’s different systems), Journalism (asking questions and writing), etc. helped lots in my career. College was fun and great to exercise and strengthen skills within proven methods and tools that are great for communicating with associates.
Am not smarter than anyone just able to learn things quicker. “People like what they know.” Am a person who likes many things and still sharing knowledge and experiences.
Sleeping peacefully is best blessing. Karma is real. Love others with sharing of knowledge is best gift.
2
What a fascinating idea buried in this article: what if applicants were required to disclose that had employed a college counselor or coach?
15
@JD I love this idea. Unfortunately, as with so many other obstacles,this isn't much of a hurdle for the rich. Daddy's or Mummy's company could employ the coach through the company payroll, perhaps in the employee training division. Problem solved.
2
I completely agree with the author. But this cuts both ways. Try getting into medical school in the mid 90s as a white male from suburban NYC. Admissions are not only based on race and gender - they’re quota systems based on zip code too. Do you know how much higher my MCAT score had to be than a minority female from the Southwest (as an example). Once I was in medical school - we did the same thing the author did. We all compared notes on who scored what - often harmlessly. But we knew how it worked.
This isn’t PC to say but it’s the very reason Harvard is being sued.
Meritocracy should be exactly as it is defined - the best student gets in.
20
@Jason
That would be great. Define best. The most A's? Perfect scores? You're in Seattle. Lakeside School v Garfield High School, probably the "best" public school in your city. Where is it harder to get A's? Lakeside doesn't offer AP classes, so are those classes easier? Should those A's be valued less than A's at Garfield? Methinks the folks at Lakeside think their classes are harder, better, etc. Now trying comparing those two schools to a public in the middle of South Central LA and the differernces in lived expereinces, and you're back at med school, comparing scores, zip codes, gender...
3
@Jason--The only fair way to do that would be if applications contained no identifying information. No names, nothing that could indicate sex, religion, race or national origin. Students could choose a PIN, for example, that would identify them, and that would be used throughout the process. Even addresses would be hidden or coded. No extracurricular activities that might give away identity could be mentioned. No mention of relatives that attended. All that admissions officers would see would be transcripts of grades. It would be interesting to see what a student body would look like if the process was truly merit-based.
3
@zumaman if all I hear in the media is that I have “privilege” in life. But in college admissions I am blatantly discriminated against based on the fact that I am white and male - why do I not have a reason to complain? That’s all I’m saying.
Wait a minute, Jennine. You were understandably surprised and frustrated to learn that your classmate was lucky enough to win a spot at Cornell by virtue of her birth to an alum, but weren't you lucky, too, to be born with the extra measure of intelligence and grit that enabled you to win a spot? And didn't you have other classmates who got there by dint of their inborn athletic prowess, musical ability, or other unique quality a college might consider? And weren't many of your classmates standouts in more than one way? And didn't that include the legacies too, who were not automatically undeserving after all, just because they came from $$$?
This isn't really such a simple have-have not situation, is it?
21
Many commenters here criticize Ms. Capo Crucet for things she didn’t say. She writes about a single disturbing and enlightening encounter early in the Fall semester of her freshman year at Cornell. She doesn’t say that this legacy student represented all white people. She doesn’t discuss how colleges meet their budgets by balancing full tuition and scholarship students. She doesn’t say that she didn’t enjoy the learning aspect of her AP classes. With her clearly written essay, she explains to the reader two points: there are different admissions rules for students whose families make large ongoing donations, and her students have to work harder to secure an admission. Given the successful road she has taken since that day at the dining hall, I’m certain Ms. Capo Crucet would be pleased to address in a future commentary the many topics that commenters criticize her for not addressing.
14
My whole childhood was one of being compared to new immigrants. In my white middle class family my parents praised the drive of immigrants to succeed against all odds by working harder than everyone else and knowing the value of an education. We were never allowed to forget that privilege was a fleeting thing often unearned by the recipient. We were raised to be contributors, hard workers and appreciators of the challenges that others not so fortunate had to overcome with sheer guts, hard work and dreams.
12
There are two sides to most issues. Take the case of a college that has an applicant whose family members have attended the school for several generations and have donated generously to the school for many years. Is that supposed to count for nothing?
7
@Clark Landrum Yes, that should count for nothing. There is no "other side" to this issue. Allowing wealthy families to essentially buy their children a spot is insanely unfair, not to mention completely misaligned to what higher education should be.
7
@Clark Landrum That's exactly what the problem is. It counts for everything. How can qualified students whose family has not attended for years and generously donated gain admission if all the admission slots are taken by legacies who might not be as qualified?
7
@Mel, it is what it is. Even a poor kid can get a college degree from an excellent state school with a little hard work. I did. I never felt any compelling need to attend some Ivy League school and was not really concerned about their admission policies.
1
Right now I am a first-gen, low-income student at Cornell, and am a couple months away from graduation. I was certain this would be the place that allowed me to escape the whirlpool of poverty that seems impossible to fight, however my post-graduation prospects are not what I pictured. My advisors seem to not understand the stakes of success, nor that I don't have access to the resources that would allow me to invest two more years of time and money into getting into medical school. Being poor at Cornell is like being at Six Flags without a wristband: sure you're there; but you can't afford to go on any of the rides. I'm proud of my accomplishment in earning a degree here, but the what-ifs and regrets I feel are all-encompassing. I shudder when considering how much I may have flourished at a university where maintaining a night job isn't fatal, volunteer work doesn't require a perfect GPA, and internships offer living stipends. I have no doubts I would have been more successful elsewhere, where the pay-to-play culture wasn't endorsed at an institutional level. My financial aid was always generous, but Cornell and its student body took great strides to make sure I knew my place. Turns out there's a lot more to social stratification than just a fancy name on your degree. Meritocracy has been dead for a long time and, despite the self-congratulatory delusions reaffirming otherwise, Cornell (and other schools like it) are complicit in killing it. Ask me how I know.
33
Although often underrated, many state schools without big names are a better bargain not just in terms of tuition but in terms of local connections.
9
@Catherine Green
Couldn't agree more. It isn't lost on me that I left a community that was grateful for my presence for one that thinks I should be grateful for its presence. The Ivy League wasn't the first piece of propaganda I bought into, but it is the one I feel the most guilt over.
3
@Mike
Be thankful you're not at a community college. You'll look back and be grateful that you were able to get an excellent education with other talented kids.
I attended an elite boarding school, Harvard College and Harvard Law School, all on on scholarships, Along the way I was exposed to "legacies" who did not test as well as I did. On the other hand, many of the legacies tested as well as or better than I. Most legacies I know tested well.
Unlike the author, I retain some sense of gratefulness for the legacies and their ancestors going back 350 years to build and reinvest in a school I wanted to attend but could not dream of doing without their endowed scholarships. Now, in addition to legacies, the field is heavily tilted in favor of "student athletes" who also do not need to test well to attend. This is perhaps all unfair to those who compete for the fewer remaining academic excellence spots, but it would be a mistake for our society to forego the benefits of the educational institutions that the now-reviled ancestors created for us. I met a Cabot in my first year (sophomore standing). His family had attended Harvard from the beginning. He undoubtedly did not have my SAT scores, but I felt grateful that his family's school, the school that his family had helped make great after investing 300 years in the process, was prepared to take a chance on me to finance my education just because I showed promise as a teenager.
Not so sure about dropping the test score requirements for the "student athletes." The point of bending the standards down needs a bit more explanation by the schools. Entertainments is its own reward?
18
@rhd Well, pity the poor Cabots, I would hope they would do fine anywhere...given their largesse.
When I invest in a non-profit (usually primary or secondary education for underprivileged, or for hunger and homeless assistance), I think not (silly me) of my benefit or the benefit of my children, but of the ways I and my family can improve the lives of those in greater need. An investment in a non-profit is not an FBO (an investment for the benefit of a particular individual), otherwise the non-profit (and the investment in such) has become something else, a tool to reinforce class and racial division.
4
Legacy status isn't the only blatantly unfair admissions criterion - it just happens to be the only one that our politically correct society deems suitable to criticize. If the author of this piece provided full disclosure, she would have explained how first generation college students are given preference over those whose parents went to college, and how it may have helped her get into Cornell over someone equally as deserving of admission. And, of course, star athletes, children of famous celebrities or politicians, minority students, students from underprivileged backgrounds, and full tuition paying foreign students are all allotted a certain number of admission slots every year, along with legacies, before any applications are considered. This is the very reason why the college counseling/SAT prep business has boomed. There are hundreds of thousands of deserving, hard working, and highly qualified students who don't fall into any of these favored categories who have virtually no chance of gaining admission to Ivy schools unless they substantially over perform their peers who do fall into these categories. If we want a pure meritocracy, then let's demand that all subjective admissions criteria be abolished. Last point - will anyone on this op-ed page be brave enough to inquire about whether Chelsea Clinton was objectively qualified to gain acceptance to Stanford, or whether Sasha and Malia objectively qualified to gain acceptance to Harvard and Yale? I doubt it.
14
@Chris - you might wish to add members of the Kushner/Trump cabal. Since none of them appear to be even remotely qualified on objective criteria, we can assume that truly impressive sums of money were involved in their Harvard/Wharton/UofP acceptances. And how about George Bush? Generations of Bushes in the Ivies surely must account for W's acceptances to Yale and Harvard Business School.
2
@Doris - I wholeheartedly agree. The difference, however, is that the favored treatment of Trump/Kushner/Bush, etc. is constantly discussed in the MSM (and rightly so), but the examples that I provided are treated as taboo.
@Chris
Have you ever talked to one of those three, or heard them interviewed? I'm betting they didn't get in because of their name..... They clearly have smarts.
.
Legacy and donation-related admissions are the equivalents of affirmative action admissions. The only difference is that the former can't be distinguished by the color of the students' skin. Racial diversity may be important but economic diversity is far more critical. There isn't much difference between a non-white student who grew up in upper middle class neighborhood and a white student who did the same. As the gap between have and have-not's increases, we need to foster empathetic understanding of social inequality.
5
According to a study cited here in the Times a few days ago, rich students have a slight advantage, and athletic students have a considerable one. Why does no one ask the jocks how they got in, and how their privilege feels? Say what you will about the elitism of the Ivies: none of them offer athletic scholarships (that's what binds them together as a League), and many of them conduct need-blind admissions.
11
It is a complicated problem. Despite the current high cost of tuition at these prestigious private schools, this money does not cover the expenses of the university itself. Additionally, Ivy League Universities and many of their peers guarantee financial aid based on need to all admitted applicants often providing complete financial aid tuition, room and board. Of course this all costs money which often comes from alumni and wealthy benefactors. As stated in the above comment only 13% of legacy applicants at Columbia are admitted and this is usually a well prepared applicant who understands the meritocracy system. I imagine that this number improves if your family provides an endowment to bring in the best molecular genetics professor and builds him a modern lab to carry on his research. This money is vital to keep the university the great educational center in the first place. I met students from all sorts of backgrounds during my years at an Ivy League College and I don’t recall anyone who just got in because of their family money. There were wealthy students but they were also pretty smart. I imagine there were some. Our higher education system is the envy of the world. Which is why it is infiltrated with a high concentration of foreign students as well. We live in a capitalist society and money drives the system. These schools depend on producing successful alumni who the give back to the institution. Their children might have a slight edge, but the university thrives.
9
I graduated from Georgia Tech in 1985. While things may have changed, the only preferential treatment that was directly observable was in regards to sports recruitment, specifically football and basketball. There were those student athletes that stood out as engineering and science majors, but many were "management" majors. At the time we took some pride when a a televised broadcast would provide the major of a given athlete. Today, I am dismayed when I look at profiles of talented college athletes and there is nary a mention of their academic interests.
3
@Leithauser|||| You write, "I graduated from Georgia Tech in 1985. While things may have changed, the only preferential treatment that was directly observable was in regards to sports recruitment, specifically football and basketball." WELL: The Internet presents about 56 million hits explaining why the phrase, "in regards to" is infelicitous." Fifty-six million may be fifty-five million too many or may be a stepping stone to academic interests as well as a diminution of dismay. That is, to those who care about academic interests.
i got into an ivy league graduate program by attending community college during the day while working nights as a bartender.
you know, scholar by day, party guy by night. it could be a marvel comics franchise.
no, i didn't go to Harvard. they accepted me without financial aid, then wrote me a silly letter asking why i declined. uh, what? (the letter also misspelled "supersede.")
i chose Cornell and boy, was that the right choice. one of the stellar best times of my life. right up there with internet entrepreneur.
and yes, i recommended Cornell for my nephew's graduate degree in music performance. and i don't think it will do him wrong.
we love alma mater for everything she has done for us, we say thanks, we donate thanks, and -- where else would we send our loved ones? she's the grandmother to whom we entrust our children.
the evolutionary concept of inclusive fitness means that the playing field is never level in social species. kin help kin, any way they can.
wake up. university is not about poverty remediation ... community college serves that purpose: go forth and learn at night school. like i did.
even so, universities have admissions quotas, Pell Grants, and the ideal of student diversity. and they have legacy admissions.
because in evolution as in investing: the best strategy is to hedge your bets. that's what the university admissions aim to do.
6
I was at best a mediocre student in HS and would bet I got accepted because the college had openings and I, thanks to college loans, was able to pony up tuition. This is how most of us got into college.
5
The author is absolutely right and spot on. Legacies are nothing but a highly prejudicial way to get into college. A path only for those who can afford it. When are we going to get serious about equality in a country that supposedly prides itself on it? Whether it’s education, business, healthcare, or the judicial system, there are two tiers. One for those who have lots of money and one for the rest of us. Money buys power and influence when it matters most. It buys a great college degree for a mediocre student. I’m tired of hearing that private colleges have a right to their own admissions programs. They also have a responsibility to be fair and impartial and that is impossible in a system where money buys influence.
4
There are schools out there that reject legacy admissions, and have actually benefited from it. Parents could start by considering these colleges and universities.
"For example, Texas A&M, which did away with legacy preferences in 2004, saw its fundraising levels skyrocket in the years immediately following the decision. The university’s capital campaign raised $1.5 billion from 2003 to 2007, significantly surpassing its stated fundraising goal of $1 billion. A 2009 study found that the University of Georgia and six members of the University of Califorinia system, all of which had recently dropped legacy preferences, actually witnessed an increase in donations. And many esteemed private universities, including MIT, Caltech, and Cooper Union, enjoy some of the healthiest endowments in the nation despite not considering legacy status in admissions decisions."
https://thinkprogress.org/why-do-colleges-still-give-preference-to-kids-whose-parents-went-there-ef3abe20407b/
5
@Brooklynkjo
I wonder if “donating family” admissions have replaced “legacy family” admissions?
the solution is to build more great schools not tear down the centers of excellence already established. I have one kid at Binghamton U who loves it and one at Williams who lives it as well. They will both be well served and come out with great educations. there should be a policy change to promote investment in public schools/unis to widen the pool of great affordable schools. also pay adjuncts real salaries.
6
Your work was not in vain. Getting into college is just the first step. Actually understanding and excelling in all the classes is the next. And when you graduate, keeping your first job because you are actually competent and learned the material is the next.
If the legacy student goes, but doesn’t learn much, then all they’ve done as a family is overpay via donations for everyone else to go to school. And there is little benefit for the legacy student (ex. Bragging rights, but not much skill acquisition). The only person legacy student cheats by not studying hard enough is themselves (assuming family donations > cost of their tuition and thus subsidize other spots).
2
@Anonymous - "The only person legacy student cheats by not studying hard enough is themselves."
And possibly the deserving student they displaced. Without the warped perspective that the legacy system enables, a legacy student would understand that working extra hard to become something on his/her own terms is the way to justify benefiting from this tilted playing field.
2
@Bruce what about the fact that I as a white make was displaced by a minority student who was less deserving? A meritocracy is just what the definition is - based on the merit of ones acheivements, grades etc.
We vilify the “privilege” here but nobody wants to say out loud that college and graduate school admissions are the only institutions with inherent bias against white and Asian applicants.
Minorities can’t have their cake and eat it too. If it’s wrong to be admitted by legacy, why is it not equally wrong to be admitted simply because of skin color or athletic prowess.
Advising first generation, financially strapped freshmen to attend a public institution is a good idea. The quality of the teaching and academic support staffs at 2, 4, and university level public colleges are as good and often better than private institutions. In an age where ones post graduate degree is more crucial to economic success there is no point in burdening one's future with an expensive 4-year degree. The leading graduate programs are at large public universities and acceptance into these is no longer advantaged by ones undergraduate degree. In fact, if the students degree is in a professional program like teaching, nursing, and many others, a public college affiliation is often a leg up in hiring. Finally, first generation students will do better coping with the cost and social pressures of college doing so among their peers, where they can do more than polish the selectivity ratings of schools wedded to the advantages of private wealth and privelidge.
5
I, too, was a first in family college graduate from a family in the bottom 20% but that was 50 years ago that I started college. I didn't know and didn't care about legacy admissions and still do not. Worked a full time job, 40 hours a week, after school during high school and did the same in college even after coming back from military service and collecting the old GI Bill, which hurt my grades, allowed me no time to intern, volunteer, participate in extracirricular activities or all the other things many students are able to do to enhance their chances of admission. There was no time to think about how someone else had an advantage. Testing is what got me into college and I am forever grateful for the SAT, GRE, MCAT and LSAT, all of which allowed me to have my choice of any career and profession. Without them, it is doubtful I would have gone to college, let alone graduate degrees and a full career as a scientist. The one thing that was interesting was being so much older than the typical undergraduate while completing my first degree after military service. What a freshman undergraduate thought was important (and I did when I first enrolled) now seemed trivial to me. They didn't know how easy they had it.
9
We have built a society that worships the holy trinity of money, prestige, and status. The scramble to be admitted to the "best" college by whatever means possible is just a manifestation of a far larger problem. A regular reader of the NYT sees the evidence daily: stories about TV shows depicting the lives of billionaires, whose apartments are sterile spaces without a book in sight; the painting auctioned for the highest price ever paid for a work by a living artist; the apocalyptic preacher made rich by the sales of his end-time books; transcripts of conversations between two rich and famous people having brunch in a stylish and expensive restaurant -- in a private room. The upper middle class yearns for a McMansion in a suburb with two Beamers in the driveway. Love of learning, creativity, eccentricity, non-conformity, genuine happiness, all the ingredients of a life rich in relationships and deep humanity instead of cash -- all devalued and then sacrificed on the altar of our three never-satiated gods. This life way demands gross income inequality to justify itself and to sort the winners from the losers. Trump is its embodiment but hardly its creator.
13
I am fine with legacy but they need to be nice people. A school needs to compose of different members of the society.
The legacy students that they admit can be of normal intelligence but need to be nice and help the society.
My daughter who is Asian and in Cornell right now attended a Cornell music concert last Fall. A white Cornell sorority girl went around and attacked all the minority girls (Asian, Indian..). Everyone told her to stop. She only stopped when someone took a video of her. She clearly is a legacy since she is into equestrian sport in her Facebook.
To all the great schools out there, please take your time to screen your legacy applicants. Make sure their parent earned their money honestly and help the community. If their money are shady, you are helping to raise the next generation of scammer.
4
@Kelsey I think your daughter belongs at Cornell and the legacy students do not. My dad went to Cornell but I did not apply there. In high school I did not take my education seriously and did not earn a place there (I also did not apply). The admissions process is supposed to provide a cohort of students who can grapple with learning together. Legacy students who would not get in on their own merits will not add to this.
1
@Kelsey
Your comment makes no sense. "...they need to be nice people."...what? Maybe you can be contacted to judge "niceness"....or to alert officials of "potential scammers".
And why is "she clearly a legacy since she is into equestrian sport..." ?? My daughter was on her college equestrian team, was not a legacy (good grades & scholarships, anyone?), and graduated on the Dean's List. Oh, and we are small farmers in the Midwest (translation: not rich).
1
In 1968 during my senior year of high school, the only recruiters who visited our decrepit overwhelmingly minority institution were from the U.S. Army and the Marines.
My freshmen year of college was nearly my last. Despite having taken what today are called AP classes, I was utterly unprepared for college work. I had no idea how to produce a research paper or write an essay.
I was stunned and angry to see how much more my white classmates knew and fully prepared they were.
That first semester I had to keep telling myself I belonged on campus and would avoid flunking out through pure hard, smart work. I did and went on to complete grad school.
Decades later, as a university lecturer, I would encounter many Latino students who, like me, started as unprepared freshmen.
One of the most insidious and crippling inequalities we Latinos face is the lack of K-12 educations worthy of the name. My grade school and high school even today are academic basket cases.
This is not only unjust, it's criminal.
18
@Ricardo Chavira Yes, criminal. The public school system is broken because the elite want to stay the elite and they have had too much influence in government.
4
@Ricardo Chavira
My first college paper came back with a 'see me' rather than a grade. The prof knew my demographic...rural farm kid....and knew how underserved high schools outside of the major cities were. Rather than penalizing me with a poor grade, I had a fifteen minute crash course in the resources of the college library and how to write a college level paper and an opportunity to re-write. Yes, I worked hard and graduated in the top 5%....not having access to AP level coursework to help prepare for college meant I burned a lot of midnight oil in college. Fortunately my high school was rich enough to have math books and I could take mine home and learn.
Whiteness had nothing to do with it, the high school I went to was 100% rural white. Its miserliness on the part of the school boards and the state -- the school board was not about to offer any kid college prep as there weren't enough to make a large class, not affordable. The nearest city high schools that had college prep wanted so much in tuition that no rural family could afford for their child to attend - most were on free or reduced lunch. Nothing has changed since then -- our top noncity students can't get access to courses at their level, and many of our city students are barred from courses at their level via disparate impact procedures and the refusal to open enough seats. If you care to notice, these students are from all races and religions, not just yours.
5
I could have written on this piece! And I was admitted to Harvard in 1957. The more things change the more they don’t.
4
I'm amazed at the number of people who believe institutions like Ivy League schools, Stanford, or MIT need legacies to pay for their buildings and services.
Any rationale review of endowments - especially on a per student basis - will clearly show that many of these schools don't need the money from legacies. If anything, there should be tax on those schools for every dollar they collect in tuition to raise money to offset costs for public education elsewhere.
Cornell is not the best performing Ivy when it comes to endowment per student, but it is hardly broke.
https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent/Conference/Ivy%20Group
4
I wonder if the obsession with Ivies has to do with the perceived social status they confer? We live in a republic where we are nominally all equal and people pay lip service to that but really want to distinguish themselves in some way; one way is via branding oneself as intelligent and special through Ivy admissions. Some only want the credential for this purpose and will find ways to pay for it. Don’t say they are meaningless either, look at judges and presidents, some people sort dates on dating applications not only by profession but by prestige of the school attended - sometimes know as assortative mating. For a society that increasingly feels winner take all the benefits of sorting in this way make sense even if they are deeply unfair. For many families admission to an Ivy is a sort of middle class brass ring that shows they have arrived in America.
Please keep in mind that Ivies have always had families that acted like shareholders. See the Bushes at Yale or the Kennedys at Harvard. (Also for people upset by this cheating scandal know that Teddy Kennedy was caught having someone take a test for him at Harvard but was still asked to run for president by many in his party.) Modern meritocracy was partially developed by Kingman Brewster at Yale -he a direct lineal Mayflower descendant. (Also this paper still prints Mayflower descendants with Ivy degrees in the Vows section.) There is a delicate balance to social engineering these schools and keeping stakeholders happy
3
And theres n Santa Claus.
Too often our insights come too late. After we’ve been deceived, lied to, scammed. This is the kind of heartfelt story colleges like Cornell love to hear. They epitomize the “do as I say, not as I do” motto. Its the same in the corporate world. Look around nearly any company. There is a lack of diversity of thought, sensibility and perspective. Even when you see someone who is a “deviation” scratch the surface and you’ll normally find a “company man”. The tribal rites and customs are designed to reinforce this. But the battleground takes place many, many years earlier. The socialization we all go through is priming. Expectation setting then...lots and lots of marketing and advertising.
For a time I did work for a very large for profit “college”. Those predatory organizations who do everything possible to play off these myths. What these institutions are nowadays is dramatically different than their infancy but not that much. My biggest takeaway was not how different they were from “non-profit” schools but how they were so similar.
One of the places we would try to poach from was a business/school called Strayer. They stood out because like the high wire act in the circus they balanced the line (blurred it really). They proudly, and without irony, would correctly claim they “are accredited by the same governing body who accredited Harvard”.
That cemented it profit and non-profit - its a thin line.
1
The fact that Ms Crucet got into Cornell, based solely on merit, shows that her argument is not wholly true. Yes, there are legacy admissions and all the other ways of gaming the system, and those are patently unfair, but not every admitted is one of those.
In short, this is the sort of argument one would hear on Fox News; no nuance. It's certainly not up to the Times' standard.
8
Guess what?
Life isn’t fair. Some people will always have more, and some people will always have less.
6
Turning a blind eye, turning the other cheek is becoming harder to do. To put it bluntly, after everybody slid for a decade from the Great Recession while watching the wealthy still do well, then the legacy poster child becomes President( and that after 30 years of Reagan style republicans stacking the deck against working people) people just won't, don't, can't ignore how so much more the chance for success and doing better than your parents has been taken away by legacies or people who picked their parents wisely.
The change in opportunity is what divides the Sparkys vs. the outraged in the comments here. This new round of cheating didn't have to be before because getting into school was, while still unfair, not as unfair as it is today. This is true simply because working people could earn a decent living proportional to the cost of living, education, retirement and education. Now, two incomes in one family does not buy this.
The more complacent voices here have only just now come to starting to feel the squeeze the rest of us have felt, harshly for some time. When their kids graduate from good programs and still can't get paid enough to start a family, buy a home and pay off their student loans like teachers face today. They will change their tune.
A cheating loser legacy as President and the sleazy GOP who supports people like him all but guarantees that tune will change and soon.
4
What the article fails to recognize is that schools depend on these huge grants to keep the school competitive. I think most administrators will tell you they hate letting these legacy and rich students in. You chose Cornell over Eastern North Dakota Junior College of Baskets and Tires for a reason - Cornell is a good school. Hiring professors and offering scholarships and having dorms without too many rats costs money. The system is not without its severe problems, but there is zero argument that very top of our education is unparalleled anyone on earth (Though not the middle but that is a different story). There is a reason we have the most breakthroughs and accomplishments in education on earth -- our schools are rich. The ugliness in our system is hideous but it has benefits that you enjoyed as well. Congratulations on being a Cornell grad who writes for the New York Times. You did it on merit and you have the self assurance to know that no one bribed anyone to get you in. I would call that a success story.
6
And somehow we should accept the fact that legacy students are a given that “benefits” all. But affirmative action needs to be completely eradicated and declared ilegal!!
Our ability to rationalize never ceases to amaze me...
Congratulations on your achievements. Being of Spanish-origin didn't hurt your chances to get into Cornell.
15
There are a lot of things unfair in this world. But one should take note of the fact that « a legacy student » comes from a family that has been supporting the university financially for many years. This financial help goes beyond the checks that they will write for the tuition of their kid.
The university becomes a mix of rich kids that aren’t very stupid, and poor kids on financial aid that are super smart.
The President of the university may be well off, and live well, but he or she doesn’t make as much as Jeff Bezos.
Universities need money too, for, among other things, providing financial aid to kids that can’t afford 45,000 Dollars a year in tuition.
But yes, in some ways it is not fair. Being born in an impoverished nation usually works out badly too. I also feel lucky that I wasn’t born in China or Russia. Life is full of injustices, but if you are reading this newspaper (let alone writing a published essay for it), you must have had some good luck somewhere.
Take that good luck, and turn it into something even more remarkable. Don’t waste too much time thinking about the injustices. Others are suffering worse injustices. You are lucky.
15
Yours is the best column I have read on the subject. Well done. You have likely already learned this. Real maturity on the subject will inform you that "it isn't all about YOU." You can do the other young lady a real favor for her future, by sending her a note that tells her so.
The #NotMe trend is now in full swing. The amount of articles and comments by writers telling us about their hard work, lowly school district and ultimately self aggrandizing tales has become a meme unto itself.
Preening for the reader is fine, I suppose. After all, you crammed and over-achieved so that you could do what...give us your opinion?
The biggest myth of the meritocracy is why there should be one in the first place. The defining characteristic of the baby boomer generation is competition-on everything. It is the one clear trait they have passed on to their children. Scrape and claw and step on the other guy until you get to the top.
What happened to going to college to study something you actually care about? What happened to the joy of learning, the thrill of discovery?
College costs have risen at a rate 9 times higher than the wage growth in America. Colleges have become machines for creating other college graduates. For those low income enough or disadvantaged enough to qualify, college is a free ride. Likewise for those rich enough, another free ride. But for the vast majority of Americans, college is merely a way to bind the graduate to a lifetime of servitude to the college loan system.
So, good for you. You didn't cheat. You win. But keep in mind that there are a lot of people out there who aren't in the position of using this moment to lecture us about the wealthy white girl they met in college. They just keep on paying those loans.
11
In terms of rounding out the story, it would have been neat if Prof Capó Crucet had been able to say something about the career and life course trajectory of her lunchmate...
2
There are so many backdoors that rich (mostly white) students are using to unfairly get into college. Legacy status. Big donations. The prospect of future donations. Whether or not you need will need financial aid. Bribe the Stanford sailing team coach. Bribe a test administrator. College admission consultants that cost as much as $100 thousand. Private tutors. Years of SAT test prep. Prep schools that cost 35K per year. Cheat on the standardized tests. Take the tests umpteen times.
For example, white American students (mostly rich) are four or five times more likely to be admitted than Asian-American students to one of the better private or public universities, all other things the same. (There are only a few exceptions: the UC system, U of Washington, and Cal Tech.)
That's why the better private and public universities are filled to the rafters with the (white) children of the rich. That's why the rich send a staggering 60% of the children to that small set of schools. That's why at many of these schools 60% of the students come from the richest 1% of families. That's why the middle class has lost most of its seats at those schools. That's why the poor and working classes still have too few seats.
The rich will tell you that their children are just innately smarter than the rest of us. That's hooey. These aren't colleges anymore. They're segregated country clubs, in gated communities.
2
Simple enough: my mother worked at the college.
1
I, too, am a first-generation college grad. I went to a state school for undergrad. Then Vanderbilt. Then Harvard. Then Emory. Two Masters and a PhD. I’ve never been anything but grateful and amazed that was my path. You seem so angry, and it makes me sad for you and for the students you’re seeking to help by speaking your truth. The world isn’t fair. For sure. Focusing on that rather than opportunity can only make them bitter.
9
Great article. But wow, some of the comments are truly puzzling. Going forward, there is no acceptable percentage of dumb rich kids getting a pass except ZERO. Otherwise we might get a president like we have now. Or a 'senior white house advisor' in charge of 'peace in the middle east' like we have now. Or another 'senior white house advisor' in charge of, how should I put this, 'emoluments optimization and chinese fashion'. I don't want a dumb rich kid as my doctor, or my lawyer, or anyone else I must rely on. These selective schools, all of whom take public money, have been exposed. It's time to bring complete transparency to the public.
8
OK, now imagine that you did all of what you did, got great grades and scores etc., but DIDN'T get into Cornell because of your race.
I think that's the heart of the Harvard Lawsuit.
12
@nh
No, you assume that students who have similar grades, scores, etc. somehow "own" a spot in a particular institution and that others are displacing them and taking what is rightfully theirs. Those students are not being displaced or cheated out of something that is theirs. Thousands upon thousands of qualified students don't get into certain institutions because there are limited spots. Watch Hassan Minhaj's take on this lawsuit on his show on Netflix.
@EHR
No, actually you are the one assuming that the students that are getting in actually have similar qualifications than the ones who are displaced. I looked at the actual data from the lawsuit, not a Netflix show.
Let's face it- both legacy and affirmative action are unfair. Are they legal? Yes, but unfair. Many Asians and Whites are disadvantaged socioeconomically, and conversely, many Blacks, Hispanics, etc. are wealthy.
The Harvard law suit as I understand it has been disavowed by a number of Asian American students.
To the author - right now, get rid of the shame you felt about something you did not know when meeting your first legacy student. We all have to figure things out, one way or another. Share with your mentees what you learned, free of shame. Share with them the joy of being where you all have arrived. There is so much pride you should all feel - and we all have much to learn. It’s all good.
I was smart growing up. My smart dad went to college on the GI bill cause his family did not have money. My mom wasn’t much for school. My parents figured I was strong, independent and could take care of myself, so they never pushed me. I got into a very competitive state school, not a legacy, no help from anyone but my own grades, SAT scores, super drive and ambition. Not Ivy League, and I’ve never harbored envy or jealousy about that.
I’ve had a successful career in several competitive industries. I am white, definitely some privilege there, but all along the way - and I mean every stage, every step - my skills, talents and dreams as a girl and woman were discounted and discouraged by men (& a few women). I felt the sting of their dismissals, but I ignored their opinions because I knew they were uninformed. I was confident I deserved whatever I could dream and do.
To all - I am floored by the stupidity and weakness of mostly smart, successful people who acted illegally to get their kids in a college. So many legal ways to do the same demeaning, undermining thing for their kids.
2
Humility. That is not taught by our meritocratic system or always beneficial in the working world. But it is in order for those who attend Ivy institutions. Yes there are back doors for legacies and development admits but this does not mean everyone else who is admitted with “the goods,” as a dean once described it to an acquaintance angling for a legacy admit, should feel pride. You believe you are more comparatively deserving by right of meritocracy and naively believe the function of Ivies is education. You still were lucky. Bob Frank, who teaches econ at Cornell and writes for this paper sometimes, has written about luck. For example, many Ivies could fill their classes several times over with qualified people that are denied admission. This is controversial but intelligence is hereditary and grit may be too so you may have won the lucky sperm club on that. As one admissions dean wrote here sometimes the band needed a French horn player. But people have an almost Calvinist view that they are part of an elect that was chosen for their striving. Ironically this view is only somewhat altered from the original inhabitants at these old Ivies - Harvard’s mascot is literally a pilgrim.
I am not a luck egalitarian and don’t think it would be beneficial to control for all of it in society. But please keep in mind that luck abounds. And while it won’t be popular to invoke noblesse oblige keep in mind to whom much is given much is expected. Some people are just unfortunate
1
Here is how I got into college.The year was 1958 in New York City. I had just graduated high school with a 92 cum, and had been admitted to C.C.N.Y. I was never worried about being accepted because there was a simple straight forward standard for admission, and I knew that I met it.
A prospective student had to have a achieved a minimum cumulative average of 90 or greater in an academic tract program, and you were in. No SAT's, no letters of recommendation, no affirmative action, no legacy considerations, and no monetary contributions were necessary for the son of a waiter.
And, guess what? The entire 4 years of quality higher education were free. All this because I lived in New York City.
4
So what!!!! Getting a college degree is not a guarantee for success. The work place is full of nepotism and inside connections. In my opinion, the point of college is first, not be denied a job opportunity because you don't have degree. Second, college is a time to establish connections to create a sphere of influence to get yourself a job and culture future business relationships. Third, college teaches you to critically think, strategize, and become an expert in areas that are in demand. Maybe you will get some lifelong friends in the meantime and actually enjoy the college experience.
3
Test scores and grades are not relevant for many college applicants.
Taking into account the college slots taken by legacies, jocks, affirmative action admittees, and cheaters like those whose parents were arrested in the college admissions bribery scam, there aren't many slots left for qualified but middle-class, non-minority kids at the top schools.
There is no easy solution to the problem because legacies, jocks and affirmative action seem to be here to stay. And, yes, some cheaters.
2
The whole idea of a four year college teaching you the 'Great Books' (all Euro-centric), History written from the victors' perspective and snips of government/civics for which you pay $250-300K (through loans) is ludicrous.
College has become a gauntlet you must run. If Harvard admitted you, you are smart and people who decide to let you in or pass in future rely on that filter. It's just easier than making an informed decision.
Keep in mind, the Great Books and 'Western Civilization' course rarely if ever produce original criticism from students. All the regurgitation is courtesy of Cliff Notes and Spark Notes.
What relevance does the peloponnesian war have for the rest of us?
When I applied for college, the big filter was the number of books in the library (Columbia had 8MM). In the age of Google is that relevant?
College admissions like the rest of the American system is all about the backdoor/side door and whether it's legacy or 'personality' (as in Harvard and Asian Americans with 'no personality'), the message is the 'Front Door' is for suckers.
1
@Cosby This is a weird criticism. I went to Cornell and there were a lot of classes that that fill breadth requirement. I never took anything on the Peloponnesian war, and even at schools that have a required great book course that's just one course. Most schools have a requirement to take classes on non-western history as well, but again if you're majoring in biology for example most of your classes will still be biology.
What is worse, these highly sought after ivy league slots are more than wasted on under-performing legacy students. America itself suffers the over-valued largely bought legacy degree and the underdeveloped, largely overlooked minority talent. When we value wealth over intellect and talent, our competitive edge in the global market suffers.
2
Ho hum, another group heard from. All week we've heard that admissions are biased based on race or wealth - when the real story is simply that some guru sold bribes and some rich people and not rich enough coaches were stupid enough to buy into them. Meanwhile, in this author's case, she got in - which means the system worked for her, on her merits. Time to buckle up and stop whining about being disadvantaged which every group feels these days, including the rich and famous apparently.
But wanting to have the last laugh is ungenerous and unbecoming. If I were interviewing this person for a job in personal banking, for example, I'd be wary of someone with such a huge chip on her shoulder handling a client conversation. And the story is not illuminating, just a lead in to the usual cliches and prejudgments. What if the girl across the table were just as intimidated and insecure - about being a legacy, about not having taken calculus knowing that a whole bunch of you hard working braniacs already did, and now she has to swim in the same pond. Not so different from your own insecurity at the age of 18. Are you angry that you didn't have it easier? Don't be: working hard never hurt anyone, rich, poor, first generation college bound or seventh.
The real problem isn't student vs. student, or group vs. group. It's that colleges haven't expanded admissions to handle the number of applications happening these days, while sitting on billions of endowment.
10
I too worked as a college access counselor, tutoring and guiding first and underprivileged students towards college. Congrats to the author, who beat the system, but for every one of you, there are hundreds if not thousands of me, who got perfect grades, aced the SAT, and ended up at a state school (which are perhaps the biggest engines of upward mobility), even though my dream was to attend Princeton.
One of the other secrets I didn't discover until later was that no matter where you go for undergrad nowadays, attending the elite grad schools helps to mitigate the network gap that universities like the Ivys create.
5
I turn 87 today and will be writing in an A4 Notebook with these words on the cover My So-Called 14th Life.
Right away, if you are half awake, your programmed brain raises a question, what does that have to do with college admission and meritocracy?
Answer: In my first 4 years of college, Brown University Class of 1953 I got a reasonable foundation for entering my next life, doctoral student at Yale Geology. I also was able to take some music courses and one of them has been with me through all my lives, Prof. Arlan Coolidge 20th Century Music. In Life no. 14 I devote my listening to finding the new, as Nate Chinen does in "Playing Changes".
And from then on, I and many others, keep finding new paths to take, with help of course. Being a Fulbright Lecturer in Geology in Oulu Finland 1967-68 changed my life eventually leading to even being Adjunct Professor of Environmental Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical School!
Moral. Make what you can of your first years of college, even in Sweden, and then keep your mind open, not shut, and with luck, help, and curiosity something new will happen.
And listen to Duke Ellington's "I Like The Sunrise", cause it brings a new day, I like the sunrise, it brings new hope they say. And picture the Kurdish flag!
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
7
@Larry Lundgren
Happy Birthday, Larry!
2
The thing is, the system depends on these donations that ensure legacy admissions. What would tuition be without them? How would students like the writer be able to pay without the benefit of a large endowment? It might not be fair but the real issue is life is not fair. Perhaps that lesson should have been taught in between all those AP classes.
7
1. College is an opportunity not a guarantee, to improve your life. Education is used to help you build a life. How you build it is still up to you.
2. Legacy students are there because of what their parents have done, that is a burden as well as an opportunity. Being around them makes you aware that you had to work hard for something someone else was just given. That can hurt. However, a problem is just another opportunity in work clothes. You can make good money tutoring them, and build a network of connections that can help you to fund projects later.
3. If you don’t like the system, then change it. Nothing in the world lasts forever, and your generation will have your day to be in charge. So do the work of changing the things you think are unfair.
5
I am a single parent and both of my children recently went through the college admissions process. I'm sure that Jeannine is very bright and worked very hard to get into Cornell but she what she doesn't acknowledge or say is that as a Hispanic woman she also had a minority advantage that my children did not have. Yes she had to be the best of the best, and I'm sure she was. But that does not mean that the Ivy League school did not take her first generation status as well into her admission process. My kids too earned their places in top state schools and we never questioned why they didn't try for the Ivy League. There was no money for it. Our goal was they should go to a place where they could be happy, study hard and then if they wanted go to graduate school. While I realize that the connections made at Ivy League schools will last a lifetime it's also important to learn how to make connections on your own.
12
The general college plan for many students in the Long Beach Unified School District in California was to live at home with their parents, go to Long Beach City College (either the Liberal Arts or Business & Technology Campus) for two years and either transfer or apply directly to Long Beach State College (now Cal State U Long Beach) for a BA. The high schools would facilitate an automatic application (and acceptance) to the City College depending on minimal criteria with or without a HS diploma.
I knew many people who did this and went on to graduate school to become very successful. I mean, it's all about the hard work and learning, isn't it? For myself, there was a hiatus with military service and Vietnam, but I finally graduated from a University of California campus. By the way, I took junior college classes off base while still in uniform and I encountered three of some of the best and most influential (for me) teachers that I have ever had, in geology, math, and English Lit.
I went overseas for graduate school based on my American degree, and I got in with an exchange of letters with admissions and then showed up and signed up for classes. I had to redo the last year of their undergraduate system to prove I had the language chops to pursue graduate work. That took me two years, but I learned a whole lot and had a tons of fun living an adventure in a foreign land. I got to know a lot of people. I also taught English to meet living expenses. Priceless!
5
But when you found out that the system is biased towards those who already have the cultural and real capital, you didn't drop out and go to a cheaper school. And you don't hide the fact that you got your degree from Cornell. (I'm assuming that you went to the Ivy part of the University and not the land-grant part.) In other words, you are cashing in for precisely the reason that you went there in the first place. Whether or not the prestige of prestige schools is warranted, it is the currency of the country.
Is the system unfair? It's dreadful. Should it be reformed? Absolutely. But that will only happen when people refuse to take out those loans and begin to starve the beast. As long as everyone plays the game--no matter how cynically--the game will continue.
8
Haha, you reminded me of the students who thought they were better because they were not in the land grant colleges of Cornell when I went there for graduate studies in International Nutrition. I was required to TA for one of the large undergraduate classes and had to cope with many of the students from Arts and Sciences who were shocked to find out during their midterms that taking a nutrition class in the College of Human Ecology was much more challenging than some of their courses in their own college.
After reading your post I will chuckling over the fact that as first gen student who grew up in a lower middle class family and went to the land grant side of Cornell, not as an undergrad, but as a graduate student. My son was given legacy status in what you snobbishly call the “Ivy” part of Cornell so clearly the admissions office doesn’t care as much as you do. I would have been perfectly fine if Cornell didn’t have the legacy system because my son worked hard enough that he could have gone through any number of perfectly great universities. FYI, I grew up in California and I still didn’t know the names of all the Ivies when my son started his college search.
1
One of my favorite books, written in 1956, The Power Elite by C Wright Mills. I was at Harvard. That book was true then and still is. They'll tell you everything has changed. Not as much as they want you to believe. With our present system it can not. Read the book before applying to the Ivy league. That's a real education.
2
@William Doolittle
Or, do the work of changing it?
Change doesn’t magically happen. It is the result of people’s hard work. The world you want won’t just fall into your lap. It requires work to build it. So take the energy you are using to complain, and focus it on useful actions.
Most private elite colleges have one overriding mission: to remain in business as a private, elite college. So the legacy families that pay the bills will always have a leg up, as they are the ones that sustain the college. That said, many high performing non-legacy students are going to get in each year and do well, and then they will be part of the legacy-funding train in the future.
And if you don’t get in to the private elite college of your dreams? Don’t sweat it. If you are smart and hard working, and sober, temperate and delay gratification, you will get into a great college and you will do just fine. And your kids will do even better.
9
My wife and I both went through engineering and comp-sci programs. How could you get through these type of programs as a legacy or a cheat?
35 hrs/wk of class and labs, 20-30 hrs of studying. The class was rammed full of immigrants and middle /lower middle class kids.
This has to be a humanities problem, as the English requirements discriminate against immigrants and is subjective. I also think the student debt problem is a Humanities issue, as the tuition does not map to any job prospects or salaries.
10
@Tom
Not really, elite colleges admit 5% of applicants. Close to half the applicants for engineering classes are capable of doing the work.
A more scientific approach to this question would involve looking at the facts rather than reiterating biases.
1
@Tom
In my son's engineering class, kids would sit in the back of classes and cheat all the time. In certain cultures, it's not considered wrong. His professor had to explain that cheating was not allowed.
Just to keep things in perspective, at Columbia 6% of applicants are accepted while the rate for legacies is 13%. While that is a significant difference, in general legacy slouches are not getting in. As anyone in the admissions business at Ivy League schools will tell you, if they accepted the group that landed between 7 and 12% of top candidates one would not detect a difference.
6
I was a first generation college student. I applied to Middlebury, the only school I wanted. I was on the waiting list, but I got in. I paid attention to my classes, I had enough to do without worrying about anyone else getting in or not getting in. I had hours of science labs every day. It kept me very busy. The school had students from all over the world, both rich and poor. I began to feel that I was on top of the world, so lucky to have this chance, it certainly influenced my entire life and made me a far better person. My college years were a magical place and time in my life. It never occurred to me to waste time worrying about anyone else's admission, I was very busy and engrossed with my own work. It was a wonderful time in my life.
25
I came to the US as an illegal immigrant. I was kicked out of high school. A college with a new grant from the endowment for the humanities was recruiting and based on my sat and high school I attended, they called and asked if I was interested in college.
I had no money and had to borrow everything for all of my education.
After 25 years I finally paid off the 250 k of tuition money I borrowed and retired early as a physician.
I will be forever grateful to the US government for the college grants they offered in the past to colleges which created a life I can only describe as the greatest lottery win a man could have.
It’s distressing that this administration has yet to offer the government’s national medals in science and humanities. They were last given during the Obama administration. How revealing are the virulent behaviors of this anti-intellectual administration!
While the lack of civility is a propellant, the fight against knowledge and culture is this administrations bonfire legacy.
11
I've already questioned the automatic turn to race as a lens ("so often tied to whiteness") in a comment on another article on this subject. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/us/college-admissions-race.html?comments#permid=31053214. This view, while not wrong/wrong, continues the now-widespread practice of putting people in boxes, making cavalier assumptions based on some social construct, and not even considering the possibilities of individual stories of those so sorted. Beyond that, there's no mention of the value of college beyond increasing one's wealth. Whatever happened to learning, being exposed to new ideas even if uncomfortable? An opportunity was blown to not continue the conversation with that "legacy," get to know that individual beyond her obliviousness, and maybe make a friend. And, finally, Douthat came close in his column but didn't quite get there: what does merit even mean these days? If you look at Page 1 of the NYT just about any day, you can see that if our world and society are not already falling apart, it's not too far away. Any conventional definition of "merit" that doesn't involve somehow assessing applicants' awareness of these problems and real curiosity to find or create ways to address them is obsolete. I wonder if that legacy worried about her math skills ever overcame her "advantage," developed larger awareness, and found her niche as a societal problem-solver. I hope the author has, too, but doubt even more "boxes" are helpful.
10
I often told my kids while they were growing up that life is not fair and don’t expect it to be.
20
So did I. Then life validated my statement.
Jennine, I don’t know where to start. (Read my comment to Ross Douthat’s column.) I was a 2nd-gen college applicant; my parents thought that any school that would give me a scholarship was fine, bc there were 5 kids to educate in my family. Long-story short: it wasn’t Cornell, although I applied. In 2019, the fastest way to wealth in a college education is STEM - if the student is diligent, the name of the school matters less. In fact, all those AP classes don’t matter, either. Tell your mentees that they should aim for the best in-state school they can attend, to forget about this crazy Ivy stuff. (Disclosure: I have a PhD from Cornell; the most talented people I work with have PhDs from outstanding state universities.) They should work their tails off so that they know the rewards of a job well done. It won’t end with a fat admissions envelope, it’s a way of living.
27
@Mary Ellen McNerney
It is quite disheartening to see someone who tells students they should go to a state school and then brag about their PHD at Cornell in the next breath. Perhaps the irony is lost on the author?
Consider the plight of the poor admissions officer of the elite university. Too keep the school looking good, up to date, and staffed by top-notch people, the university president has told this officer that the school needs cash. At the same time, the officer is pressed to admit low-income students to whom he must offer financial aid, which is a drain on cash. Along come the rich applicants who are able to pay the whole tuition and throw in a bribe besides, and well... pity the poor admissions officer who must adhere to the university president’s mandate to balance the books while, simultaneously, creating a diverse student body.
3
@R. Adelman
How about the “pitiful” admissions office quits his job and does something ethical for a living?
I am a first-generation college student and I went to school long before Jenine did as I am now 70 years old.
I don't write here to defend the people accused in the current bribery cases. Indeed, I hope they get actual prison time (but I strongly doubt they will). However, I don't believe the author, Jenine, is being honest with us when she wrote:
"I was always told that college was a place you had to earn your way into and that once you got there, the playing field was totally equal. I saw the admissions process as a kind of sorting procedure, one based solely on merit."
Even 52 years ago when I began undergraduate school it was well known that many football and basketball players were given scholarships and enrollment despite having little ability to participate in college level education. Indeed, it was common knowledge that professors were pressured to give them passing grades regardless of their performance in the course. Everyone also knew that Ivy League schools had legacy admissions for children of past graduates.
I think Jenine was disingenuous about being misled for the purpose of bragging about her accomplishments to us and voicing her resentments against white people.
46
@Errol As someone who comes from a socioeconomic background similar to that of the writer (and who also happens to be white since your last comment accused the writer of making "resentments against white people"), I will tell you that she is not being disingenuous at all. I, too, was the first in my family to go to college and did the same kinds of things that Jennine did. I, too, totally bought the lie hook, line, and sinker that college was a meritocracy. And I, too, ended up meeting a "legacy" at my "prestigious" private university who showed me that my views were completely wrong. What I learned was that being the first college graduate in a family that came from a working-class or economically deprived background and living the life that came after it in many ways is akin to being an immigrant. You can never be satisfied, completely comfortable, or completely happy being with the people whom you came from, but at the same time, you never feel completely comfortable with the group that you moved into. The writer of this article knows what she is talking about.
2
I agree wholeheartedly with this comment. I an 65 and I was a first generation college student and went to a second or even third tier level school since I had no understanding of the college admissions process. But unlike today’s students who feel entitled to everything I understood there were people who had the advantage of money, connections and parental guidance that I did not have. So what? I did fine in life with a great catholic education and others who went to “better schools” floundered. Life is not always fair. BTW where do you think AOCs children will go? CUNY? Please.
Also ironically my second tier school has become a top 30 school. Talk about buying low and selling high, you never know.
5
This is a very common way that college is spoken about, especially among disempowered groups of people who see college and education as a way to gain knowledge, power and mobility. To assume that this author is being inauthentic just because you had a different understanding growing up seems very limited, as in, you are not acknowledging that people could have had different experiences from your own. Moreover, calling out a racist and classist system is not voicing white resentment...it’s telling the truth, and it’s necessary right now.
I graduated from Shaker Hts. High School in Ohio in 1975. For many years my high school had 20-25 National Merit Finalists. We were only allowed to apply to four colleges, so as not to disadvantage students at other high schools. I applied to Yale, Georgetown, Tufts and Penn. Georgetown, my safety, rejected me. Tufts rejected me without interviewing me. Yale, of course, rejected me. I got into Penn. I always figured that Tufts and Georgetown rejected me because my father had died and they probably thought that I could not afford to go there.
6
Education has always been, and always will be, pay to play.
6
I’d be curious to know when the writer went college. Sliding in on legacy and donations just doesn’t work the same as it did decades ago. And, as she’s now part if the machine, she need not complain.
9
"Mega-rich families have been buying their way into college for decades..."
You got that right! My father, who spoke no English when he started Kindergarten and graduated from high school at 16, supported himself as a teenager by taking college entrance exams for rich kids in the 1930s. For one such exam- to Cornell no less- he was given a Model T Ford.
10
I remember the conversation I had with a white male student, and my white female friend about getting into the engineering programs we were in. That red-headed boy had the nerve to say I got in because of affirmative action. And I was definitely the best student of the three. But I felt like the one who didn't belong. The worst part was my friend agreed with him. And yes we are still friends.
8
Absolutely right, Prof. Crucet. I, too, was a first generation college student that went on to become a university professor---and a developmental psychologist. The parents of your first year year dining hall friend would have done her a great service by insisting she go anywhere EXCEPT Cornell. She needed to learn all the things you already knew, acquire the thought habits you had ingrained at the moment you met her. Though she didn't yet know that.
2
I halfway agree with the essay.The process is definitely not a meritocracy, but what does that even mean and how do we define merit? I don't see having a preference for legacies necessarily any more problematic than having a preference for 1st time college students- like the author here. Both can have legitimate underpinnings. It's all about the scale and context. And yes, having those preferences could exclude some kids otherwise just as qualified.
I think we need transparency in the admissions process and schools should be clear in their entering class profile what % received athletic preferences, 1st gen preferences, legacy preferences and any other criteria they used to decide who was in and who was not.
It's the opaqueness that is the problem.
I just googled "integrity in college admissions" and hardly anything came up. Lots on academic integrity for the students, but nothing about a culture of integrity throughout the university, including admissions. Hard to expect students to always be honest in a culture that doesn't itself reflect honesty and integrity.
10
Colleges and universities need both the hard working scholars who earn their way in and the rich entitled students who’s parents bought their way in. They serve two different but important purposes for the school. Universities are obsessed with their rank on the scale of how quickly can we graduate students and on the scale of how high the GPA of the students are. That’s where the kids who earned their spot come in. Universities are also dependent on money. That’s where the less intellectual rich kids come in. Universities want and need both. Is the system fair? Of course not. But what in our society is?
14
As a retired professor, it's hard for most people to grasp that colleges and universities, even public ones, are businesses. In order to stay in business, they rely on three sources of income --tuition, research grants for major universities, and either state aid for public colleges or endowments for private universities. As costs have soared and state-aid dwindled even public universities have moved to set up endowments. And just who funds those endowments? Wealthy alumni. And that's why legacy matters. Quality higher education in America is now largely dependent on having a large endowment. And that requires a loyal often through sports and rich alumni willing to pay for new buildings or endow a professorship. Just wander around any campus and look at the buildings and you'll most often see the name of a wealthy alum on it or on a plaque at the entrance. Unless we want to return to the era where the public paid for all higher public education, this is where will remain with universities always reaching out to their graduates for money.
16
@Paul Wortman "Unless we want to return to the era where the public paid for all higher public education..."
Actually, yes, that is a good idea.
16
No, the beneficiary of the services and lifelong financial advantages from a college education should pay for what they received. This methodology brings self respect and value to what you sacrificed for versus having it given to you.
3
@RMS Actually, I agree. But, that still will not change how private universities like the Harvard, Yale, Cornell and the other Ivies as well as Duke, Northwestern and Stanford operate.
1
It's not that college and college admissions is never a meritocracy. The author far overstates the case. Indeed, her matriculation at Cornell would seem to belie this claim since she is now among the elite whose work has appeared in the NYT. The problem is that 1) often it's not a meritocracy and 2) we live in a profoundly unequal society where those with the golden ticket of an Ivy League degree usually get to live a lot better than everybody else. In fact, that is the real problem. Massive inequality that distorts nearly everyone's perceptions and subverts our morality.
18
"I was always told that college was a place you had to earn your way into and that once you got there, the playing field was totally equal. I saw the admissions process as a kind of sorting procedure, one based solely on merit."
This is the problem.
Even a passing familiarity with human nature and social reality should have disabused Ms. Crucet of this naive belief by age 18.
Guess what - having money makes things possible that not having money doesn't. That's why it's money. Otherwise it would be leaves, or sunsets, or wags of a dog's tail.
Luckily, there's plenty of college opportunities for those willing to take one, and once in a classroom it's your smarts, your work ethic, and your attitude that matter. Not every successful person went to the Ivies.
Getting into college was never about objective merit, and it never will be. End the myth.
14
(didn't see my comment posted - short version:)
It gets tiring reading about how "white privilege" makes it so much harder for other groups, whether based on race or class or now in this case family college history. The author got in: that was proof that the system recognized her worth.
It was sad to read about the snarky "last laugh" though. At the age of 18, how does she know that the other girl at the lunch table wasn't just as insecure and intimidated, to find herself in a wash of all the kids who did take APs, nervously admitting her own nervousness to be swimming in the same pond? Laughing at other people is just not the right response, it is ungenerous and unbecoming. All that the author needs to remember about that lunch table is gratitude and pride in her own hard work.
My daughter was not wealthy and not a legacy but a hard working product of the best school we could afford for her. She took AP calc and all the rest (not 12, her school limited AP classes to 5). She was a high school varsity athlete on a division winning team. Then she got to university and realized that there were kids who THOUGHT in calculus (not herself, she just did the homework every night). And there were kids who were All Star athletes. Most of them were financial aid admits from diverse places in the heartland, not East Coast private schools. It was motivating and humbling.
24
My sons are in 9th and 7th grade. They both do well academically, in an average school district. My only goals for them for in terms of college are:
1. To develop and truly enjoy the process of critical thinking, and;
2. to graduate debt-free.
I have never really cared about the brand name. I went to a strong undergraduate school and not one person in 32 years has ever asked me where I went.
17
@M You are certainly on the right track! It is imperative that critical thinking skills are essential in whatever profession your children choose. As a retired educator, I am constanty amazed that many students today are so preoccupied with texting and finding the right emoji to use, they can barely hold a decent conversation. They can respond to yes /no questions, but engaging in meaningful dialogue, open-ended questioning, is difficult for them.
2
@M
You didn’t say what profession or job you are in. Which school you went to matters in certain industries or professions. If you were an entrepreneur for example, the. It may or may not, depending on the business.
If I wanted to see a specialist, I always look at the schools they trained at, and whether they are board certified. That’s just my critical thinking at work.
@Orion I practice law. At this point in my career, people at my level no longer hand diplomas and certificates in their offices, or list their educational credentials on their bios.
Like Ms. Capo Crucet, I am a graduate of Cornell University, and met classmates who were "legacies" and may not have been admitted based solely on merit. I believe that these "agreements" have benefited those students who come from low socio-economic households by subsidizing the cost of their attendance at these elite private universities.
Almost all of the NYT articles about the college admissions scandal revolve around the theme of "it is not fair that colleges do not admit students solely on merit" and do not consider the positive benefits these systems can bring to students who come from households who cannot afford the tuition at "elite" private universities. A number of my close friends and I who came from low socio-economic households benefited from Cornell's generous need-based financial aid package that replaced student loans with public (Pell) grants and private grants. For me, attending Cornell was actually cheaper than attending a public institution. Though I have not conducted an exhaustive search, I would guess that a substantial portion of the grant I received was subsidized by the full tuition paid by the "legacies" and/or by donations from their families.
24
@WP Heaven forbid that the wealthy donate in ways that aid disadvantaged students and advance higher education without the quid pro quo of reaping even greater advantages for their own children.
6
@NG While not ideal, it's one method of incentivizing the "haves" to transfer wealth to the "have nots". What alternative approaches (based in reality) would you suggest to aid in helping disadvantaged students reap the rewards of higher education at these institutions?
@WP
Yes, but it is pathetic that it was the legacy who felt no sense of self awareness that she did not have intrinsic talent - Unlike the elite athletes, ( the real ones), the affirmative action kids ( who do have to have the grades), and all the others.
Legacies are wrong, but it is important to be honest in writing about them.
First of all, standardized tests are not biased against non-white races, as the author suggests. They are neutral, and test only knowledge of basic academic information. If a certain group scores more poorly, than can be a host of reasons for that, but bias of the test itself is not the reason, in this instance.
Second, the author keeps mentioning that she is poor and a first-generation college student. Was her poverty a factor in admissions? If so, she benefitted from an unfair advantage in admissions, which is not to say that she had an easy time paying for it. Admission itself is what we discuss.
Third what was her race? If she identified that in the admissions process (which one is always asked to do), she was also the beneficiary of unfair bias. She works now as a professor of ethnic studies in Nebraska. A glance at their website reveals that they discriminate in their hiring, this time against whites. So the author is not really that honest in her crusade for fairness and meritocracy.
So the legacy problem is there. But this woman should hardly be the one to argue against it, as if she were earning her spot on merit alone. For that, you would need to find an author who was admitted as a white, middle income kid with no special flags.
29
100% correct assessment of the authors article. Ranting against white privilege when she received many more admissions advantages than the average white student. She clearly used this article to express her anger and racist bias.
Great column. Perfect description of privilege... they are totally unaware.
6
I worked between high school and college. I delivered Pepsi, making long treks up skinny steps to upstairs beauty salons with an overloaded hand truck, I delivered fuel oil to homes and I painted and planted signs. The two years between high school and college was tough. Since I'd been living on my own, supporting myself for two years and lived pretty much just above the poverty line, I qualified for the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant and for 1% student loans. I, with the government's help, put myself through college. When I graduated, I started a business and have been a successful serial entrepreneur ever since. My experience between high school and college prepared me for college and gave me the perspective of seeing what life could be like without a college degree. I can't fathom what kind of character is built from being given everything.
11
So much hand wringing and so much anger. There are too few places at the most coveted institutions. Last year Harvard received more than 40,000 applications for a freshman class of 1,700 students. The US has 3.6 million college seniors. The top 1% of that is 40,000, so lets assume every of those applicants had perfect SAT scores, GPAs greater than 4.4, played an instrument and was top 3 in their class. They all earned their way there but there is only 1,700 spots.
There are so many great schools in the US. You really can be anything you want and do anything you want if you are that smart and talented there are schools that will pay your whole way and nurture you all the way through. Most of these students who are that 1% will go on to graduate school and that is the credential that really matters. Let’s see some reporting on that.
13
@Deirdre
Right. And people rarely even ask where you received your Ph.D., or even your M.D. if you go that route. Yes, Yale and Harvard Law Schools have produced most of the recent Supreme Court justices. But it might be argued that they are a mixed bag intellectually as well as politically.
3
When I visited my grandmother's house in Massachusetts I would see the bedroom walls festooned with Harvard and MIT paraphernalia where a couple of generations of our family attended as well as a couple of other fine colleges. To me that all seemed another world away.
Knowing that that neither my divorced mom or I could afford that I admit that while I wanted an education and I did band, chorus and a few extracurricular activities I didn't work as hard as I could have. After all, what was the point? And I was working after school too. So I did well, suffered a set back in HS when they fired a teacher mid semester and made the whole class repeat the year in math which put me a year behind in the subject by graduation. But not top of the class which I assumed what was needed for MIT or Harvard, the family schools.
And no one explained legacy or financial aid to me. I knew about scholarships, and won a small one, but nothing of the type that would pay for those schools.
Thus I applied to and got into UNH, the University of New Hampshire, based on being a NH resident (probably being the biggest factor), scores, and application, as what we could afford. I did well enough there and really loved the school.
It was only years later did I understand what legacy and financial aid at Harvard meant and what it would have meant to my career and income. Part of me would have welcomed that and likely felt lucky, not bad for it. Part of me is satisfied with what I did on my own.
6
I recall my own “rude awakening” to the completely bogus and unfair admissions process, as well as, the antics of the financial aid office. I am a white male who was a non-traditional student (Persian Gulf combat veteran who served four deployments to the Persian Gulf and western Pacific).
I had the privilege of paying full freight in law school tuition to a top-tier “Southern Ivy” law school by borrowing hundreds of thousands of dollars notwithstanding my 96th percentiles LSAT and 3.7 undergraduate GPA.
Once my “2L” year began I became aware that minority students were exclusively afforded incredible on campus recruiting advantages, career coaching and assistance while they were, for the most part, on full scholarships. I was personally paying these students’ tuition only to observe the interviews set up for them by the school with top firms notwithstanding the fact that many in this cohort placed in the bottom half of the class rankings.
I am a staunch supporter of affirmative action and believe that undergraduate and graduate school admissions should provide it. However, when one ends up subsidizing one’s classmates’ tuition only to then observe those students stepping over their competition, well it sticks in the craw. The author is correct: it’s obvious that the American admissions process and its systems are not a meritocracy. Hopefully this moment provides more than just Twitter outrage.
15
It isn't as straight forward as the author would have you believe. Yes, the system is biased and imperfect. However, the author fails to mention that without the support of legacy families (like her lunch mate's) she probably wouldn't have been able to attend Cornell. This is because the legacies provide the donations that fund the financial aid that I am sure the author received. The reason Cornell and other highly rated schools provide a top education is because of exceptional funding. The legacies are part of the system that enabled author to receive an Ivy League degree. For better or for worse, it's the truth.
37
@Peter. Oh my god Peter. Thank you for stating the absolute truth. Why do people not understand this . It should not be a surprise that college admissions is not a level playing field. It takes a LOT of money to run these universities.
7
the fact is that the leagacy has no intrinsic talent and is legacy- reliant to get in,
I was a first generation college student as well. I worked for a few years to be able to afford college. As a parent who has spent almost $1 million on my kids' 4 degrees. I certainly don't deserve any lecturing.
9
I'd like to offer the author a slightly different perspective. College isn't just about academics and who "deserves" (or not) to go where. It's about putting diverse groups of people together who might otherwise never meet in order to give them a broader perspective on the world at large. We don't know the precise reason the young woman was accepted, she may have had other attributes and accomplishments unknown to us. The fact that she was accepted allowed for this chance encounter that opened the author's eyes to bias and unfairness in the world at large, as well as to someone from a totally different background who certainly had merits of her own. It's a shame the author couldn't see past her race and class and look also at "softer" qualities like empathy, humor, kindness etc.
Workplaces are more diverse than ever, and one of the points of college is to teach how to get along and collaborate with people completely different from yourself. It's also to look past superficial attributes and value each individual on their own merits and what they bring to any given situation both in and out of the classroom, in order to develop an open minded view of people across the spectrum of ethnicity, gender, class, and sexual orientation. Admissions aren't fair, but neither is life. I would argue that the admission of both these students was correct and a success because it created the opportunity for them to meet when they otherwise might not have.
15
I'm having a hard time reconciling the understanding that colleges provide unfair advantages to upper middle class "white kids" with the understanding that colleges provide unfair advantages to applicants who are members of racial and other minority groups, first generation college students, etc.
I'm also frustrated by the implication in many of these articles that "development admits" are common. As I understand it, the "going rate" for these types of admits is something like $10 million. Needless to say, the number of families that can make contributions like that is too small to even be a rounding error.
15
How’s this as a college plan. Start at a Community College. No SATs, GPAs, (or parental pay offs) needed. Adjust. Mature. Do well. Transfer to a 4 year for the Bachelor degree. Many 2 year colleges have transfer articulations. By then, a career/degree direction should be determined. To keep costs down, attend a City or State funded college. When ready for advanced degree, when the program offerings are selective, choose the college what fits the degree and personal objective. Money saved in the first 4 years can be dedicated to the Masters/PhD.
This strategy worked for me. Achieved my goals. No debt. No loan paybacks. No shame. No headlines. Just a solid education that made me career ready.
CUNY (City University of NY) helped me achieve my goals and I graciously gave back to the city in which I live and love.
22
I am a graduate of an Ivy League school and since for personal development have taken an occasional course at community college. The latter have been so underfunded and under supported it's water for chocolate.
3
@lbqby
Did you have anyone in your life tell you CUNY was just as good as St. John’s, Fordham, or Columbia?
Or did you just intuit that was a smart move?
If the top schools many of which are private, went with a purely merit based system, donations would dry up.
I think it would result in that only students with the best combination of grades, test scores, athletic ability and demonstration of leadership would get in.
The top colleges would only be able to show they were still the best by going with the most promising students they believe will become doctors, scientists etc so they can remain highly rated.
Likewise if schools adopted guidelines where merit was the sole criteria then why would any school offer scholarships to students for sports. You can't major in volleyball or rowing.
3
Being a first year college student is likely fraught with all kinds of surprises. These include the mundane of being away from home, the painful with finding out that dyslexia is hard to overcome in a single semester, or the confounding that rote linear thinking won't get it done.
3
Not sure this essay makes the points the author intends.
I read that a talented girl of modest means works very hard, targets and excels at a host of academic and extracurricular activities, and is accepted into an elite institution. That institution then provides substantial financial aid so she can attend (clearly implied but not stated clearly).
So far, so good. But then the whiny bitterness. Not everyone worked as hard or followed as meritorious a path as her. So? Did she not think that the money Cornell raised through others’ tuition and charitable donations—even from legacy families—is what allowed her to attend? (For those advocating free taxpayer paid college for all, I don’t think the Ivies are what is in mind.)
There seems another academic bias here too: not all all talented students are talented at math. Many have other talents—in the arts or language and literature—that add to a community. The number of AP math courses taken is not the sole arbiter of academic merit.
And why the focus on race? The author was admitted based on her academic record; many students of all races are not. This is more an issue of class.
No, for all the hostility in the article, I see a success story of a talented girl, raised in an economically modest background, making good. It might not be only in America where this is possible, but it is one of the few places where this can happen.
112
@Meg
Your letter is spot-on. When I attended college, the percent of alumni kids, rich or otherwise, was small. And alumni children still had to succeed at the college level where alumni status doesn't bring favoritism with professors. There are other silent admission factors in the background as well, like diversity, which tries to spread the benefits of a good education across social class and nationality background. If the entire system were based on highest gradepoint and high school prestige, the freshman class would all be preppies.
18
Where I was born and raised in Asia, and in many developed countries, higher education is (almost) free. It is untrue that this (the US) is one of the few places where a poor smart kid can climb up socially. In fact the US is one of the most unequal places for that, today.
2
I was a little taken aback at the first semester experience of the columnist. Almost exactly the same thing except that I came from a more affluent background than the two guys who had come tops in the school exam and admitted into the top two courses of the engineering college. The other differences were they went out of the way to teach an 'isolated from society' affluent boy who had worked so hard in school in the belief that he had to prove his merit not thru his father's background but on his own against other lesser affluent kids who worked hard to gain college education on their merit. They told me how the fathers of them both were teachers in the school education system and had influence enough to see how both of them secured top marks and thus admission to the top courses of engineering. They bragged how they were nowhere close in merit to my skills in English and Maths and which was why based on my confidence in both I had taken admission in computer engineering. They taught me skills were not important and that if some other disciplines had been top most that year and key to reaching USA, they would have secured admissions to those disciplines.
3
This is heart-breaking.
In order to avoid this kind of thing in the future we should devise an AP Test that would be required of all first generation students: "How the System REALLY Works". The required reading would be all of the op ed articles published in the past week. The test itself would have one essay question: "Now that you know how the system REALLY works, do you want to be part of it or do you want to see it change?"
From a purely educational viewpoint (I'm as over-educated as you can get, high-status B.A, good Ph.D., a dozen post-docs at Ivies and Naples, IT) I'm amused at paying $400,000 to get kids into a status school. I taught forty years at community colleges, where some students got great educations--we had a Chemistry prof as good as the ones I'd had as a pre-med at Amherst Coll, before I converted to a Shakespearean and comp lit scholar. We also had one very poor science prof. Students who could tell the dif ended with fine educations, through which they could compete with the status grads--and DID. My students were nothing if not competitors, when that was a good thing. Now even corporate America prefers not to compete.
7
in this context how fair is diversity, colleges routinely pass by higher candidates that are non minority, but have higher SAT scores to take much lower performing students in order to achieve "diversity". Do we want a true meritocracy?
10
Congratulations on your outstanding career. The reality is that for a college like Cornell to offer you an excellent educations and scholarships to deserving students it needs large donations. Not everyone is altruistic so the university dedicates a percentage of slots to “legacies.” Ideal? No. The alternative is cutting back on need-based scholarships and other expensive programs. You went to Cornell rather than a Florida state school because of its excellence. Excellence is not free.
27
My undergraduate experience was not very challenging. I had good SAT scores and reasonably good grades in high school, and my morbidly thrifty parents decided I was going to the cheapest local engineering school that I could commute to. I didn't have much to say about it, as I was only 16 years old. I applied in the conventional way, got an early acceptance, and my parents went on paying down their home mortgage on an accelerated schedule.
After five years as an engineer in an oil refinery, I decided that a legal career involving regulation of industry would be a good fit for my interests and talents. I was just finishing up an MBA at the Rutgers night program. My grades were OK, not spectacular. I did quite well on the LSAT, and was able to write a compelling essay about the abuses of the environment and dangerous work conditions I had witnessed at the oil refinery, and the inadequacy of lawyers without technical backgrounds to deal with those issues. Because my grades were not spectacular, I applied to a wide spectrum of schools. I found that, as a white male, the deck was somewhat stacked against me, on admissions. I was able to get acceptances from most schools I applied to. But mysteriously,, I applied to two Ivy League caliber schools. One lost my application entirely which I did not discover until very late in the admission process. The other wait listed me, never to get back to me. I wonder what really happened there at those schools.
10
I have great admiration for Cornell.
Cornell is the only university that returned the application fee when they rejected one of my children who applied to 12 US universities at $60 a pop.
That child graduated from McGill which turned out to be a fabulous choice with a big wide open door on the whole world, and a lot less expensive.
9
As a first generation college student in the late 60s, I
earned an athletic scholarship that was the equivalent of a year round, full time job. The school tried to coerce me into communications- a "gut program" so as to interfere with my "scholarship responsibilities." The athletics program was successful, which helped subsidize scholarship students.
Every generation and wave of new ethnic groups have faced discrimination. Some worse than others. The difference now is we have a generation who prefer to whine about fairness, rather than fight their way thru it.
My grandfather- a german immigrant who was harangued thru "the Great War" advised me to read Max Weber on the value of hard work. It has created a high watermark for western civilization- but not everyone gets a trophy.
6
I think the one thing that is lost in all of these discussions is that colleges are a business.
They may be non profit, but none the less, they are operated by business people in a business like manner.
It is all a bit easier to understand when you think about the transaction of admission this way.
11
Thanks for publishing this piece. I never had the "must go to top school" experience even though I knew I'd always attend college. I attended junior college in California because I could afford it. I spent one quarter at a prestigious UC school and HATED it because my academi goals did not align with the UC curriculum. I finished my undergraduate career at one of the Cal State schools and took on NO STUDENT DEBT. My nearly free undergraduate education solidly paved the way for my graduate education in private universities. I am now a professor and associate dean at a public university in Florida. Students are the ones who determine what they get from their educational experience. Sad when they cheat to get in. Sad that they don't recognize it is wrong.
6
I grew up in an alcoholic household with lots of child abuse and cycled between home, foster homes, and MacLaren Hall. However early on I understood clearly that my only way out was to get an education.
All this was in an undesirable part of town.
I joined the United States Navy to get out. The agreement was, I would give them four years, they would teach me a trade, and then give me money to go to school. I also had a kid along the way.
You want poverty? Try spending a summer living in a 5 by 10 mini-storage in Florida.
I got up the money to buy a year of tuition, got in on my merits, and held a job my first year at school. And, in a hard science, pulled a 3.5 GPA. The school found out what they had, gave me a full scholarship, hired me to run an electronics lab, and the rest is history.
It took me ten years. But I did it. And I never looked back.
25
@Alternate Identity
Good choice to enter the military. With the advantage of life experience, I realize I would have been better off to do the same when I graduated high school.
3
Me too.
The comments that argue that a few wealthy legacy admissions are necessary in order to subsidize indigent but high-performing students may have it exactly backwards.
Actually, it's more likely to be the other way round.
Stellar students from poor and middle class backgrounds are inducted into the Ivies so that under-performing legacy admission students can benefit from a genuine enrichment of their scholarly milieu, bask in an aura of meritocratic accomplishment by association, and siphon off the surplus virtue of their grit, competence, honesty, and decency.
Last but not least, they serve a useful function in pooling, packaging, diluting "bad legacy assets" (much like the "securitized" debt instruments that some of these schools' graduates invented), thus camouflaging the bad risks, homogenizing the asset class, and branding the school higher up the meritocratic value chain.
This ended badly in the world of finance: economic fibrillation, then near-total collapse.
How will this end for the academy?
The self-satisfied assurances and rationalizations are not encouraging.
29
Part of what parents do is to recognize the gifts one’s child has. Our daughter was reading the daily paper — out loud, just like an adult — when she was five. We had her tested for, and she was admitted to, the highly gifted program of Denver Public Schools. This led to her admission to The Denver School of the Arts, which in turn led to her admission to highly selective Colorado College, and thence to the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins. She was awarded scholarships based on merit, and none of it cost us a dime. What did we do? From the moment of her birth we lived out our role as the first teachers in the first school, surrounded her with books and music in a home where her parents loved each other. Given all that, she didn’t need to game the system, nor did we.
10
@diogenes It's great, if those great programs exist.
The promotional recruiting repertoires of the finest universities are too often opaque as they tiptoe around admissions and grading anomalies, the optics of which are so awful.
I did not go to an elite school but worked in a 'glamor' industry where a lot of people did. I eventually got a college degree, but in my industry, I was promoted past my Ivy League colleagues because I worked harder. I was from a different class, but I learned how to use cutlery and rise from receptionist into a pretty lucrative career. My kids never had to work for anything, but they've both had jobs since they were 16, that's the way they were raised. Really, if I spent time concerning myself about my legacy co-workers, instead of beating them at their own game, I would have had to give up pre-med and instead be counseling first generation college students about the 'truth' about "this clear bias" when going to college. Yep, the world's an unfair place, some people have better athletic abilities, a better work ethic, better connections and naturally, if you have white skin, above all privilege.The author aims to tell them about that unfair system. My kids earned their places in college, had a full ride, no need to work, and above all privilege...but you know what, they worked, they succeeded, they were the second generation who went to college. They had something else, they had character, which they learned from the first generation that went to college, who took 44 years to get her degree, but never stopped trying. The author doesn't seem to regard Cornell highly, but as suspect, despite them accepting her. And even after acceptance and graduation she complains.
5
No, your pre-med or m.d. status is not a more valuable thing in the world than a counselor of young people who hope to find their way in the confusing world of social class in college. “This American Life” did a very moving show on the ways smart, vulnerable kids from poor backgrounds can be thrown off their path in college after working very hard in high school, only to end up back at the margins, their lives derailed.
4
After a delinquent childhood and adolescence I reinvented myself as a good student and never looked back.
After finishing my Masters Degree in rehabilitation counseling at Kent State University I dedicated my life to working in mental health.
I did this without financial assistance and without a legacy student opportunity as did some of my friends.
The student killings at Kent State by National Guard soldiers in 1970 had a greater impact on my life than any favoritism in American colleges for other students. The psychological impact of those killings and the unnecessary cruelty of the American war in Vietnam left a permanent black mark on the United States.
When I retired in 2000 the accumulated depressing history of all the American wars during my lifetime and the deaths of my fellow Kent State students left me with a feeling of remorse for my citizenship.
I became an expatriate 16 years ago and have now observed possibly the worst American President in history denigrate the country’s reputation throughout the world!
7
@Michael Kittle
Funny you should mention it. I myself am a high-school dropout from one of the most prestigious lycées in France. I left after the introductory lecture in Philosophy, where the teacher explained that the noblest definition of the Good Life was murdering a sixteen-year old enemy officer in his sleep (he was quoting Alfred de Vigny) because that is Our Duty to the State.
I'm happy to say that I also have a PhD--from an American public university. Like you I made a point of avoiding the kind of place--be it Harvard or Kent State--that would simply perpetuate the ruling ideology.
A hearty handshake.
4
Ms. Crucet writes: "This clear bias, based on wealth and so often tied to whiteness..."
At Ms. Crucet's school, Cornell, white students make up 36.3% of the student population.
Here's two more data points to consider. Overall in the Ivies, the percentage of white students is in the low 40s. For reference, the white population overall in the US is 61%.
So I agree with Ms. Crucet to a point. Certainly there is bias. It just might not have as much to do with whiteness as Ms. Crucet's expensive education would lead her to believe.
16
You look up a current stat and use it to allege the author is lying about her lived experience? Remember also that Cornell is a huge university made up of many colleges/schools/programs. I looked up the stat you cite. From Cornell’s own at a glance sheet and like so many who use stats you mislead.
Note that If you add up the percentages of ethnicities they do not equate withanywhere near “100%” - .so something is missing re these demographics.
Caucasions are far more represented than any other group. 7% afican american. And 14% hispanic.
And who knows the frankly suspect ways people maneuver for advantage. Think Elizabeth Warren application identifying as “native American” or the honest yet misleading classification based on only one grandparent’s status....I’ve seen it. I find it impossible to believe that if you looked at the College of Arts and Sciences freshman class, a majority would be nonwhite. Remember there is a school of engineering in addition to the Arts and Sciences college, and there are less expensive state supported schools within the university - I think the larger agriculture school for one. Note that Cornell does not provide a breakdown by schools. It is an aggregate.
There is not any aspect of life that is fair, where people have equal access to rise by merit. This is a Neoclassical myth that is the exact same myth that we live in a Free Market economy where the merits of hard and smart work are equally applied to all.
5
An elitist country club (membership more expensive than college tuition) won't let you in just because of your stellar SAT and AP scores; an Ivy league school will. Isn't that something of a meritorious leveling of the playing field? What if that person you met at lunch becomes your lifelong friend or partner? What if their connections provide support for your talents?
5
I have heard that the UC system, dwarfing all the ivy leagues combined in students, is largely formulaic. Private schools probably operate differently, not be taxpayer funded.
3
@Tecsi
Isn't UCLA in the UC System ? Last time I looked it was.
In 1858, when responding to a questionnaire sent to former members of Congress, Abraham Lincoln described his education as "defective" In 1860, shortly after his nomination for U.S. president, Lincoln apologized for and regretted his limited formal education. Lincoln was self-educated. His formal schooling was intermittent, the aggregate of which may have amounted to less than twelve months. He never attended college, but Lincoln retained a lifelong interest in learning. In a September 1865 interview with William Herndon, Lincoln's stepmother described Abraham as a studious boy who read constantly, listened intently to others, and had a deep interest in learning. Lincoln continued reading as a means of self improvement as an adult, studying English grammar in his early twenties and mastering Euclid after he became a member of Congress (Wikipedia)
6
My grandfather idolised Lincoln. Grandpa’s education ended after 5th grade, when he had to go to work to help support his family. However, he continued to be a voracious reader and lifelong learner. Something he passed on to me. He started by giving me a complete set of Lincoln’s writings and correspondence for my 8th birthday. I got the message, and myself have been a lifelong voracious reader and learner.
3
@MBS It wouldn't be enough nowadays. If that's what you mean. He might be president, but you can't get a regular job that way.
Although I find the author's frustration somewhat understandable, I honestly find her naivety somewhat hard to fathom. Every student has certain advantages and disadvantages when applying, and legacy admissions are no different. What bothered me most about this piece was the author's insensitivity, her willingness to humiliate the other student for her perceived advantages. Legacy students receive preferential admission, not automatic admission. And the author herself must have had certain advantages working in her favor, even if they were not financial.
As another commenter pointed out, this victim mentality is not helpful and does not advance a meaningful conversation: it merely reinforces harmful stereotypes about socio-economic differences between students. I don't think students should be mocked or evaluated based on their socio-economic background alone—what matters is what they do with the privilege of their education. As long as the economics of the university remain the same, colleges will continue to be run like businesses, where calculations are constantly being made as to who is a paying customer and who is not. Consequently, a certain quotient of the student body must necessarily pay into the system, and yes, even donate large sums of money, to ease the financial burden of other students.
Now, how about we ask why elite colleges haven't tapped into their hedgefund-esque billion-dollar endowments to support minority, low-income, and first-generation students?
23
@HC 1 in 10 are accepted in Harvard. I do not think legacy has a place with those odds. I commented yesterday on this. Recommended I think 2 times. It’s a joke,people who read these articles do not get that upset. In any event it’s still SAT run. Info in info out.No real critical thinking. It’s a club of togetherness heading mostly to monied jobs. It’s more a culture of elites with a smitherimg of real people.
The author does not have a victim mentality. She was understandably disappointed that admission to college is far from solely based on merit.
There is a fantasy out there that everyone whose parents pay for high powered admissions consulting and lots of "enrichment' for their children are buying their kids a place at an elite college. I worked for a couple of years for such a college admissions service, and the students I worked with were hard working, driven, crazy smart, and outrageously hopeful. And even though I probably helped them too much with their essays (many were STEM majors who struggled with the creative aspects of putting together a college essay) the truth was very few got accepted to the elites. Most were happy to get a (pretty hard to come by) acceptance to UC San Diego. Also, I would take issue with the opinion writer's sweeping dismissal of legacies and everyone who comes to the table with more advantages than she had. Life is hard for everyone. What's important isn't someone's (perceived) attitude. What's important is striving for balance and fairness.
25
“Life is hard for everyone”? Are you saying that everyone in the US lives in the same conditions and has the same opportunities? If so, you have not understood the lives of people living in poverty, which is a large and growing segment. Actually, homelessness among college students is a new and terrible reflection of today’s vast income gap.
4
@SB
Of course not. This has nothing to do with college students who are living in poverty, which is an entirely different topic from college admissions. My point is about the perceived attitudes of children of "privilege" and the assumption that they didn't work hard to get where they are and didn't face their own set of difficulties. They are an easy target. We don't need to find them morally lacking in order to make an argument for fairness and justice and college affordability.
6
Roughly 14% of the population of many Ivy League Schools are legacy students. Legacies are typically adccepted at about four times the rate of other students (30% vs 7%). While being a legacy student does improve your chances of acceptance, it does not by any means guarantee admission. Surprise! College admissions is not a PURE meritocracy, but for roughly 90% it is, none the less a meritocracy. (Some legacy students are actually qualified for admissions!) On the other hand the facilities enjoyed by the 90% are often heavily subsidized by the parents of legacy students who on average receive much less financial aid. I wonder if the students who feel that a legacy student took "their" spot ever wonder where the financial aid that allows them to attend college comes from. Despite rising tuition, even students who pay full freight at most institutions are not paying the full cost of their education. State schools are able to keep tuition lower because they are subsidized by taxpayers. What should private institutions do to subsidize tuition if not rely on the generosity of wealthy alums? Is it so terrible if there is a quid pro quo when so many others benefit?
15
@DWes you seem to suggest that legacy students are 4x more likely to get only because they are legacy? Could it also be that they are higher performing? Unless we know the data of scores, grades, etc, isn’t this only a hypothesis?
8
@DWes actually some professionals claim "legacy" admission are more like 30% at Ivy schools. So one in three students is there not based on merit.
@DWes
Trying to squirm and wiggle yourself out of the injustice that allows those of mediocre intellect to gain a university place because of their wealth, while many bright people have to work their guts out at part-time jobs to scrape together tuition ?
"All men are born equal " in America ,indeed!
I have to admit being confused at all the comments practically scolding Ms Crucet for pointing out the unfairness of "donations" being used to buy one's way into college. Maybe it's because I'm also a fellow Cornellian who couldn't buy my way in and had to come in through the "front door." Everything she says is true-- it's not cynical, you're just not paying enough attention.
Either the comments are all coming from legacies who have gotten theirs, or, even more depressingly, they're coming from people who would otherwise benefit from a fairer playing field, but who are for some reason willing to uphold the current system. Maybe those commenters think they will one day belong to that class of people who can buy their kids' entry into elite schools.
It's the same absurdity that takes hold of people making $60,000 a year defending billionaires and celebrities. Hate to break it to you, but you're never going to be in that class-- get with the team of people who are advocating a fairer playing field while you can.
30
I’m surprised, too, and have the feeling that, along with either class blindness or the fantasy politics you describe, they are scolding a woman for complaining.
This writer misses one essential point: the applicants are often required to submit the scores they've been awarded for completing an 'aptitude' test, while the folks who demand the scores refuse to report the scores of the faculty on any Faculty Teaching Aptitude Test, which would answer the question, 'Does this faculty have the aptitude to teach me?'
Don't point to a faculty's 'publication' achievements as they are only nominal achievements, unrelated to aptitude. Don't believe me? Ask the colleges that require aptitude test scores if they will accept, in lieu of those, the scores from achievement tests. They'll explain the difference, while continuing to hide whether their faculty even knows whether it has the aptitude to teach.
At the core of US higher ed is a fraud: a college sells not its faculties aptitudes, but oversells its students' aptitude.
2
M parents went to a famously great college in the 1940s and I applied there and went to a college interview in 1970; I had okay grades, quite good test scores, and I was personable, that's about it. To be honest, I was not an excellent and focused student. The interviewer was a wise woman and sized me up well. She told me, in an elegant and roundabout way, that I would be accepted, but she also asked me how I saw myself as a student, and would I be comfortable there. Hmm, immediately I knew I wouldn't. I knew it was a school for extremely hardworking and talented students, and that was just not me. So I didn't go and never regretted my choice not to get in over my head.
19
Instead of preaching this victim mentality to the masses, why not educate people that for the vast majority of students it is a meritocracy based in GPA, SAT/ACT scores and rigor.
The real education problem we need to tackle is the huge number of students who are not college ready by the college board's standards.
Parents can help solve this problem, if you point them in the right direction and encourage their student to focus on the three R's. Telling the they are helpless victims is destructive and largely untrue.
14
@Scott Matthews
I did not read anything about "helpless victims" in Ms. Crucet's piece. I think that it is a sad failure of college admissions boards to deny this country the great gifts that qualified and dedicated students can offer when given the opportunity.
It is a foolishly short-sighted choice for the colleges to instead give those spots to wealthy families who can bribe officials, especially when those students themselves seem clearly unable to make use of an education.
7
ITS AMAZING TO ME HOW MUCH NOISE EVERYONE IS MAKING ABOUT THE COLLEGE EXPERIENCE... so MUCH DEPENDS ON THE KIDS MOTIVATION AND PARENTS INPUT IN TERMS OF ENCOURAGEMENT AND SUPPORT TO GET THERE! I am REMINDED OF CLARK UNIVERSITY’s PRESIDENT (Traina)WHO INITIATED THE GRADUATION CEREMONY MY SON attended in the early 90’s AND SUGGESTED THE GRADUATING CLASS TURN TO THANK THEIR PARENTS FOR MAKING IT! TODAY’s College kids are unbelievably selfish and demanding and from an educator’s perspective, I have no idea how they will function on the job! Most of them never worked part-time, and consider themselves so entitled it’s shocking! Get a grip! That goes for the journalists writing these predictable editorials, as well as professors who are clueless as to the limited experiences many students have upon entering college...
4
American schools are so different than Canadian ones. I can't think of a single university here that is considered "elite" over all others to this sort of level. I have never, ever felt looked down upon for only having a two-year college diploma, least of all from the lawyers, judges and justices I have had the pleasure of working for. My skill in my chosen profession has mattered far more than the school I went to and my family connections. Respect is a two-way street. Lying and cheating your way through life gains you no respect and is disrespectful to society at large. What on earth are these people even achieving other than misplaced bragging opportunity about attending an elite school?
12
@Joanne
Canadian students lucky enough to afford or win scholarships to American universities would seem to disagree with you, as they often opt to remain here in the American rat race for our material rewards over Canada’s after graduation. But Canada’s socialist approach to education is hardly meritocratic, in that the government subsidizes religious schools to a degree that would deeply offend our Constitutional anti-establishment principles. Like Canadian politics, Canada’s immigration policies (and its treatment of native tribes) has never been a meritocracy, as the bilingual, educational and wealth preferences for immigrants attest in the vetting process for the largest number of immigrants.
Americans, as our Statue of Liberty declares, claim to want the world’s rejects, “it’s huddled masses, yearning to be free.” Canada, by contrast, seems to proclaim that it wants people who speak only English and French, and who only travel First Class. No American who studies Canada ought to be surprised at your class divisions or your class biases.
1
Australia also subsidizes religious affiliated schools from Pre-school thru University and it is no big deal. Parents are taxpayers and they too have invested in the commonwealth and it is fair that they get a slice of it to educate their children. The government subsidy doesn’t cover the whole cost, no matter where we send the children, but the cost of University doesn’t bankrupt students in Australia because they can defer their low cost share until they are gainfully employed and pay it back through the tax filng system, interest free, but the debt is indexed to inflation. Australia WANTS it’s citizens to own homes, raise healthy families, and pursue happiness.... not to be mired in debt until they retire. The pursuit of happiness isn’t written into a constitution but it not selective either.
2
Agreed 100 percent.
I never imagined that college admission were fair. When I was in high school, the elite prep schools were still set up as "feeders" to the elite colleges. We had one nearby where I lived, The Hill School, on the edge of Pottstown, Pa., a long time feeder school for Yale. Rich people sent their kids to exclusive preps, rich kids then went to the Ivies or anywhere else they wanted to go.
My parents dragged me and my two brothers to a very rural, very poor school district in Oklahoma when I was in the third grade. The school was so poor that, believe me, my older brother and I sometimes felt superior in knowledge to some of the teachers. I had been in 8 schools by the time I reached 3rd grade, so I missed a lot of elementary school because every time we moved, different subjects were being taught (or skipped) each time we moved.
Then, as now, you had to start out with advantages, not weights on your shoes, to have a chance of winning the race to one of the big name colleges. I knew from the moment I learned about college admissions that it was very unlikely I would make it to a prestige name.
In the late 1960s and through the '70s when young people generally were demanding social and political changes, the Ivies and others said they were going to merit based admissions. Just so happens...that "merit" meant the same socio-economic classes got in with the doors open a bit for students who studied incessantly and could present the picture of well prepared beyond any question.
4
I see several comments here defending the status quo. I'll apply the sunlight test. If this is all so above board, why hide it? Why don't these universities publish the data on the number and scores of their legacy students, full-price students and aid students? Why not come clean about how their business model actually works?
Taxpayers subsidize these schools on property taxes, charitable contributions and research grants. Surely we have a right to know?
14
@gizmosTaxpayer subsidies - shrinking dramatically over the years - do not apply to private institutions like Cornell.
3
@chrisv22 That's (surprisingly) not actually true - Cornell has some state-supported schools that are effectively public with in-state tuition supported by the taxpayers of NY. It's pretty unique in that respect.
But that's not actually what gizmos was referring to - the comment was referring more to tax breaks as well as federal research grants that virtually all universities, public or private, enjoy. Even other private schools with no direct funding enjoy exemption from taxes that other businesses don't, and they get millions in research grants from government agencies like the NIH.
6
@gizmos I suppose it matters if you think that Universities exist primarily to educate students or to advance humanity's knowledge.
3
@Amy
and @prickly
My reponse to commenters responded to my comment on how unfair it was that those on the staff of universities like University of Rochester are getting free tuition when they themselves have very high salaries.
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Most professors at first rate universities are making above six figures these days. Most Americans don't make anywhere that much. And at the UofR which runs Strong Hospital, there are literally hundreds of physicians, professors and administrators on the staff, and I personally know several who have more than one child attending.
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I'm sure they are fine people, and who can blame them for taking advantage of something like that when it is offered. But what about the rest of us? We are paying not only our children's tuition but their children's as well. Most of us have far smaller salaries than the professors and physicians.
1
@HH As others have said this is a perk designed to entice people to a job with relatively low compensation-not compared to most people but compared to what people could make in the private sector. Professors make more than most people yes, but depending on the field they generally make way less than people who share their education level but who work in industry.
5
@MK
I disagree with you - even for the professors.
.
However, we all know that the hundreds of physicians who work for UofR Strong hospital are not getting any less compensation than doctors who work for other hospitals and private practice.
I think the author is either misreading her encounter with the legacy student or deliberately assigning a false meaning to it to fit her straight-from-central-casting narrative. I attended Harvard more than a decade before e the author started college, yet even in the early-to-mid 1980s, legacy students were embarrassed by their status. They knew their credentials were weaker on the face that those of non-legacy students. The legacy student the author spoke with seems to have had a refreshing directness. Most legacy students I ran into did their best to cloak their family's connections. I was the first student in my high school's 50-year history to go to Harvard, and you can bet that I was proud of that.
19
No, Ms. Crucet, the idea that College should be a meritocratic place is your personal false belief. The college nor the rich donators are not to blame but yourself.
As far as I'm concerned, there has never been an official declaration by the US government nor promise of their law that college will be a fair playing ground. I don't know where you get that idea, but such naivism is not on others' shoulders.
18
@Pan
Such "naivism" is found in the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence - and is a deep foundation of the American Dream.
It is FAR MORE than Ms. Crucet's personal false belief.
Many people do not understand what legacy admissions means. I know because I have written about it repeatedly here online and elsewhere, including for years on my semi-defunct website, terryreport.com and people have responded in ways that made clear they didn't get it.
It should be called LEGACY PREFERENCE admissions. The legacy student starts the race 100 yards ahead of everyone else, being admitted even with lower grades, lower SAT scores and less accomplishment during high school years. I like to call it "affirmative action for rich white kids". That's what it is.
Understand this above all others: while colleges are important social and professional institutions, they are run for the benefit of the people who run them, the administrators and the faculty. There isn't space here to elucidate the ultimate purpose of colleges, but educating undergrads isn't it.
Finding people who will go on to get PhDs and keep the cycle turning: check.
Bringing in extra bright kids who can be exploited for their ideas by aging or lazy professors: check. (I know this point sounds unduly harsh, but it is a generalized fact.)
Paying enough tuition to allow professors to have long sabbaticals and lower course loads: check.
Elite colleges are finely tuned machines. Billions are at stake, hundreds of millions in donations, at least over a few years, might be lost if legacy preference admissions were dropped. Even then, the big name schools would look for a new way to do the same thing.
9
@Doug Terry I know a lot of professors at elite institutions. I've never found one who was even remotely lazy. Some are aging ... I'm sure that's not by choice. Many have done truly revolutionary things for society. Universities primary mission is to advance public knowledge. Educating students and training new researchers is part of that goal. Trade schools could and probably should handle educating someone for a career.
6
@Doug Terry
It’s hard to coherently express, but I like legacies. My family looks out for each other, those in my profession look out for each other, my neighbors look out for each other. There is no reason that a college community should not be a family. It instills a sense of pride in who you are.
1
@doug terry
You have a profoundly nihilistic view of higher education, and from someone who has been a college/graduate level educator for over twenty years, it’s incorrect.
Yes, there are subsets of academic work that support those that bring in research or important societal contributions (and money), but to suggest the whole enterprise is designed to disregard their educational mission is disinformation and should be labeled as such.
Look life is not fair. But we are taking our eye off the ball. We must realize that everyone has a day of reckoning. Legacies still have to take exams. Almost every school uses numbers instead of names on exams so they are essentially graded “blind”. If you flunk you may be given a second chance but there is always that pesky day of reckoning. It may come when you arrive at your first job that your parents helped you get. If you come unable to cut it, even your moms best friend will eventually let you go. As my mother who never made it past 10th grade said, cream always rises to the top. Everyone should strive to be the cream. Educate yourself for yourself. Recognition always comes, sometimes later than sooner. Take the AP classes for the joy of the knowledge- it stays with you forever. At 65 plus I still derive huge pleasure from having read French literature in French.....from knowing about many wonderful things. I never suffer from boredom as my sphere is wide and deep. Who cares how the others got there- they are pathetic. Keep your eyes on the ultimate prize- YOU. I faced religious and gender discrimination in both undergraduate and law school but I never let it slow me down. Seize your day and don’t let the blanks get you down. Strength is power in this life. Get strong.
26
The other way to look at it, is that her lunch partner's parents paid the author's tuition bill, so there is a trade off, but frankly, undergraduate education is so overrated that for the rich and dumb it has become branding and for the smart and poor, it doesn't matter, as long as you get into a decent school, do well, and get a graduate degree at a better school. The top schools are themselves guilty of creating this hoopla because it's a huge numbers game and they don't have a standardized admissions process. This is all rather nausea inducing and we are sending our children abroad for their undergraduate degrees, for a lot less money and probably a better education and a social environment without the frat culture.
9
20% of all Stanford students are first generations. Also, for those applicants who are accepted, if your family makes under $100k, you get a full ride, tuition, room & board. If your family makes under $125k, it's free tuition.
https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/14/admission-case-info/
9
I was a legacy student at a fairly elite university . My family were expats abroad and I didn’t have a clue about how to apply for college. It was absolutely the wrong place for me. I nearly flunked out and barely graduated. I did eventually get a master’s degree, getting straight As from a school that was a much better fit. My alma mater never got a penny from me.
4
"As a first-generation college student, I was always told that college was a place you had to earn your way into and that once you got there, the playing field was totally equal. I saw the admissions process as a kind of sorting procedure, one based solely on merit."
That's just not a credible statement from a senior in high school with your accomplishments - you would have avoid virtually all discussions of how college admittance works; your guidance folks must have lied to you.
How 'bout more respect to your readers, especially since some of the content that follows seems worth of consideration.
10
@USAF-RetProf It is pretty clear that the author actually did not have access to guidance counselors, teachers and others that could support her in achieving what she did in her educational goals.
Good for her in counseling first generation students and sharing her ideas in how to navigate the system and succeed.
5
As someone who is a first generation college grad and now teaching at a college I find most of my students entitled; this does not mean they don’t work hard, they do but it is a different kind of hard. They all want A grades saying they read the material, did the project therefore “deserve” the A. They wish they could have done more but their airplane tickets to wherever needed them to leave early.
My working hard meant reading the material,doing the project, commuting to school as I had to live at home, and then commuting to my part-time job where I earned money to go to school.
I also own a company. When I hire someone I ask about their summer jobs, how they paid for college, etc. The individual who learned to sweat while keeping up grades is who I will hire. They are the truly entitled.
11
After school is what counts. I worked for a large oil company and most of the managers, senior and lower, did not go to elite schools. The workplace sorts out the leaders from the followers. The workplace is only interested in how well you perform. Elitism has nothing to do with that.
4
Fair enough, but the Ivys open career doors not available to most students at state universities. If your oil company is recruiting on campus so are the top investment banks, PE firms, hedge funds, and consulting firms. Most Americans haven’t heard of these entities but they have are tremendously influential in our economy.
2
Most elite colleges are independent entities and they offer admission to anyone for any reason, period. Sure they let in a higher % of legacy students because those family then donate millions of $ to the school
Like any other institution they operate on self interest and very little is likely to change
3
@Tim The subjects most featured in the currant admissions scandal did not make use of legacy policies. It was shockingly personal bribery, directly into the pockets of staff, coaches, administrators, etc.
2
But I wonder about the students accepted because of privilege, whether they'll be able to finish college. Surely their professors will not give them especially easy exams or lighten assignments for them. How many of them will actually earn a college degree?
2
@J.Sutto
Grade inflation. Curving... You can't fail them out... because these students provide the income for the localized empire that our privileged university/college education system has become. This is our model now. Thanks, capitalism!
2
@J.Sutton
Naw, the sad truth is that if professors were to grade rigorously in most academic disciplines - they get killed in their student evaluations - risk not gaining tenure or promotions.
I taught undergraduate research methods in a liberal arts discipline. Thus, my challenge was to design (and make myself intensely available to students who cared) courses that gave most students basic concepts while providing curious learners a huge leg-up after they graduated.
While this grade inflation coupled with dumbed down courses varies from school to school, it inevitably compromises course content and rewards "presence" instead of excellence.
2
@J.Sutton My experience as a graduate student at San Francisco State University was not like that. I earned a masters degree in Classics there when I was 68 years old. I can tell you I never worked so hard in my life and it was the best education I've ever experienced. I just hope people won't get too cynical about universities - there are lots of good ones besides the big names. Most students at San Francisco State also work full time to support themselves, by the way.
2
Degrees are no longer connected to occupational success. There's no country club life waiting for you because you beat the sociological odds and got into an Ivy school. The author is teaching at a public university in flyover country. Beats "you want fries with that?" But if she had chosen to rise in the McDonald's system, her upward mobility would be greater.
1
How I got into college:
I applied to three schools. Money was a consideration: Indiana, Iowa and Rutgers. I got into three and went to Indiana. It was a great experience.
Grad school:
I applied to one school. The University of Texas [Mathematics], where I wound up with a Ph. D.
No games, no favors, no nonsense.
6
@ncmathsadist
Dear Mr. Sadist, I hope you liked Austin, What made you decide that NC was better than the Midwest or Texas. ?
Just curious since a good friend from here moved to Winston Salem 25 years ago. We still communicate with each other after 50 years.
Ms Crucet, it’s unfortunate that you didn’t meet someone like my daughter that first day at Cornell. She is a Caucasian who grew up in an affluent community and went to a top notch public high school. The difference would have been that my daughter took every AP class she could, worked all through high school at the same job, volunteered all through high school for the same bereavement organization she attended after her father died when she was 12, and enlisted and tortured me to quiz her nightly on nearly all of her subjects from stacks of note cards she created for all four years. She applied and was accepted to Cornell without any legacy.... just based on her nearly perfect SAT and AP exam scores, grades and high school and extracurricular record. There are plenty of students at Cornell who got there on their own, just as you did. They would include my daughter’s friends and her future husband who all had the same work ethic, high school record and lack of legacy or families with the ability to contribute a building. If you haven’t noticed yet, we have a president who probably didn’t get where he is on his own, so I guess the best thing to do is be proud of yourself for all you have accomplished instead of being resentful and bitter about the people you meet who didn’t have to produce or perform.
35
@RC YOUR PERFECT DAUGHTER IS PROBABLY ONE OF A KIND! Good for her, but surely there is something off in the narrative u submitted! How will she deal with failure or a bad experience in her future??? I never read so many rediculous responses about the college experience... Besides, just so happens I had a friend who couldn’t for the life of her deal w Cornell. Never graduated, but did well in the business world... years later no one gives a flying where u went to school... Once u make it to grad school, no one really cares where u got yr BA. We used to have a joke in the family... folks who said they went to school in Boston, actually meant they went to Harvard... so wha...t? Oh, and congrats on yr daughters perfect college experience. She is guaranteed to make it to heaven:))
The intertwining of athletics and higher education is also a major problem.
19
@PJ Atlas
Coupled with undergraduate drinking and fraternity life - if you can call what most male fraternities revere most.
@PJ Atlas
Perhaps all sports should be intermural and non- contact in nature. For all team sports such as basketball, football that make a profit pay the athletes and pay for health insurance in case they are injured or become pregnant.
If the schools and those who attend receive any public support (decuctble tuition or donations) they should ensure that there is no special access to anyone which doesn’t support the public good. Hopefully this should apply to elections as well as voter supported institutions.
I never thought college was an option because I knew my mother could not afford it, but she told me that higher education for her five children was the expectation and that together we would find a way. She always told me that she thought I had a good voice and that I should audition for the choir. I did and sang in my school's top performing group all through high school, took voice lessons that I paid for from working a part time job, and got a few solos, including the coveted Messiah tenor solo for the Christmas program. When the Kentucky State University Concert Choir came to my city (a historically black college), I auditioned for a spot and received a vocal scholarship.
6
@Kenney Adams I had a slightly different experience. I couldn't afford college, but my parents let me live at home and work (at three jobs) to save every penny I could to go to a public university in the 1950s. I eventually got a Ph.D. and had a great life. I think having to earn it myself helped me more than if it had been given to me.
3
@Chris
For sure, my law school education meant so much more to me as I had to foot the bill myself. Parents paid tuition at elite ivy but I had to work for room and board. I had no free time but I made it.
1
@Chris I had to work a a part time job to pay for voice lessons so I could be competitve to earn a scholarship. Once I got to college, the scholarship did not pay for books or my dorm, so I had to work off campus to make ends meet! Once I graduated, I found my way to NYC and became an educator in the public school system. I had to work part time gigs, while I was teaching full time, in order to go back to school to obtain two Masters degrees. If I had not worked in high school - missing all the fun activities my more fortunate friends participated in, and then again while I was teaching, I never would have learned the discipline of hard work. By the way, it all paid off - I recently retired with a comfortable pension and a decnt savings!
4
Never took the SAts or the other tests. Went to college using my GI bill benefits.
Was ten years older and way more mature than my fellow freshman.
1
Let's all take a breath. Universities, colleges, private schools all began with a business model based on each student paying tuition. Now - hooray!! - diversity is a priority and these same institutions want to give all deserving students a chance at an excellent education. Hooray!! The money has to come from somewhere. That girl at lunch was helping you. No one should be laughing at anyone. (The cheating scandal is deplorable, but legacy and philanthropy in admission is necessary, and in the end a good compromise.)
13
@Hmmm No. They did not "all begin" with a "business model." Many of them, including the best and most reputable, are either public institutions or non-profits with endowments, and tuition is just one of many sources of funding. One of the finest university systems in the world, the University of California, was in fact tuition-free for many years.
Education is a public good. I do not dispute your point that legacies might bring in money that allows others to attend, but by simplifying this into terms of "business models," you are greatly exaggerating things here.
12
@Jin Shengtan
Probably the post-WW2 GI bill supercharged this country's economic, infrastructure, and cultural transformation.
Coupled with "land-grant" state universities and nearly free undergraduate tuition especially in Michigan and California and several other states - we created a vibrant (if racially unfair) middle class.
Then the Republicans gutted taxes that supported PUBLIC GOODS while they piled-up public debt to pay for wars of choice, compensate for tax cuts for the rich, and provide corporate benefits.
9
@Hmmm I don't think the author said she was on a scholarship. She paid her deposit, which I assume means she paid for school... she doesn't have to thank this student's parents.
The wealth disparity perpetuated by not letting a hard working student in, and keeping university merits with the wealthy, is what makes scholarships necessary anyway. Since the system is clearly rigged for the wealthy, let's not pretend it would be radical to spread the wealth back to those who deserve a living wage and who earn the profits others enjoy.
1
What Ms. Cruset fails to understand is that legacy students occupy relatively few spots in any given class but that the donations their families make to the university make it possible for the school to accept more students like Ms. Cruset. It’s a tit-for-tat system, imperfect, but I don’t hear the legacy students (or their families) complaining to the NYT that the system is unfair because they paid more than their fair share of tuition costs while students like Ms. Cruset skated in on scholarship money supplied by wealthy legacy families.
31
Again an article that claims that standardized testing discriminates against “students of color.” So either Asian students aren’t “students of color” or this statement is wrong.
The lawsuit against Harvard verifies what has already been suspected: With grades and standardized testing alone, Asians would be over-represented. (This is also verified by the College Board’s own calculations on the percentile spread of different ethnicities as well as a helpful link Mr. Bruni posted in his column on the criteria to get into Williams.) Legacy and athletics preferences boosts white enrollment.
There’s good arguments on both sides whether preferential treatment should also be offered to underrepresented minorities to compensate for the above. But we need to stick to the facts and not get trapped in a simplified “white supremacy versus people of color” narrative.
8
I agree with the author's general thrust that wealthy kids have a huge advantage. Thus has it always been.
But here's where Ms. Capo Crucet does her argument a disservice:
The playing field in college: No, it's not level. But I would argue that the author has many advantages over the woman sitting across from her, the biggest of which is that she knows how to work hard. That will take her very far in life.
" I told them about application coaches — how parents spent millions on services that all but guaranteed admission into the country’s best schools, and that colleges didn’t generally require anyone to disclose that they used those services."
Seriously? All but guarantee admission? A student slacks off all of high school, is not a legacy, plays no varsity sports, and just gets an application coach in her senior year, and bam! She's in!
There is so much work to be done in making college admissions, and much of the rest of life for that matter, fair and meritocratic for everyone. Sloppy arguments like this will not help to move us in a positive direction.
That said, I very much agree with the concluding paragraph: The author's achievement was greater than her lunch companion's. I hope she takes great pride, and finds strength, in that fact.
6
I sympathize with her soooo much.
At the risk of sounding facetious, her story reminds me of the 1970s song "I learned the truth at 17".
1
I applaud the Times' coverage of this issue, and the opinions contributed and published. As the daughter of a single mom from rural America, I had those same moments where I realized there was a whole world I didn't know about, and educational and professional games that I didn't even realize I was playing. That said, can we stop with the "I had no idea and white people are lazy cheaters and life is unfair and no one told me" parade of opinions? In what is a newsflash to absolutely no one: life IS unfair, and it has been for centuries. The writer's stereotypical, narrow-minded complaints earn points for bitterness that overshadows any nobility in her counseling the next generation.
For every legacy or purchased place in a college class, countless students at that school put in the hard work and made it on their own merits. And congratulations to those schools that accept those students on their merits - many BECAUSE of hardship growing up, minority status, home situation, or other unique and enriching experiences, contrary to what the writer would have you believe.
To cast dispersion on institutions, their students, and white folk in general is to perpetuate a divisive "them versus us" ideology. Please don't let your reactive feelings detract from schools with great admissions policies, or from the thousands of college kids who earned their place at schools and whose successes far outweigh the fact that many times life is unfair and you get the short end of the stick.
11
I am comforted to think that my kid (uncoached perfect scores on SATs and ACT, French teacher, Eagle Scout, 2 varsity sports, lunch-time math tutor, and he’s even sociable and good-looking) didn’t get into the first ten schools on his list because of bribery and corruption. It tells me (and him) that it’s not because of any flaw or lack of merit on his part- it’s because he is law-abiding!
2
@Loner
This sounds like fiction to me. Maybe you can sue the actresses.
It may be irrelevant, but I wonder if Ms. Crucet ever tracked the subsequent life history of the legacy student she met over pasta?
5
@Artis
I might have been that student, just being stupid, but wanting to be friends--and getting the cold shoulder because I took fewer math courses---being English and "arty." And because I was a different culture.
Prof. Capó Crucet, why do you think that that other student should feel bad? Cornell treated her in a certain way because her family had a certain relationship to the college. But why is that unfair? No one has a right to be admitted to any particular college; Cornell had no obligation to admit you. Where is it written that fairness is a function of the criteria that you associate with it?
You have a position as an associate professor at a major university. This, undoubtedly, owes in part to your talent; but that you have this talent depends a lot on factors over which you had no control. People are born with different natural aptitudes. You are where you are partly because of factors for which you are not responsible. Should you feel bad about that?
14
Great article. Maybe the scandal and this article will start people thinking in the mindset that state unis aren't so terrible after all and get more people applying there in droves instead of the tired old "prestige" schools.
Think of it...a whole new movement where masses will WANT to go to state unis and the "cool" schools start suffering low low applications. Actually, the "prestige" schools will be flooded with overseas students paying foreigner tuition for their crazy rich (insert ethnicity here) degrees.
~A state uni grad who never applied to a prestige school
1
There is also a loss and risk to the nation when the elite grow up with a false sense of the world, their own capabilities, and reality itself. From WW1, to The Best and the Brightest, to the current leaders of Brexit, a deluded elite can cause grave and lasting damage, sometimes fatal.
6
Did the writer not consider that by applying to Cornell she was buying into the same myth as her privileged counterpart? Does she not consider that by counseling kids on the unfairness of the process rather than their ability to absorb, use and practice the knowledge behind a degree, she is just continuing the story that a degree is nothing more than a badge? The whole country is in awe of something with no value other than that everybody wants it. Before Bitcoin there was BA. Both are scams.
3
May as well get used to it. It’s there in the workplace too.
5
I agree the system needs reform. I would do away with athletic slots for coaches, early applications (just cap the number of applications per student) and legacy admissions.
I would urge the author to expand sample size though and try not to make cut and dry generalizations. The people in this recent sorry tale of corruption and crime are not everyone. Talk to an academically high achieving legacy, or a nonwhite legacy (maybe they’re both). And many more students. There are probably hundreds of different stories at a place like Cornell. We all need to try not to make sweeping generalizations, and we should all constantly be on the lookout against our implicit biases clouding our judgment. I am white and was first-generation (before you would admit it to anyone) and got zero help with anything. And definitely lower middle class. I was befuddled by the culture at my university. I knew nothing really outside my provincial town. One thing I did learn is not to make presumptions about anyone based on what they look like, where they’re from, or what I think they’re thinking. In the end we all came out with the same degree so now we actually have a lot in common.
6
What ultimately matters most in a students education is family support, their mentors, building self confidence/commitment and happinesses. Harvard or SUNY, kids will likely get in for reasons you may think aren’t merited; it is unlikely it will influence our world much. It certainly shouldn’t influence yours.
Life is not fair. However, The day you focus your outrage over someone else’s spurious fortune is one less day you live.
8
College can be a reward for people/parents who work hard, stay together, save money, and sacrifice to provide for their children. Choices that don't work out do have consequences. Besides, much of your AP hard work can be considered " test gaming." I do see inequities in the system, but they are deep and hard to assign 100 % moral certainty to how they are leveraged.
1
I went to a "seven sisters" school. I was from a well-off family, but some of my fellow students were from extremely wealthy, even famous, families. I can think of only one person who might not have deserved her place there, but that's just my opinion. The majority seemed exceptional students, and had gone to good schools so very well prepared for college. This was a small school, and the attitude was unpretentious and down-to-earth. There weren't a lot of endowments so I doubt that many - if any - were admitted for that reason. In fact, this was why tuition fees were the highest in the country at that time. So it was a drawback. I'd rather have a handful of students admitted undeservedly, than outrageous fees resulting in even fewer students being able to attend.
4
Speaking of well-connected college students, I was in a CS department when we implemented a Student Code of Conduct. Under the Cheating section, we plainly stated that giving another student software for an assignment to turn in as his own had the same penalty as accepting it. Each student had to sign and return a copy of the Code at the beginning of every class to verify that they understood it.
While I was chair, an episode was uncovered that fit this behavior exactly, and the instructor, with my backing, exacted the same penalty for both students. Neither the donor student nor his father contacted anyone in the department, but went directly to the administration. My dean's office adjusted the resulting final grade for the donor student. We never learned who the family was, and why they were allowed such influence.
That was the beginning of the end, and I finally left academia after a few more such insults.
7
@Leading Edge Boomer This is terrible and everyone from Dean and above involved should be fired!
A publically owned college should look at merit for admission, and nothing more. A private school is a business, and should be able to sell their product to anyone it sees fit, at whatever price they can secure. This strikes me as a basic, even banal, distinction. This is America; what is the point of being wealthy if your money can't buy things that people without money can't have?
3
@Abraham All prestigious private Universities are non-profit and they're more successful than Wall Street companies in terms of survivality. Non-profit institutions fill the gap left over by capitalism. Government is the best type of non-profit but occasionally can help.
1
@Abraham
In return, we should stop referring to these schools as elite.
@Abraham
There's a difference between non-profits and private businesses (for-profit colleges.) Non-profits get a "discount" by not having to pay taxes, so they have an obligation to act for the common good. There's a reason degrees and certificates from for-profit schools are nearly worthless. No one trusts them.
3
This is a spot-on essay.
I would only add something tangential but very important: the deep and very American connection between academia and sports is profoundly wrong, even absurd, and should completely be severed.
12
The current blitz of news stories seems to stirring up a lot of exaggerated comment about how un-meritocratic admission is at elite schools.
It is the anecdote that swamps the statistics. The story is so emotionally compelling that people feel no need to look at data especially if it confirms their prior beliefs about unfairness.
Leaving aside cheating on SAT tests, which colleges would not know about, it seems that number of students who got in by the fake athletics route was in the single digits (or low double digits) out of the ten thousands accepted by elite schools each year. So, disturbing as it is, it does not show any systematic problem in college admission.
If one looks at the data profiles of elite schools you will find that the overwhelming number of students have extremely high academic credentials. Some with lesser accomplishments get in - some athletes and legacies - but the they are a small percent.
My brothers and I were not only first generation college students but first generation high school grads in a low income working class family. Then my dad died in my teens, and my widowed mom got a low wage job. Nonetheless, all three us of went to college, two of us at Ivy schools, and two of us earned Ph.D.s, all with very generous financial aid from elite schools made possible by the far richer people whose donations supported it.
The system is not perfect, but the current wave of indignation seems overblown.
36
In reviewing the comments, one of the main themes is that despite the fact that life is not always fair, if you work hard and go to almost any college you can have a chance at a successful life. For the most part, I agree with that sentiment.
I have two degrees and got through school both times with part time work, scholarships, financial aid and help from my parents. I am successful in my career and make a good living.
I worked hard and was very lucky as well. Timing was everything. Specifically, I went to state schools at a time when tuition was affordable and my living expenses were modest. I was easily able to pay off my loans and recoup my expenses at a career that is in high demand.
The real problem with education in this country is lack of access. Financial access is the biggest issue. Having the money to apply to different schools, pay tuition and cover living expenses all create barriers for many Americans.
Poor white kids in Appalachia don’t have the means to pay those expenses, immigrants who work in the fields and restaurants don’t have the means nor do inner city kids who are homeless. In addition to that, a lot of middle class families who are just trying to keep up with the mortgage can’t afford it, as many commentators have stated.
I don’t think we should make college free in this country. But it needs to be affordable and within reach for all.
4
Beautifully stated, beautifully written and spot on. And that's a vital service and a kindness, to be clueing in low-income students to the bitter truth.
I started reading the comments here and the first few I ran across sounded as though they were from defensive whites, which was disappointing but not surprising. I hope that as the world gets less and less white we do a much better job of listening and hearing truth.
7
8 guys from my public high school got into Princeton when it was still all male admissions. 6 of us went there. I had far and away the lowest high school GPA — but I was a state sprint champion. I have no doubt that I got in on the “jock quota.” But college was where I needed to be: of the 6 of us, I had the highest college GPA at graduation and graduated first in my department. What that tells us is that sometimes someone gets lucky. It doesn’t change whether the admissions policy at elite universities is fair - and it isn’t.
5
The author doesn't mention that the conversation in question occurred when she was a freshman in the fall of 1999, almost 20 years ago. Admissions standards at all schools, including Cornell, have risen dramatically since then. While a legacy might have been admitted 20 years ago with no AP classes, that seems extremely unlikely today.
14
I was the first to go to college in the three generations since my family immigrated to the US. This was in the 1960s. Living in New York City in a family with no money for college, it was a city university for me (the city universities were top notch) or find a way to pay for a private college. I took a competitive test at a local private college and was offered a full tuition scholarship. At that school I was always aware that my grades had to be excellent to keep my scholarship. It was good preparation for the real world.
The day after graduation I was pounding the pavement in Manhattan looking for a job while my wealthier college friends were at the beach for the summer. More good training for life. The writer of this article is so right about the value of her college experience. As for me, eventually I earned a Ph.D. from an elite university in the South. More good training for a professional career. There’s an old saying that only get out of something what you put into it. That’s applicable to college and to life.
8
I read somewhere today about a girl saying that she wanted to get into U.S.C. because it gave great parties.
This got me into thinking about how many parties I attended when I went to college back in the fifties.
As best as I can recall, the answer is zero.
Who knew I was ever so deprived?
6
This seems a bit overstated. I went to Cornell (and then Cornell Med) over 60 years ago. I was not a legacy--my parents had little and no college). I have given at least moderate contributions every year but 2 of my 3 kids weren't admitted (and one was Phi Beta Kappa where she went). Only one of my six grandchildren (a double legacy) went/is going there. My fraternity brother has given millions, has buildings named for him and I think Cornell should try and accept his family members. Legacies (or soccer players or violinists) may have a leg up but so do some inner city kids with spotty records. The cheating this week is disgraceful (but, if you read all the articles, she of the dishonest applicants didn't get in either). Admissions officers have tough job because of the surfeit of talent. Among their criteria can and should be a legacy family.
16
I was just being frustrated by other news articles talking about that other scam without mentioning this one, so I'm glad I read it. I learned about it only after graduating, and maybe many people never did. And I'm pretty sure lots of the foreign readership will want to know, if they're thinking of sending their child to America for foreign study.
1
The author's story is interesting, but I hope she softens this hurt. Her tight grip on the clear perspective that life is not fair, will haunt her success, and others, in the future. Here's mine.
I am a first generation public university grad, and to this day, I remember my utter shock seeing two students, who crossed the stage, and graduated from "my" college too. I had classes with them. I had worked with them on projects and pulled them along, so we could all do well. Their contributions were minimal. I had seen too many of my motivated, thoughtful, college friends drop out along the way for family or financial reasons. They should have been walking across that stage, not them, and I was incensed. It was my reality check watching two mediocre students somehow make the grades and graduate. The point is, whether during admissions, or at graduation, and of course, in the workplace, you will always be perplexed and surprised at exactly who finds their way to good jobs, good schools, and somehow succeed.
15
The unfortunate fallout from this scandal may be to discourage so many students of color and poor whites to try their best for their chances to be accepted at a good school. Do not despair, life is not fair; but by trying their best, these kids will still have the opportunity to enter colleges with very decent reputation.
My daughter was accepted at our state's flagship university and was very happy for getting in. She also applied to Emory and Duke and is still waiting for regular admision response. We all are very proud and happy for her being accepted at our state college and know she will do her best, just as she did in high school.
12
My advice for first-generation college students (and everyone else): quit paying so much attention to how others are doing and concentrate on yourself -- improve your strengths and fix your weaknesses. The world will always will unfair and you have no control over what others do really but you do have control over yourself. Stellar students and workers will succeed in a variety of places and grow where their planted, not just at their "dream" workplace or school. None of this week's news -- which was not news to me even 25 years ago - changes how I viewed myself or the college.
28
It's good preparation for the world of work where the meritocracy doesn't exist at all. No, I'm not being cynical. I've been in the work force for over 30 years and in that time I've rarely seen anyone promoted on merit, fired when they should have been (for gross misconduct or for incompetence), or mentored if they were female.
Women, and I am one, have gone into the sciences and been ignored, not mentored, and underpaid all on purpose. We've been harassed on the job, belittled on the job, and called various names for being assertive. So too are minorities. It's as if white American men cannot conceive of a world where their word is not the final one.
I don't know what it will take to change these paradigms or to end them. Every woman or minority that makes it into an elite college or an excellent company is not a token. We worked quite hard to get there. We would appreciate it if the rest of you would do us the courtesy of acknowledging our achievement without demeaning us behind our backs. Thank you.
20
I've heard this for 50 years having entered an upstate NY private university in 1968. I was from an economically struggling white Long Island family of 7 kids who were all expected to go to college. We had a great uncle who was a surgeon but no one since had been beyond high school. So we all got library cards when we were 8 and our own bank books when we were 10. I started washing pots at 14. You had to be 15 in NY at the time so my dad doctored up my birth certificate. I earned a full Regents scholarship and paid for the rest with my savings and a few small loans.
It wasn't hard to recognize the wealthy kids on the campus, some became my friends. The real legacies that year had buildings named after their grandfathers. One of those kids was pretty smart, the other took five years to get through. Their grandfathers built a pretty nice campus for the rest of us. One I liked, the other I didn't but I used all four of the buildings.
When it came time to go home for Thanksgiving freshman year, I thought about not going. 400 mile trip with my thumb up including hitch hiking through NYC (try it sometime). Took 14 hours that first year.
I didn't resent those rich kids but I also didn't grow up with a chip on my shoulder. My friends now are doctors and lawyers and teachers and cops and small business people. I've slept in mansions and in tents. Worked with two billionaires + the homeless and migrant workers.
Embrace it all. Life isn't fair. It's just full of opportunities.
59
My sons also had honors diplomas, AP everything, International Baccalaureate, one even made the Miami Dade All Star baseball team, no small feat. But in their case, I feel that being white, male and coming from a middle class family who applied for financial aid worked against them in applying to out of state schools. They did not have the advantage of being a minority or female, which may have helped them in their particular cases. The financial aid part is the killer. Universities love it when out of state parents pay for the ride. Many wealthy hispanics from Miami, and there are many of them, go to private schools which have close ties with Ivy league and upper tier schools. Adding insult to injury, they also play the minority card. It is a lock for them. My sons could very well have been subject to reverse discrimination.
17
Ms. Crucet should understand that it is not a good idea to license yourself to laugh at anyone. Instead, promote the goal of mutual understanding, however difficult.
Her perspective never rises beyond cliché, epitomized in her observation, “And that’s exactly why the college admissions process — with its overreliance on scores from tests that are widely regarded as biased against low-income students, students of color and students from single-parent households — is designed to let as few of us in as it can.”
Elite institutions bend over backward to consider an applicant’s background and the obstacles they overcame as factors in the admissions process. A legacy student benefits from generations of gentrification and upward mobility, a process that will gradually benefit the children of recent immigrants, just as Ms. Crucet’s own offspring will enjoy the advantages conferred by her own success.
Standardized tests are one way that so-called disadvantaged students can prove their mettle, because performance is not necessarily a function of income or networking—unless there is outright cheating involved. These tests can potentially function as the equalizer for truly talented students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
In many Asian countries, a student’s admission to university is based exclusively on their performance on a national high school exit exam.
How are these Asian nations doing?
There is nothing like intelligence, diligence—and a bit of luck—to influence success.
17
@JDIf you look closely at countries with tracked schools and exams along the way to distribute university placement, you'll find the same cheating by wealthy parents as has just surfaced here. The outward evidence might be different, but in some of those places, kids as young as 6 or 7 are on Valium so they can "get into a good school".
4
"A legacy student benefits from generations of gentrification and upward mobility, a process that will gradually benefit the children of recent immigrants." Translation: it's okay to cheat, because your grandchildren will get to cheat in their turn.
1
Nothing about this is new. My father was a poor Italian college grad in 1952 with great grades and a degree in organic chemistry. He applied to multiple medical schools and would have been a fine doctor as we was often told but for his inability to pay. The last admission director he spoke with told him it was a pity he was Italian, further saying that if he had only been Jewish, he could have started at the beginning of the next semester. And you thought white Europeans were never discriminated against.
8
@Once From Rome Are you sure about that? My grandfather also hoped to go to medical school, but wasn't able to get in *because* he was Jewish. There were strict quotas at the time, as is well documented (see, for example, the book The Chosen). He became a chemist instead and did very well for himself.
3
@Once From Rome
This is hilarious as Jewish people were kept out of colleges. Cornell didn’t accept a Jewish person in medical school until 1963.
I went back to Princeton last September to cheer on my "grandchild" class (graduating in 4 years 50 years after we did) as they marched into the campus. They look extremely different from my class, one in six or more is first-generation college student and - of course- they're babies. It was impossible not to recall a phone conversation a few years back when a high-profile alum (himself third-generation) who was a former trustee expressed his frustration with extremely well-qualified grandchildren not being offered admission. My own experience as an alumni interviewer has been (a) the sheer number of really impressive applicants, and (b) the apparent irrationality of how choices are made between them. In fact, at a small meeting with some classmates several years ago, the then-president related to us that the then-dean of admissions said that "the next 1900 applicants could be admitted and you and the faculty would never be able to tell the difference." So when I read about these examples of purchased admissions, I remind myself that the system's far from perfect, that these cases appear to be relatively few and far between, and that the social engineering that's been incorporated into the process over the past couple of decades has moved the fairness needle tremendously. Now the inequity of resource distribution between institutions is a completely different matter...and that is likely to be the battleground of the next couple of decades.
17
I was a Cornell student in the 1970's, having graduated 3rd in my high school class of nearly 600. I was fortunate to have a Cornell scholarship and a Regents scholarship that took care of tuition, but housing and food were on me. To be honest, I was too busy scrambling to worry about how others got into Cornell. Fitting in at Cornell was no different than fitting in at high school--no money is no money, and you find less expensive ways to entertain yourself. Fortunately, Cornell is so beautiful that there's plenty to do and enjoy, for free. In general, it was a safe assumption then, and now, that everyone had to be fairly bright to get in. Then, as now, you might meet a few people in the jerk category. Those that fooled around too much were often gone at the end of the first semester, much less the last one, of college. Cornell profs had a well-deserved reputation for exacting their quart of blood on exams. Years later, we sent two of our children to Cornell--a high school valedictorian, and the other one 3rd in the class. Over the years, we would donate small amounts of money to Cornell now and then, in appreciation for the break I was given and in hope that a needy student would benefit. I don't know if $25 here and there, occasionally matched at work, makes a legacy (I seriously doubt it), but all of us love Cornell and are deeply grateful for the education and experience we had during our final growing up years there. How you experience college is up to you.
27
Does a parent get a tax deduction for the full amount of the donation if they paid their child's tuition in full? For student who does not have the merit, Admission to the ivy league school is worth something so I think they should not claim the full amount of the donation in the tax form. So what is the price of admission? Only donation over and above that price of admission should be tax deductible.
This strikes me above all else as being an essay about self-awareness. The student sitting across the table from the author lacked self-awareness. Lack of self awareness comes in all stripes along the socio-economic spectrum, however, my own 70 tears of experience has informed me (somewhat subjectively and small sample size, of course) that those form higher up on the spectrum economically seem to also be more lacking in it.
2
My son could have been a legacy. I, my brother and sister are all Cornell alumni. I made donations over the years in the thousands. He applied and was not accepted.
he enrolled at UVA,. Our only connection, being state residents. He’s makes deans list . He was just accepted into its business school. Go figure
10
I think there always should be some room for legacy admissions of students who are likely to benefit from a parent and grandparent being proud alums. Especially at state universities, where grades will weed out kids who should not be there.
4
The bigger problem for most students seeking a university education in the US, Ivy League or otherwise, is the outrageous cost of tuition compared to other western countries. This denies many middle and working class students the opportunity of going to college at all, or lumbers them with such crippling debt that it takes them years to dig their way out from beneath it.
11
Let’s think about all of those student who could not get in to share ideas to advance the next step in cancer treatments, crazy ideas of water purification, or unlocking the coding on a nuclear blast. We all lost
4
How is college admission ever fair when they consider extraneous things such as how much someone volunteered, traveled or played on a sports team. That has not one thing to do with how well one can do the academic work. Several years ago, an interviewer said she turned down an applicant who was academically qualified but had a hunch it was the parents who wanted her to attend. If she was qualified, hunches don't count. Last year, a student at an Ivy league school got because a letter of recommendation from a janitor told what a mensch is was.
Historically, there were quotas to prevent "too many" Jews from attending elite schools. Now there are other minorities who want to get in because they are minorities with Asians bringing a lawsuit about quotas. Sports should be excluded from consideration because colleges should be academic institutions, not dual tiered with athletes getting by academically. At one time, the University of Texas admitted students from the top 10% of any high school in Texas. Maybe that is a good indicator of ability to do the work at college.
4
Does the author for a moment acknowledge that she was awarded “points” for being Hispanic and being a first generation applicant? One of the most competitive high schools in America,Scarsdale, no longer teaches AP classes. My guess is the author wouldn’t fare very well at Scarsdale. As Thomas Sowell so appreciated said once you provide preferences to someone, meritocracy seems like discrimination.
19
@Dady Dimwhit. Why did you assume she got in because she was Hispanic? She took 12 AP classes and graduated # 1 in her class. I went to Cornell and Berkely for my Ph.D. and also graduated as a Valedictorian from an inner city school. The kids from Scarsdale and other rich suburban schools could not compete with us in grad school. They no longer had their SAT prep counselors since 7th grade and their highly paid "tutors" who wrote almost all of their college admission essays. Give me a highly motivated Latino Valedictorian from Miami than any dimwhit from Scarsdale any day of the year.
@Dady Pray tell exactly why you assume the author would not have fared well at Scarsdale?
Wouldn't it be nice if there was some karmic consequence for those who lie, cheat, buy, or bully their way ahead? Some few get caught, but I'm pretty sure there are many who don't. It would help me sleep better if I knew they'd get theirs, eventually.
1
Ditto, author. Likewise.
Decades ago, when I began university (yes, an Ivy), I sometimes wondered why a significant number of my fellow freshmen seemed, in casual conversation, and in the first round of exams, to be slow-witted. In short order, I got the drift. Legacies. Four years of fun, to be followed by Dad's Employment Agency, aka, Wall Street.
You justifiably took it hard. Ms. Capo-Crucet.
I took revenge. Poker. I found a game run by several legacy men who had more money and beer than brains.
For four years, I went about redistributing their wealth in my direction, cleaning them out every Friday night.
23
@Taz
Bravo! Bravo! Good for you!
Your post is so refreshing after reading all the other humble-bragging in this section.
4
The author worked hard and got into Cornell. Awesome. That’s the dream. And she writes an entire article about a legacy student she met who didn’t work as hard to get in to argue that the college admissions process is a fraud. Presumably because the author believes she was admitted solely on the right kind of merit. But mostly she proves the point that if you work hard and get good grades, you might very well be admitted to an elite school. And colleges do indeed consider with great interest an applicant who is the first of a family to pursue a college degree. If you don’t get into Cornell because an undeserving legacy took your spot, you’ll get into Brown or William and Mary or Wisconsin-Madison or Penn State or Barnard or BU or SUNY Binghamton. And if you pick the right major (that’s key, even at Cornell) and earn a degree, you’ll be living large. The opportunities are there, and there are quite a few people who have escaped poverty and gotten pretty far in life even though they didn’t get admitted to an Ivy, or whatever their first choice was for college.
24
One of the dirty little secrets of elite schools is that often getting in is all that matters. Half the grades at Harvard are A or A- They absolutely coddle students because there is no upside to graduating C students. It’s the same at elite law schools where some of them don’t even give grades so that employers can’t differentiate between most students. There are lots of books written on this topic.
4
Meritocracy is not a myth. It, like other things, is not uniform or monolithic. Of course wealth brings advantages, some legitimate, others abusive, but we've defined abuse downward when we say merit isn't valued in this country. It is and countless Americans, both immigrants and their first born children can attest to it.
Millions of foreign-born citizens and their children have advanced beyond the wildest dreams of their forebears. We have no caste system here, we have no royalty, we have no peerage. Comparisons of America's upper crust, to these hated institutions, are weak and cheapen those who are truly limited by those systems.
Our elite colleges and universities are filled with the children of immigrants and as a fourth generation American, I say..... GOOD. Success in America has never been easy. It's always take grit, determination and suffering. How many cabs have I been in, how many meals have I been served, how many workers have been to my house, each tells a story and often includes countless hours spent working, family timed missed and backs which ache, all from the toil of hard work in America and for what? So many of these people I have met are putting their children through college and so many of those, into premier American institutions; the springboard for the success they came to America to find.
If you think meritocracy in America is myth, you haven't seen much of America or you blame others for your own failings.
8
It is definitely not a level playing field, when it should be. Unfortunately it carries through to the working world too. Whose daddy has a position in a company and can get junior in. The saddest part is that so many more-deserving, hardworking kids should get in- they might even contribute to society when they graduate- instead of the lazy ones that couldn't get in on their own steam. Giving them access to a prize without merit really doesn't let them figure out what they can really do either. It is a disservice to the deserving non-legacy student, as well as the non-deserving legacy student. But I suppose, as we have recently seen, mommy and daddy will buy anything for their little darlings.
2
I didn’t work that hard in school but I still got top grades and graduated valedictorian. I had no preparation at all for the SATs. I just went in on the day of testing and scored well enough to be a National Merit Scholar. I was accepted to a top rank university. One of those Ivy League ones everyone seems so obsessed with. My family was middle class - certainly not rich enough to contribute money to a college. My parents worked and did not go to college. My mother lived through the Depression and refused scholarship money although she spent almost all of her savings on college for her kids (I had 4 brothers and sisters). She said she was too proud for handouts. I have done well in life. Not super rich, but ethical and comfortable. There. That is my story. I’m not sure how it relates to all of this but that’s my story.
4
What is so surprising is that readers are actually shocked about this news story. It shouldn't have been the first time that we've heard about cronyism or the old boys' club....As they say, "money talks, everything else walks".
In business, of equal candidates for a job, the more attractive person to represent the company will often be hired first.
At my alma mater, albeit 59 years ago, it was already a know fact amongst my classmates at high school, the we'd need an extra 5% average to be accepted into a top Canadian university, compared with our non ethnic competitors.
These days, I'm sure that students are more evenly accepted. In most universities, visible minorities are more commonly seen.
A number of years after I graduated, a wealthy well-known businessman of a particular ethnic origin wanted to donate a very large sum. He was refused as long as he wanted his family name on the building.
Things are no longer that way at that university.
There is no doubt that some are still accepted due to their athletic prowess. These athletes often were given free tutoring. If they kept their marks up, they stayed.
American universities will make exceptions for very good athletes as the good name of the university will bring in major donations by alumna. I don't think this will ever end.
Regrettably, some of the accused, will be able to buy themselves a reduced sentence if found guilty. A high priced lawyer will be what they need.
1
I think the author missed a major point in her own life story. Apparently, her parents instilled in her the necessary life skills of self-respect, discipline, making and achieving educational and other goals and pride in doing so. Her college lunch companion apparently didn't have the benefit of that mentoring and her parents didn't believe in her ability to achieve anything on her own merit.
9
Cornell, and the other schools that value donations from rich families more than they value brilliant students should be ashamed of themselves.
Not in general, but particularly in 2019.
Which of those schools doesn't already have a wildly successful, self-sustaining endowment fund?
The time has long passed for legacy enrollment at most "elite" colleges.
Just as they have mostly eschewed athletic excesses, they should tell the wealthy that it is time for legacies to qualify.
Maybe that would put so-called college counselors and advisors to the test, asking them to help the undeserving find a school that will take them based on their not-so-stellar records.
I am sorry but a lot of this piling on universities is going overboard. The author should also stop and consider that the billions (not a typo) that Cornel receives from donors and legacies allows it to guarantee support for even the poorest of students to attend the school.
Is it fair? Certainly not from the perspective of Europe or most other industrial countries where exams at 12 years of age settles who is "college material" or not. Could you imagine the screaming editorials if the US adopted the same blind test score to determine everyone's university selection?
Before throwing rocks through the windows of elite universities, we must consider the whole picture. For example, I live in the author's native Miami. My daughter's public school had 31 kids accepted to the University of Michigan last year and multiple students enrolled in every Ivy League school. The average home in our school district is worth over $600,000. The public school is good, but why do elite universities send recruiters every year to this and other wealthy suburbs of Miami? They must keep up diversity numbers and keep failing at finding qualified kids in the inter-cities. Is it unethical that the students offered these minority scholarship come from homes worth millions of dollars? Who decides what is fair in admission? I personally cannot blame a school for taking a 3.95 student whose parents built a new wing on the medical research hospital.
17
@DoctorRPP
Your daughter might have gone to a Miami Public School. But which school district was she in? Because it matters on which side of the line the school falls into. Yes, a matter of one mile or yards difference! And that little distance makes the biggest difference between overcrowding, available AP classes offered, the quality of teachers and difference in neighborhoods. And the biggest difference who can afford legacy admissions. So lets compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I perfectly understand the author's justified gripe.
2
@DoctorRPP
Right. Is Liberty and Justus what you learned in high school?
Comparing the United States colleges to the European norms is absurd. How about comparing the United States college admissions to an ideal policy and see how closely it achieves that ideal. Upon, evaluating the present situation, then come up with creative ideas as to how to ever more closely achieve the ideal, from the present standpoint, continuing the process going forward, with continued on-going evaluation.
Oh, that's right, the present unfairness should just be accepted, because that is "just how it is" and how you believe it should stay. If people, such as MLK, Jr. held your belief, the historically "black colleges" in the American South wouldn't be historical.
1
I feel disgusted like many readers do when I read about the parents bribing universities for admissions - however it happened. But I don't feel bad knowing that students are admitted because they make some unique contribution to a university - whether that contribution is in athletics, the arts, intellect, diversity, geographical representation etc. Im ok if students are given preference because of their unique contributions. And it is ok with me if colleges, especially private ones, identify the unique contributions they need. College admissions is not a guaranteed right and some of these discussions act like it is.
The other issue I keep thinking about is healthcare. Less than half of the population goes to university and about a third graduate. Everyone needs healthcare. I just learned of a friend gradually going blind because he didn't have insurance or funds to pay for eye surgery. Another friend does not have means to pay for a hopeful but very expensive cancer treatment. The outrage over a few entitled parents compared to our complacency about merit/justice regarding health expensives is stunning to me.
15
Why are you stunned? One is liked to the other. America has simply stopped caring. It's everybody strictly for themselves. With sizable parts of the population (including some former middle class people out of their luck) cut off from first world health care and social dignity. But for everyone else, it's still the greatest country on earth, as long as you keep you Christian conscience numbed...
The writer is right, she did accomplish more than those with unfair advantage. But that flatly contradicts her assertion that it isn't a meritocracy. Perhaps the process is flawed, but some, perhaps many, serious students can get ahead. My eldest child did on their own.
Furthermore, many students do have a conscience about such advantage. One of my best friends was offered a spot at Harvard by a major donor - who boasted that he wouldn't even have to submit an application - but declined because he wanted to get in on his own merit. He didn't, but it had no impact whatsoever on his drive to succeed. He did.
We need to keep this in perspective. How many cheat or have unfair advantages? Let's find out HOW corrupt the process really is.
10
"And that’s exactly why the college admissions process ... is designed to let as few of us in as it can." That's the takeaway? I get why legacy admittance is unfair, but this characterization is far from the truth. The balance and diversity in terms of race, nationality, and economic position is endlessly tuned to try to find an ideal if imperfect balance. It's also good to keep a sense of scale. 14% of Harvard students have some legacy component to their application, and are admitted at a rate about twice that of the whole student body. Legacy is given no consideration at the University of California. Also, once you're in, you don't get a better grade because your parents were once there.
12
@Koho However, if mommy and daddy can pay for someone to write the SAT then you can bet that there are paid people to write essays, do labs, and write exams. It is a scam. Period.
I took the hard courses; advanced math,chemistry and other science classes both in secondary school and at university. Guess what, I attended a top University and attended medical school. I don’t care how others did or didn’t do what I did because I have a top flight education that I earned with every test taken.
16
This is such a self-serving article and stark in its depiction (the average and lazy legacy, and the earnest hardworking innocent and in effect perfect author). it's a bit hard to take even if I should be agreeing with her. I attended big public schools too, with no college prep anything, and then an excellent public university where no one could even be a legacy. If she'd wanted an equal playing she probably should have gone to a public university.
80
This is great essay. We do have to consider the distance the applicant has traveled to reach the destination they are aiming for. How many disadvantages has the applicant overcome?
5
I, too, attended an Ivy League school (Brown). I, too, was the valedictorian of my class in a small-town high school, and I was a leader in many of the clubs/activities of my school. More than 50 years ago, we had no advanced placement courses. But I did have outstanding PSAT and SAT scores and was a recipient of a National Merit Scholarship as well as a number of local scholarships. My family had NO money. We rented where we lived, we never had a car, my mom was widowed my senior year in HS. Brown welcomed me with open arms and gave me enough additional scholarship money that I graduated in 1971 with $100 in student loans. I was never made to feel like a "poor kid" by my fellow classmates, and I am grateful if their parents' contributions helped finance my education. As a first-generation college grad (I don't think we had that term then), I went on to a doctorate in liberal arts, along with my wonderful, middle-class husband. whom I met at Brown and who got a doctorate in Chemistry. We have had a wonderful life so far, incalculably enriched by our great education and in a comfortable retirement. I am not going to complain about this system.
53
@prickly You are comparing apples to oranges. I too attended post secondary--graduating 39 years ago. At that time, in the 70's, many of my peers were first generation attending college or university. I grew up poor but so did everyone else in my neighborhood. Jobs were plentiful regardless if someone were to pursue post secondary, and good manufacturing jobs were also to be had. Unfortunately, today there is so much competition to get into post secondary and costs are now prohibitive. I would not want to be going through the post secondary experience today--chances are I wouldn't even get in.
2
@prickly. The difference is that the people being prosecuted now did not give money to the universities. They gave it as bribes to individuals who lied on applications and fudged the tests so that their kids could get in where the otherwise wouldn't have.
10
It seems like any person who is an effective writer can put their own type of twist on a particular set of circumstances which will successfully persuade their readers of the writer's personal point of view. Another writer could have taken the same set of circumstances and written an entirely different story with a completely different although plausible conclusion. For example, the legacy student could secretly be full of anxiety of low self esteem because she always had a difficult time applying herself to traditional academically rigorous coursework. She might have Type A parents who are very successful in all areas of life & have high expectations for their underperforming "legacy" daughter. She may have sat across the table from you during her first days at Cornell & laughed nervously about being a "legacy" student as she candidly shared her lack of preparation for Ivy League courses since she didn't take any AP courses and hadn't taken enough math classes in relation to her Freshman cohorts. Perhaps she looked across the table at you as someone she secretly admired since you were far more prepared than she & you could tick off all the boxes of categories which makes one a more suitable Ivy League student than she. Maybe your family celebrates all of your accomplishments since you are the first in your family to attend college (let alone an elite Ivy) whereas the "legacy" student will never be viewed by her parents as successful, but rather barely adequate.
33
I think it's most challenging for middle income students to gain admission to a school like Cornell. After at least 20 years of working with students at a highly selective school, I have met very few students who did not deserve to be there. Many legacy candidates are denied admission. And many are extremely bright and accomplished.
39
In 1978 I got into both IU and Purdue. I got with an under 3.0 HS GPA in because, at the time, there was little competition. And then the tuition was a whopping hundreds of dollars a semester.
3
I am always surprised that legacy students aren’t embarrassed or sheepish about their lack of intellectual credentials at top universities. The top schools are for two kinds of people: the rich and the smart. And I’m sure both groups bear some kind of psychic wound from that calculus.
10
@Jeanine:
What's a "psychic" wound?
As someone who attended Cornell, let me say this. Legacy students are a very small percentage of the student body, as they are at all Ivy League and other elite colleges. (Remember George W. Bush?) And Cornell has both PRIVATE and PUBLIC colleges, with their own admission standards. I also attended the University of Michigan, and standards for in-state admissions were lower than for out-of-state admissions like me. Is that UNFAIR that the state taxpayers think they deserve some extra consideration? The bottom line is that most graduates of both schools are very bright young people.
30
According to Cornell, the figure is 15%, hardly de minimus. That's just the number whose parents attended Cornell, excluding those of privileged backgrounds who game the system in other ways. It's corrosive.
4
1/3rd of Harvard students are legacies (34%). https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663629750/legacy-admissions-offer-an-advantage-and-not-just-at-schools-like-harvard
I went to college in 1972 because then the State University of New York At Albany charged $325 tuition per semester for first and second year undergraduates and $400 per semester for juniors and seniors. Room and board was $600 per semester. As an added bonus. The state also awarded $100.00 per semester to all New York residents who went to college in New York. Also, won a regents scholarship that paid the rest of my tuition. In the summers I worked as a dishwasher and in a soda factory to pay my room and board and other expenses. Today, it is much harder for students to pay their own way. Suny Albany is now in the Mid-20s per year. By inflation, it should be only about $8,000.00. The real scandal here is how much it college costs today.
103
When the government backs student loans, skies the limit for the cost of tuition. When the educational facility backs the student loans, it’s a much different story. The government needs to get out of the student loan business and the cost of tuition will come down dramatically
1
@Paul Ruszczyk, I graduated from UCLA Cum Laude in 1972. Got in on merit, got out on merit. I worked my butt off and got an education which I still value today. I also graduated with ZERO debt. It's insane how times and college costs have changed.
I have spent 40 years in college admissions, as an admissions dean and as a counselor. People seem to believe that there is a clear way to rank "merit" based on test scores and grades. Test scores and grades may indicate whether or not a student is capable of success at a college. It's the threshold a student must meet to be considered for admission, but after the student crosses that threshold, s/he will find that there are thousands of students who also meet that standard, far more than can be admitted.
So how does a college choose from these many qualified students? Here's where the other factors are considered: student's town or home state, potential major, first generation, underrepresented minorities, extracurricular activities, leadership positions, work experience, essays, legacy, athletic talent, and more. Take two students with similar academic credentials, one applying to a high-demand major (business/computer science), another applying to a major that needs more students for the department to survive (German anyone?). The first student may be denied, the second student accepted. As an admissions dean, I was asked one year to search for French horn players--the chair of the music department said his current players were graduating, and if not replaced would limit the repertoire of the orchestra. For that year alone, horn players had an advantage in admissions.
It's a complicated process. People try their best, but great kids are inevitable disappointed,
186
@Lynne One of the more frustrating things about all this news is how complicated the whole college app process really is, and sometimes how random it can be. And we're watching people cheat the system, but they're a few, we hope. Anyone who's had to watch their kids go through it knows it's not a simple or easy process for either side. (College or applicant.) The over-simplification in the news is not super helpful. Glad they exposed cheating to hold people accountable, but creating a college class is a complex process. (As you know...!)
5
@Ellie Brown It's really not that complicated and due to the internet, everything one needs to know is right online. Ask questions! Talk to your school's college advisor! They know what the profile of their students who were admitted to your child's first choice were, and whether your child's qualifications are similar.
In the end, find 3-5 schools that are a good "fit" for YOUR child. One of these may well be a "reach" school" - we all have dreams. Two or 3 will be "great chance" schools, and the last two will be "If I don't burn down the admissions office, I will be accepted". Those last ones are easy to identify - they tend to admit 70% and above of students who apply. It's important that your child actually LIKE all these schools and could see herself happy at any of them.
Then just encourage the child to keep doing what they've been doing and wait for 1 April (or Pi Day if applying to MIT).
It's just not that hard, but it will be harder if one listens to all the "urban legends" that many parents tend to spread with glee.
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@Lynne: Thank you for your comment. It is the best one I’ve seen in response to all of the indignant articles and reactions published recently about college admissions.
7
Does Prof Crucet think that her students at U of Nebraska-Lincoln are not getting the education they need to lead a successful life? Maybe the girl who got into Cornell as a legacy is the one being cheated, paying a lot of money for a credential but not getting an education.
The real problem could be overvaluing that credential, so students cheat themselves out of an education thinking that the credential is all that matters.
9
What about the legacies that donated millions to the schools for buildings, research and in turn those facilities and research helped to curate the elite school they coveted in the first place. And who is to say that all that money does not create more room to allow more students in. It’s not a guarantee that a legacy will take a more deserving student spot, the schools may just admit more students to keep big donors happy.
11
In 1962, if a college had an application fee, it was off the list. Secondly, if a college estimated the cost at more than $1200 for everything for the year, tuition, room, board, books,fees, etc., it was off the list. Pickings were slim, to say the least. As the first in a long line of immigrants to graduate from high school, there were few expectations and even fewer hopes for success. Education, my friends, is the answer. Here I am at 75 after a productive career in education and a master's degree, enjoying the fruits of that labor. God rest the souls of my parents and all of their generation.
7
My parents told me: "You're not in school to socialize! You're in school to learn!" Once I graduated, they said: "Finding a job isn't about WHAT you know, but WHO you know."
Lesson learned: Socialize. A friend of mine has done extremely well in the workforce. He graduated from an Ivy League school. He says the education was great, but the caliber of people he met while attending an Ivy League school were the key to his success.
8
The real problem is that many jobs require a degree. They are not degree type jobs, but unfortunately the first 2 years of college is replacing high school. This terrible model has created this mess. And, we have kids majoring in subjects that really do not offer any viable future for most of them. My favorite is "philosophy". A manager at the federal gov't graduated with that major, and earned less money than my friend with a high school education. Go figure! If we stop allowing poorly performing students from passing, and get serious about high school education, we won't have to require a degree for many jobs.
2
Bad luck to go to High School in the US. US High School students would come out better educated if they went abroad. It’s too bad that more students from overseas come to Universities in the US, which still enjoy a good reputation unlike High School there, than the number of US students who go to University abroad. Canada is half the price, Japan is on a big push to invigororate their universities with international students, and the tuition is 1/2 the cost of Canada. They are offering classes in english in a lot of cases. WASEDA U in Tokyo comes recruiting in Sydney. They have 50 all english degree programs AND you learn Japanese. That, and Sofia U in Tokyo are well worth looking into beyond Canada and the UK!
1
Cornell is a private university. I suspect the author received some financial aid to attend it. Instead of bathing in her own self righteousness, maybe she should be thankful wealthy families have donated to the school. It made that financial aid possible. I speak as a graduate of a private university who clawed his way into one too and benefited from that financial aid. Without it I wouldn’t have been able to borrow enough to attend.
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@JGR
CORRECTION: Cornell is both a private and public university. It got its start as the land grant university of NYS in1865. 3 of its 7 undergraduate and one of its grad schools are statutory.
3
@Lisa You're correct, but only some of it's colleges are "state", and charge less for in-state students. The majority are "private" and charge the going rate. One applies to a particular "college" at Cornell, not to just "Cornell". It's an oddity.
3
@JGR Instead of patronizingly wagging your finger at Ms. Crucet, maybe you can begin to appreciate that donations should not be a de facto means for wealthy, underperforming students to take up spots that deserving students should get. That's why it's called a donation and not a deferred payment scheme.
5
I am also Cuban-American from South Florida, although older than the author. I’ve seen other writings she has done for the NYT and she is almost always negative about her university experience. I’m not sure why. My own college years were a wonderful time for me and many friends. I was also hardworking and valedictorian etc etc etc. The author has legacy admission to elite schools very wrong. It is very rare for an unqualified student to get in just as a legacy. More often, it is the case that in a holistic approach to admissions, and all else being equal, possibly having an alumni parent will tip the balance. But it is just not the case in all circumstances. Alumni contribute so much to their Alma mater, often helping to make it possible for first generation students to achieve their dream through scholarships and funding for special programs to support them throughout their university years. Being an alumni does not give their children a free pass. Many might wish it did, but in today’s extremely competitive university admissions, it just doesn’t.
30
I think the writer was a little naive not to have known about the legacy concept and then to be stunned when she did find out. I stumbled across the idea in high school and I actually thought it made sense, although I didn’t qualify and wasn’t thrilled about it. How nice that grandma, mom and then daughter all have a tradition of going to one school and the school encourages it. They didn’t get a discount price, just a boost getting admitted. I figured it made sense that a private college could admit anyone they wanted (as long as it wasn’t a state college).
So didn’t she ever read the news or talk to anyone else applying to schools or anything? Or maybe I’m being just a little naive about her being naive.
14
@Woolly Democrat When you're first generation going to college you have very little experience (obviously). I'd imagine that all you think about is getting in and believing that since you have to be smart to go to college you have to be smart to get in - so that's what you bury yourself in. You probably don't know many people at all who went to college, whether family or friends. When you're privileged it's amazing how little you know about what comes with that privilege.
The term "meritocracy" is absurdly ambiguous, and should be banished from any discussion of 21st century American college admissions. How do we measure "merit"? Hard work? A kind and sincere disposition? Altruism? Aptitude for sports? Good physical appearance? Or physical courage (the last certainly would have been considered "merit" during the more chaotic centuries of the Middle Ages)? "Merit" is determined by the social and cultural institutions of the society in which we live. Someone who could ride a horse and shoot arrows with deadly accuracy would have been considered meritorious in 13th century Mongolia, while an aptitude for Latin would have gotten one far in 13th century France or England.
Attempts to measure the "whole person" are absurd, inconsistent and subjective. The admissions system is inherently corrupt and unfair. Given the importance of universities as social and economic sorting devices, we should establish a system of objective entrance examinations such as those which allow entry to elite universities in China, Japan and South Korea. You get in, because you got a high mark on the test. Nothing else matters. It's like passing through Marine boot camp: it's tough, but if you make it, you're a Marine.
American society is deeply unequal. I would welcome a revolution that flattened these inequalities, at least to some extent, but that is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
1
Thank god we don’t do it like China. We would end up with a army of workers, clambering to get ahead, with no sense of what else makes a person and a community special.
@Donald Seekins. Scoring high on tests doesn’t provide information about other qualifications of prospective students such as leadership skills and others.
High test scores and grades are the starting point for top tier schools. From there, there needs to be a more thorough evaluation of the person as a whole.
@SteveActually, success in objective test-taking shows at least two useful qualities: (1) intelligence, since those with mediocre intellect never pass the very hard tests given by institutions such as the Universities of Beijing or Tokyo; and (2) endurance, the ability to subject oneself to years of disciplined test-preparation in order to succeed on test day.
Writing a cute and quirky essay on "why I want to go to Harvard, etc." or doing a summer internship helping poor people in in Haiti have little relevance to the intellectual challenges a university just might expect its students to overcome.
1
Why do we continue to encourage our brightest and hardest working high school students to apply to and accept admission to these universities that encourage and accept bribes to gain admission? Why do employers look at graduates of these universities as prized acquisitions to their firms or businesses? Attending the universities called out this week is for the purpose of "who you know", not gaining an education, certainly not from the teaching aides who are put in front of 200 students in a lecture hall. High school students should forget pushing to get into so-called "elite" universities and aspire to attend universities where there is attention paid to them and a sense of teaching, rather than making money off their undergraduates. As a school director, I am fed up with the ridiculous obsessiveness of parents wishing their children to attend immoral institutions that live from accepting bribes from the wealthy.
6
@Mike Oh, give me a break! I got a fantastic education (as opposed to job training) at an Ivy League school. And, as a truly economically disadvantaged kid, I benefited greatly from the money supplied by legacy parents.
8
I got into college a long time ago. I went to Jr. college for two years where they accepted everyone but did not keep all of them. Then I went to a state university where they took all with Jr. college degrees but also did not keep them. Almost nobody today gets in like that, especially where I graduated from.
1
At the University of Rochester, until about 3 years ago, any employee of the University could send their children to the school for no tuition. Even if - as many of them were - doctors of medicine. The Strong Hospital is part of the UofR. So all those high salaried doctors, and the highly paid professors' children were going to college which was paid for by the OTHER parents who were not employees. The same privilege was had by the adminitrators - also highly paid.
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Meanwhile a lot of the funding for the UofR comes from government grants paid for by taxpayers.
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The complaint about the corruption of the "system" is very valid.
.
1
@HH This is a very typical perk of a professorship to attract people to a profession that despite what you say here, does not pay most people that much. How many professors across the university do you imagine are using this perk at any one time? The number of high-salaried administrators (and doctors who make another 6-figure salary on the side) using those perks is even smaller; even smaller is the number of those people with college-aged children actually interested in attending the university. It really bothers you that some music professor's child gets a free ride (if she gets in)?
9
@HH
When I was in graduate school, the best undergrad student we had was the daughter of a professor at that university. The university would have been much poorer without her.
8
@HH So you are complaining about an employee benefit? Do they automatically get accepted?
Prestige still controls the system. When I was in Boston, I had a boyfriend from a poor farm family in the Midwest, who was pre-med at Harvard on a scholarship. For his senior biology project, he did some truly innovative work. When he applied to med school, he included his project notes in the applications. All the ivies except one turned him down. Then he won a prestigious science prize based upon his project, whereupon all the schools who had rejected him changed their minds and invited him on board. He chose the school that originally accepted his work- not his status.
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@Ellen
Sorry, sounds fishy to me.
I had a similar awakening when I was seventeen and preparing to register at a Canadian university. I got the university's calendar and eagerly turned to the section in the back that listed scholarships and bursaries. I read through the eligibility specifications of each and found that the only help I qualified for was a $50 bursary if I was in dire financial need. All the rest were reserved for the children of people who belonged to a profession, a union, or some fraternal organization.
My parents were working poor. There was nothing for people like me.
When I got in on student loans, I discovered there was a group of students who spent their days playing bridge and board games. They bought their essays from people who dealt in that kind of chicanery. Their parents paid for everything and when they graduated they'd have good jobs in the family business, or just live off their trust funds.
For me, it was an education in how the world really works.
One semester, I got that $50 bursary. I was walking and hitchhiking to school with holes in my boots and couldn't afford to have them repaired.
6
@Matthew Hughes....perhaps some of the readers should take advantage of Canadian universities. McGill, University of Toronto and many others are anxious to accept students from around the world. Firstly, the fees are in Canadian dollars....somewhere around 35% premium on the US dollar. Secondly and more importantly, the fee schedule is peanuts compared to American universities.
1
@Matthew Hughes
That is the other side of the bigotry coin. For every individual or organization that hates any identifiable group, there is one that supports its own fraternity - I am a {---} and proud of it, there should be more like me.
Laws and regulations against bigotry are common, but favourable treatment of the family is generally considered acceptable, even desirable, even though it is based on the same xenophobia.
So, should we tell the Masons that they cannot establish a bursary for the sons and daughters of Masons, because it is discriminatory? It is, of course, but what is the greater good?
I went to a community college first, in fact three of them altogether. Was working and had a family, Finally got my AA at one of them, went to Cal State Fullerton as a junior, so had all the required courses, could concentrate on my major.
3
I learned some surprising things in college too. I learned that some majors and classes lead to far better careers than others. I learned that English professors often have an axe to grind, one which goes far beyond the literature itself. Whether the personal crusades of these professors translate to helping their students prepare for a successful future is often unclear. If you think I’m broad brushing, consider whether the author is doing a bit of the same.
4
@Scott Anthony
So glad to know that only English professors "often have an axe to grind." I'll make a point of avoiding them and, instead, will lie at the feet of the universally-known-to-be-totally-objective Sociology Professors, History Professors, Ethnic Studies Professors, Women's Studies Professors, LGBTQ Professors--and, oh yes, Physics and Chemistry Professors, who of course never falsify their research or submit a fraudulent grant proposal or say anything in class that might stem from research misconduct or amount to simply flogging their favorite theory.
3
@Scott Anthony
English professors have an agenda? I’ll go with your broad brush but move it over to the political science and economics departments, where most of the professors I’ve met, including the ones when I was in college, were borderline crackpot right-wingers. Some students won’t even take their courses because they know if they disagree their grades will go down. I don’t know what you have against English professors but when it comes to grinding axes, they’re not nearly as interested in it as many others. And if some professors want to grind axes about F. Scott Fitzgerald, let ‘em.
2
Some kids are applying to elite colleges not just because of prestige. My son is applying to several right now because they fit his academic interests and because , if they chose you they offer a free ride to a very low income student , and because of the student to professor ratios. My son is on the autism spectrum so for him the smaller class sizes and access to professors would mean all the difference for his academic experience. He's been accepted to a UC which will mean classes sometimes as large as 300 or 400 students. He was just denied admission to two elite colleges this week despite a 36ACT and 4.0GPA. We are not expecting a leg up from Stanford despite his grandfather and great grandfather legacy. Check back with me though, in two weeks.
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@Cindy Lee Berryhill
He will get a leg-up to Stanford, but whether that will translate into admission is an entirely different matter. Family association and institutional loyalty counts, but not as much as the public, Ms Capo Crucet seem to believe.
1
Well I also went to Cornell,public high school, not a legacy. Arts and Sciences and did become and MD. I had the required grades and excellent MCATs but still suspect women in the 1970s were being given preferential treatment in admission to medical school. My African American classmates-private high school graduates-who sat in the front rows with me in Cornell science classes made it very clear they did not need to get the same grades I did to get into medical school, and had tutors helping them back at Ujamaa. So all kinds of uneven playing fields going on at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Getting into medical school now has some deeply political moments around diversity and hardship. All of these universities are participating in social engineering of their own design and purpose.
10
This is a sorry example, but it is not typical. We do need to a far better job ensuring excellent education for all, but the notion that most students at elite colleges are lazy is false.
9
This week’s scandal over ill-gotten college admissions has thrown a pall over the genuine achievements of tens of thousands of others who chose to work hard to get that coveted college seat for the betterment of their futures. One spot on an otherwise clean and spotless canvas — and all one can see is the blemish! Our daughter, like scores of other ambitious kids worked hard to get into an excellent college, and then university! All through hard work! Thankfully there are more examples like her than the ones who came through the back alley! (I hope)
Perhaps parents are more to blame over this over zealous need for their children to go to the “most elite schools” if for nothing else than to get to “network “! Perhaps encouraging kids to stay local, and go to nearby undergraduate colleges should be seriously looked into. It would give an 18 year-old some time to grow up and figure out what they want to do! Even a gap year after school gives a teenager some growing up time! Maturity brings with it a certain wisdom I hope. Reacting to dishonesty is not the answer. Proactively trying to figure out why it’s done, and how we correct it, is the long lasting solution.
3
@Sita Avasarala
It casts a pall over educational consulting services and should raise special scrutiny over those in foreign countries which "guarantee" admissions to a selective college in the US if they accept you as a client. I don't know about Monaco, but I have seen a presentation from a company in China which is really sophisticated -- so much so that I suspected they had a mole gathering inside data.
How did I get into college? (Question asked by NYT.) Since I mostly took night classes the first 10 years, I entered based on my grades and SAT scores, as well as continued grade point average in my part-time college classes. It was the only way I could afford to go to college, even with loans and grants. I entered Architecture School using the same criteria and they rejected my application (at first). I powered up to the college campus and fought the turn down, meeting with the Dean of the Architecture Department. He agreed to admit me if I came in via the Architectural History Program and transfer over after 1 quarter. My parents were only involved in funding my education for one summer quarter, just after my high school graduation - they had no interest in funding my college tuition. My brother helped at the end, paying my last quarter's tuition because I had no ability to do so at that time. Otherwise, no 100K enticement for admissions, no support during school. And I feel like one of the lucky ones, because I was able to go to State schools and only have to pay a modest tuition. Good luck with doing that in this day and age.
5
@Aus
The writer did not address the issue of legacy, but since the writer raised the trope of hard work and out of pocket expenses, it is worth noting that the taxpayers of California are still providing BOG (board of Governor's) tuition waivers to more than half of all Cal Community College Students; the UC Board of Regents provide for a nearly equal percent of waivers. The City of San Francisco is kicking in to pay residents tuition in the City College. The taxpayers of California are generous to a fault, they continually agree to pay for things without increasing taxes and/or finding the revenue to do so. In any case, the tuition is hardly the issue, it is the high cost of living here, and providing free tuition may actually do a disservice to the students. Thus, adult students in SF may go to community college free -- but they are still paying 2-3K per month for housing and living expenses, but with low tuition do not qualify for high grants. They thus borrow, run up great debt and thereby undermine one important justification for community college -- the idea that one could stay at home with the folks and earn two years of sound transfer credit to UC or CSU.
On the legacy, it sounds as if the writer had attended UC while Architecture was impacted. Assuming they graduated, the question is whether they expect some consideration for their children.
Well, at least, as Jennine mentioned, the girl's (and many more we-all-know-who) family donated something for the benefit of the school and others get enrolled. That's in a way a fairly constructive approach to support the functioning of a school at our time of skyrocketing education spending.
But bribing, on the other hand, is one step that leads to the destruction of a meritocratic system.
Winner-takes-all and status quo have became such major issues since 2008 recession, that I'm afraid entrance scandal is merely tip of the iceberg.
Unfortunately, I see politicians more concerned about get reelected rather than address issues they were elected to do.
2
How dispiriting. An absurd idea — that college admissions should be based only on test scores and high school transcripts — is being sold as wisdom. That’s not what education is about. A liberal arts institution’s incoming class should expose the university community to, among others, cellists, baseball players, physicists, and poor kids and rich kids and poets and computer geeks and students from around the country and around the world — to all kinds of people they might not otherwise have met. That’s part of the education. None of that happens if the only qualification is an SAT. That aside, the idea that legacies (aside from the fundraising issue) are socially destructive demonstrates an ignorance of another goal: the creation of what feels like a community for the rest of your life. I attended a college with an acceptance rate of 11%. I came from a small midwestern high school and a lower-middle-class family in which no one In previous generations had ever gone to college. Yet I was accepted and given scholarships and loans. For all of society’s inequities it’s still possible for an ordinary kid to go to Stanford or Penn or wherever. And if a rich kid or poor kid is accepted as much for her skills as a cellist as for good SATs, that’s a good thing. Erasing that vision results in a less fully educational experience for everybody. Anybody who thinks that’s good, apparently including the angry author of this piece, didn’t get a very good education in a thing called life.
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@ADN
In a society that reveres sport, the athlete bears merit. In a society that reveres testing and measurement, high scores have merit. In a society that reveres the aristocracy it lost in the formation of a republic, exclusivity has merit.
Your job then is just to remind people that the bribes in this case were used to falsify "merit" in order to obtain exclusivity. Two persons at Stanford are suing now because they claim their legacy is now tainted. They expect us to believe that Stanford has lost its exclusivity. Their case has no merit.
@ADN
I'm all for admitting that cellist. I don't see the virtue of legacy admissions - please pardon my ignorance.
1
We need to dispel the myth that only children of the wealthy, and legacy students, pay full tuition. Most students from middle class families (two incomes) also pay full tuition because the income threshold eligible for Pell grants and other tuition assistance is very low at $50,000 and most Pell grants go to students whose family's income is $20,000 or less.
28
All big-time colleges accept developmental admits, who are the children of people (whether graduates or not) who have paid big bucks to the school. Yes, that means that the Jared Kushners of the world go to Harvard, but the $2.5 million his father kicked in helps to subsidize students who don't have the money to pay for full tuition. (Let's be honest, how else would he have gotten in?)
My school (Duke) has noted in the past that 1% of students are developmental admits, but most other colleges prefer to avoid the topic.
There was an analogous situation at the University of Texas, but in that case they were giving breaks to the children of state politicians. But again, those politicians were expected to keep the public moneys flowing, so everyone at the university benefits.
If 99% of the students truly belong at any elite college, then I don't see any real problem. In the most recent case, I hope that those 50 parents who cheated have to pay some serious IRS penalties. Nevertheless, considering that there are about 20 million college students in this country, it's not a big issue.
3
There is the flip side of this. Having worked for an international charity, my salary was half of the annual tuition of a well endowed Southern Ivy League college that my son applied for and was accepted. The financial aid officer looked at my data and blurted out 'why you make almost nothing at all'. The good news was that due to the endowment and a sliding scale for tuition my son attended and graduated almost debt free (though he did work while attending college). That seemed more than equitable to me.
8
hey, life isn't fair. i went to a state college in Detroit where most who applied were accepted. even in a school like that i envied the richer kids who could belong to a frat as they had copies of old exams and also copies of the endless homework problems in the accounting department. i saw organized cheating on exams, you name it. probably it turned out to be the best thing i learned and that is life is often not fair.
10
I come from a family of five generations of black African American college graduates. I am third generation.
Beginning with first generation born enslaved and free- person of color HBCU ancestors. Through separate and unequal second to fifth generation access to white private and public colleges and universities we learned that we always lacked the presumption of merit and qualifications that matters most in America. Working twice as hard to go half as far.
We were never white European Judeo- Christians. Before or after our educations.
" Yet I often marvel at this curious thing, that God would make a poet black and yet bid him to sing" Countee Cullen
7
I was a low income student and went to an Ivy League institution 30 years ago, but did not emerge with the bitterness displayed by the author. Rather, I am grateful for the tremendous amount of financial aid provided by my university, which enabled me to obtain an outstanding education. I would be interested to hear whether Cornell offered full financial aid to the author, which might not have been possible without legacies paying full tuition.
The percentage of legacies admitted by my ala mater has dropped dramatically in the past few years. It now accept more first generation, low income students (20%) than legacies. This is a wonderful move in the right direction and needs to be better publicized.
31
@SC
I very much appreciate your comment. It is sincere, it is reasonably factual, and is an experience shared by many of us. One correction, however: Not all "legacies" pay full tuition -- many are the children of academics, and others working in the non-profit sector. While not exactly poor, we are not exceptionally wealthy either.
3
Excellent piece.
The fallacy of meritacracy in employment hiring should be next, and the necessity to continue the use of disparate impact in analyzing discrimination in employment testing.
1
When I was a state university student, I knew who was subsidizing the cost of my education: the taxpayer, and the football team.
Any private college student has to know the cost of his or her tuition, and the buildings, and the campus, and the collections, and everything, are subsidized by Very Rich People.
You could stop taking legacies, but none of the alternatives for paying for college seem all that great. You could put more burden on taxpayers, but how much should some wage earner pay so I could get a professional education? You could lower standards to achieve a better football team. You could ask people to do more out of the kindness of their hearts, but there's a lot of competition for that sort of charity.
And of course, the people who have the biggest complaint aren't those who were accepted to Cornell despite being unable to pay a fair share of tuition. They benefit from the subsidy of Very Rich People just like the legacy.
13
The Cornell, or any college sports program? Seriously, the equivalent of the annual increase to the military budget.
1
I'd have to see the numbers, but I addressed having taxpayers contribute their tax money so I can have a better career than THEY do.
I wonder how many taxpayers would want a tax increase in order to prevent legacy admissions at Ivy League colleges? I'd feel pretty bad asking for it.
Really, how could American society go forward without makers and takers.
I was a first-in-the-family college student with a full scholarship to the University of California for the $200/quarter that my parents could not afford in the mid 70’s.
My own children all got into Universities in Australia which would have cost virtually nothing, and also in Canada, which were half the price of top US universities.
One did go to Canada, one to the East Coast, and one to the West Coast. In all cases, we were fortunate to be able to pay out-of-state fees.
One of the universities where I just paid the last out-of-state tuition bill was to the University of California...and that felt good.
2
I got into college the old fashioned way; I was rejected by my first three choices.
It worked out just fine; education gives you back in the degree you put yourself into it, regardless of the status of the place. Besides, the school that did accept me was where I met my wife of 30+ years.
10
Study what you really like to study.
It really helps to like physics, chemistry, and calculus.
Then you get to work at what you like to work out and there are plenty of jobs that value the 3% of the USA adult population that are smart enough to master these subjects.
8
@Told you so
And what if you love to study art, English, philosophy or classics? Not so much left then. Not in this world.
3% is a low percentage for the rest of us to take in.
Your first sentence belies itself.
What a great article!! My husband and I have worked with TRIO and first generation college students. We tell them, the statistics show, it's not the college you attend that determines success in life but the fact that you filled out a college application, got accepted to an accredited university and graduated. My alma mater, Western Washington University educated thousands and thousands of amazing citizens who have improved the lives of themselves as well as others. Thanks to Pell grants, this low income, first generation student went on to get her MA in Counseling, inspired and empowered hundreds of victims of sexual assault, young and old alike that didn't believe that they could pursue their dreams, and raised 2 children who didn't need financial help when they went into higher education because I was no longer low income.
6
Clearly no one should gain admission to university through bribes and cheating, as in the recent scandals. However, comparing privilege and the benefits it bestows to that type of cheating goes a bit to far. At the same time, anyone like me, who is the child of two white, college educated, professional class parents, needs to be up front with the fact that I am very privileged compared to most Americans. And I am extraordinarily privileged compared to most others in the world.
The real crux of the issue here is that America needs to make more educational resources available for all of its citizens from early childhood through post secondary vocational training and/ or college, so all citizens have more opportunities up and down the socioeconomic scale.
That means a top 1% family and those in the upper class are going to have to pay more taxes. That means that some deserving first generation students are going to end up at very good colleges, but not the Ivy Leagues, because some of their “legacy” competitors are going to continue get a boost. That means some hard working, talented kids of middle and upper middle class families are going to have to go to their states public flagship university because they are priced out of the elite schools. I can live with all of the above in exchange for more opportunities for all.
15
@Chris
Indeed. This starts with pre-school. Not only should there be universal pre-K, but we should actually value our pre-school teachers and pay them fairly. Those first several years are crucial. The problem with education in America is that teachers are not respected. They are expected to do the work of parent, educator, babysitter, and counselor, but they are treated as if teaching were a "second-choice" profession. Grades are inflated. Why is it that A's are awarded simply for doing the assignment on time? That should be a minimum requirement, resulting in an average grade, a C. A's should be exceptional, awarded only in cases of real intellectual and creative merit. Instead, parents show up, demanding A's for little Johnny Smith who will be a third-generation Harvard man, pre-determined already in Kindergarten. Such a loss of potential.
2
The original social network is still the most powerful. The legacy issue will never be "fixed" into a pure merit system...the people with the gold still make up the rules.
3
The author has a point, but, arguably, overstates it.
Legacy admissions may be the most offensive, but still legal, way of getting an undeserved admission offer. But, perhaps it would make sense to ask why a college might give preferential treatment to legacies.
Most likely, it's to enhance fund raising and other sorts of alumni involvement - which can benefit students and graduates.
So, to take an extreme example, is a college wrong to trade an admission offer for a new building? That's unfair to the applicant who is edged out of admission, but it's not so bad for everybody else. In fact, the author very likely used facilities which were funded that way.
The author received some very good advice on how to build a college application. Not everyone does. It might make more sense to write an article about that.
Too, after the money is finished talking, the rest of the class is selected based substantially on the quality of the application.
I disagree strongly with the notion that "admission is all but guaranteed" by the millions spent on the college advisor industry. That's simply not so. I don't include cases of bribery here. The successful applicant needs great grades, great test scores and whatever else a specific elite institution wants. Expensive counseling doesn't help all that much more than what is available at low cost. It helps, but it does "all but guarantee".
13
@is a college wrong to trade an admission offer for a new building? RickP
It depends. The existing endowment of, say, each of the top 20 research universities, may run from about $10 billion (yes, billion) to maybe $35 billion at Harvard. Would these schools need a donation for a new building? Even if it might cost, say, $500 million, a fraction of one billion? Really, would it? In any case, with the retirement of the Boomers now going on, huge donations are pouring in, especially to the leading schools. My grad school recently got three separate donations of about $100 million each. It's time for these super rich schools to provide free tuition for each student they admit. They can afford it--easily.
3
@Patrick Story
There are about 4 million college freshmen in the US (google, just now). I didn't add up the number of freshmen in the top 20 research universities, but if they're all like Princeton, it adds up to around 40,000 freshmen. That number may be off, but not by an order of magnitude.
So, the top 20 research universities with those massive endowments admit about 1% of the nation's freshmen. Maybe the number should be a couple of points higher.
The rest of the colleges presumably aren't so well-endowed.
My guess is that many colleges, even including some awash in funds, still figure it's a good idea to trade some admission slots for big money. Have some gone too far? Well, it wouldn't be a surprise. I believe that some of the major college rating organizations make endowment an important criterion. So, arguably, to the extent that an elite ranking is good for their community, they'll pay attention to keeping endowment large.
I believe this is a reasonable understanding of an issue. It isn't approval. I think our nation needs to invest massively in higher education.
The author characterizes her Miami public school as "overcrowded, underperforming" and so I am going to take a guess that the author was not a full pay kid at Cornell. Her legacy lunch companion probably was a full pay kid - and her family had made numerous donations to the school over the years. It is an unpleasant but unavoidable reality that Cornell must pay its bills somehow and so I don't see how they can avoid favoring the wealthy - particularly the wealthy who've already put money into Cornell - over everybody else. I don't feel this way about how most schools (state schools) should do admissions, but we might all be better off if we just had much more clarity with young kids about the fact that private colleges have a strong bit of the country club in their core identities. I don't think that we should assume that country club members are better suited to leadership positions in American life than everybody else, but nor do I think that luxurious networking experiences for (mostly) wealthy young people are something that we ought to ban. Perhaps recent events will help us all to be a little less impressed the next time we encounter a supposedly impressive educational credential on a resume.
14
Very judgmental without any empirical evidence to support. Thanks for perpetuating the myth.
7
@Marc Schuhl
Very good point. The wealthy students are subsidising the smart but poor kids.
There is no solution to unequal opportunities that doesn't involve heavily taxing the wealthy, and increasing public funding of the common good.
4
@Marc Schuhl Seems pretty obvious that tuition aid was the reason that a school with a $48,000 per year was the only affordable "out of state school".
At first I thought she might have been referring to the lower cost State University colleges (there are several) that are part of the Cornell universe, but the out of state tuition is times the resident tuition at over $20k per year, and still considerably more than instate tuition at a Florida state University.
While the author is no doubt deserving, she was still fortunate to get in, given the 1 in 8 acceptance ratio, she fails to mention the considerable financial support that would not be possible without generous alumni who also probably pay full fare for their legacy children. Somebody has to pay the bills.
4
I am a first generation college student and the son of immigrants. Chances are the fact that my parents are white europeans probably means my story isn't relevant (which shouldn't be true). I worked hard and got into Duke University, universally loathed as being a bastion of white privilege (also not true). My son had all AP classes, 4.4 GPA etc and did not get into Duke. Was I disappointed, sure. Was I bitter, no. The admissions of legacy students and the recent admissions scandal account for a tiny fraction of a percent of all admissions - which doesn't make either right, but hardly qualifies for the system being characterized as universally tilted towards white rich people. Admissions based on diversity (which I support) far outweigh legacies and fifty illegitimate admissions found based on two years of investigation by hundreds of law enforcement agents. All this whining of the allegedly suppressed is tiresome. The author should be thankful she was admitted and her parents could afford to send her, something that not a lot of families (of all races) can claim.
53
@BostonStrong Why are you assuming her parents had to pay anything for her college education? I don't see any mention of that in her piece.
1
@Alley
“When I was accepted at Cornell — the only out-of-state school I could afford to apply to — I sent off my deposit, ready for my hard-earned reward”
Read more carefully and don’t try and turn this into some histrionics about student loans.
@BostonStrong This poster claims that "Admissions based on diversity (which I support) far outweigh legacies". Since the number of legacies is not publically shared by any university I wonder how this poster would know this.
What tests or scores would the writer want Admissions bodies to rely on, given her view that " he college admissions process" is unfair from "its overreliance on scores from tests that are widely regarded as biased against low-income students, students of color and students from single-parent households"?
She is, moreover, not given to understatement in her indiscriminate accusation of bad faith; the system being allegedly "designed to let as few of us in as it can."
People from family backgrounds with education will inevitably have an advantage from that fact. Should they be handicapped in the admissions process?
Now seventeen years retired, I taught for a little under forty years in a professional faculty of a well-known university. "Legacy" admissions are typically greeted with revulsion. But on certain conditions I think them ethically defensible. (1) The donations adding facilities and staff must result in MORE students being admitted, and NONE excluded from the simple fact of the legacy admission. (2) The legacy student can have no preference as regards course requirements or examination standards. (3) The legacy student must meet an academic standard which ensures that he or she does not impair the quality of any class or other aspect of a programme.
12
I've never expected the best available table at a popular restaurant, or to get into a club without waiting in line, or to get a job at a private company if the owner has relatives willing to take it, or for that matter to be made king of the prom. The world works on relationships and social status, and this is true no matter where you grew up. It's especially true in high school. so it's surprising that the writer didn't figure it out before making it to college. It's also surprising that the public in general is surprised about preferential admissions at private schools. They were originally started pretty much by the rich for the rich, so I suppose those of us who aren't in that class should consider ourselves lucky to be admitted at all. I was a pretty naive high school student, but I certainly would not have expected the applicant whose parents donated a building to be turned away because my grades were better -- or, for that matter, star athletes to be turned away because their grades were terrible. Note that star athletes were often not "children of privilege". Is that fair? Finally, it strikes me as ridiculous that all of this talk of fairness has arisen due to frauds being perpetrated by individuals who were accepting bribes to falsify test scores and admissions records. It appears that the schools were the victims, not the perpetrators, so I don't understand why these frauds have become the basis for an attack on admissions fairness.
18
@JB thank you for putting into words everything I've been thinking about this!
Universities should print (and promote) diversity enrollment not only broken down by gender and ethnicity, but by family income. When you've got a significant % of enrollment from below the poverty line... THAT'S investing in diversity.
5
@Josquin
I don’t know if your implication is that there’s no diversity at the top. The process isn’t perfect but that’s not the case. There’s a phenomenon called need-blind admissions that promotes diversity at the very top. If you’re acepted and can’t afford the tuition or living expenses, they get paid for you. You’ll find a list of need-blind institutions here, including those that pay full freight no matter what: https://www.cappex.com/articles/match-fit/need-blind-admission-colleges
1
The legacy slots are as much about who the kids are dating and marrying as what kind of education and careers they are getting. It’s a way for parents and grandparents to ensure that their progeny are at least maintaining or possibly advancing their class status rather than taking the risk of letting them go to a big public university where who knows what can happen.
2
Just an FYI, we make regular donations to our alma mater. One of our kids applied to go there. She was not accepted. But she was accepted at a few higher ranked universities and matriculated & graduated from one. So at least to me she had the scores and chops to get admitted to the university her parents graduated from. Legacy doesn't always mean one gets an acceptance letter. And note that we still make regular donations to our alma mater.
36
When I went to CCNY in the mid 60s, there were no legacy students I ever came across. Your HS average and your SAT scores were put together in some sort of formula, and if you were above the line you got in, if not, not.
CCNY was filled with New York City kids who were smart, studied hard in school, and did well in their classes. I met another NYC kid there, a Bronx girl. The Queens boy and the Bronx girl graduated, and a few months later, got married with nothing to our names but a fine education, no debts, and our wedding presents. We sat on the floor until we could wrangle a second-hand couch.
But we both got good jobs worthy of our educations, and some 45+ years later, we are comfortably retired, in our own home, and travel the world.
You CAN make it here on merit. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t.
60
@Jamie Flynn Yes, the real world does winnow the wheat from the chaff, but even there at least at the front door having an undergraduate degree from a prestigious school does ease the way. Consider it a form of intellectual profiling.
@Jamie Flynn Same here. Me--Brooklyn College; my wife-- CCNY. Same time period; same admissions system. Same results. Much gratitude and appreciation.
5
@Jamie Flynn I was just going to write just about the same thing. I graduated from CCNY in the 60's. I lived at home and worked after school to help support my family and was a first generation college student. I was admitted because of my high school grades and SAT scores. I have since gone on to get an MA and a doctorate, but my classes in those schools seemed easy to me, after the rigor of CCNY. If I remember, I paid $37.00 a semester for student fees and there was no tuition. We were both very fortunate to have CCNY in our lives.
10
This article makes some very important points about how elite universities can reproduce inequality. While I agree that legacies are a real problem, the article glosses over important changes at universities in recent years that assist first gens.
The majority of universities have programs like the one the author worked for that provide extra support for first gen students. Many schools have summer programs preparing first gen students for college, sometimes down to even special dorms for these students. Moreover, most reputable universities have admissions policies that recruit first gen and other underrepresented students.
These changes in universities are fairly recent but nevertheless have become the norm. The playing field has certainly not been leveled but I think it's important to acknowledge the changes that have been made. I did a simple search online for jobs working with first gen students in universities around Chicago, for example, and there are literally a dozen student success, admissions, and advisor jobs available (in the middle of the school year).
Only 15 years ago these programs were unusual. I watched as my then girlfriend, a first gen college student who worked as a hairstylist after high school get literally no assistance from colleges. Most told her not to even apply but she did got into one. Yet because she was white and most student success programs were based on race rather than class or parental education she could not use these resources.
6
This article, along with many other recent articles in the Times, has it backwards, in one important respect, when discussing the Ivy League colleges. The Ivy League schools are significant engines for IMPROVING racial, ethnic, and gender equality in America. With the exception of white men, demographic groups attend those schools in much higher percentages than they are represented by in boardrooms, legal firms, venture capital, and tech.
By the numbers, the Ivy League colleges prepare women, persons of color, and people from other groups, to change the composition of America's leadership.
I didn't go to an Ivy League college. I think this fascination with them is remarkably uninformed, both as to their importance and as to the facts about their student bodies. The Times and its contributors should do better than this.
12
@Benjamin Teral
Absolutely correct, but it’s a story you don’t read much of anywhere, let alone the Times. For some reason it’s a story journalists don’t want to tell. That’s a pretty interesting question all by itself.
The promise of this country has been that if you work hard and keep your nose clean, you will have a shot at the apple. Increasingly, however, access to education, jobs, influence, health, wealth, housing and effective legal help is falling to the 1%. This needs to change.
6
A key part of what has happened in the latest scandal vs legacy admissions: the legacy admissions don't necessarily lie, they pay up. In the latest scandals not only did the parents encourage lying but really how can one say the daughters' not know their application lies by stating they were on a rowing team? Those parents are involving their kids in the lying. Those parents could have chosen to provide mentoring, to get them involved in sports or whatever other activity would improve their changes AND give a 500k donation or 15k or whatever they spent on the cheating and lying.
2
My ex attended Cornell in the 1970's for his Masters and was not a legacy nor a straight A student going in. However, the rigorous workload and smart students he was surrounded with elevated his studying skills and ability to work harder. He busted his behind the entire time and graduated with, I believe, an A- average.
There were several students jumping off the gorges over pressure at that time.
Consequently, when it was time for our children to look at colleges, I assumed they would want to follow him there. Both said they didn't want the pressure nor the workload he'd told them about. Good students, but didn't choose Cornell.
Not everyone wants to be a legacy student.
12
I received offers from Penn State, Indiana U, Dartmouth, the University of Florida and the University of Miami. Full ride at the latter. A no-brainer for me. My parents had recently split. My mother made it clear I'd have to work my way through college if I didn't take it. She held two jobs to keep our house, one as a night time janitor. I learned this years after I graduated. Afraid of poverty, I often had an on-campus or off-campus job and had a summer internship all four years. I was an honor and AP student in high school. Extra curricular activities all four years. Stayed on Dean's List at UM except for the semester I pledged a sorority. A first generation, my grandmother picked cotton and told me I had no right to cry about anything. These days, I remember her words. She cried the day I marched. I have since then marched again with the highest degree one can earn. I earned my degrees even if my full tuition scholarship was offered to marginalized groups to address earlier wrongs. I have heard the horror stories of first generation students who have heard registrars tell them they don't deserve to me here or there. It's ridiculous. I wonder how much will change on the heels of recent news. I see changed hearts on some fronts, but not enough. Not enough.
13
So the other student received admission because she was a legacy. So what. The writer was admitted. Perhaps the facts that she attended an underperforming urban high school and that was first-generation college worked in her favor. And had the writer been refused admission, surely she would have received a fine education at another college.
Because the admissions rates are the biggest-name schools are so little, most fully qualified and deserving students are turned down. It's a lottery.
Life does not end because Harvard and Princeton said no. In fact, if the goal is a quality education, any number of other schools can provide it. And let's be honest. This isn't about quality of education. It's about the prestige of a diploma and social connections for entry into .00001 of the country's businesses and institutions.
20
My preference is for TRANSPARENCY in college recruitment materials: list typical class size and then the number of legacies, elite donors, recruited athletes, unrepresented minorities/first generation admitted. It's time for all colleges to clearly explain these factors in writing and in bold print.
54
Totally agree. I sent a matrix to my Ivy alma mater (that I have donated to, but children did not apply to or attend) that said until they fill in the various cohorts (that you outline well) and standardized tests stats, I would not longer donate. I appreciate wanting a diverse student body, but not at the expense of objective standards. Haven’t heard from them since. Rather give to charities who are serving important needs in society because the silliness on campuses is truly disturbing, and fostering hate and division in in our wider society.
3
@emfair That information is out there and readily available online. Class of 2022 has been on there for months.
Just understand that college admission to the elite schools has never been a matter of "just get these grades and these scores and you're in". Never!
If you don't like the way these schools make up their idea of a freshman class, choose schools such as state schools were the computer sorts the applications by grades and test scores. You DO have a choice.
4
Colleges can admit, or not admit, anyone they want as long as they don’t illegally discriminate. If colleges choose to have legacy admissions because it bring them tuition dollars and loyal alumni, that is their right. Exactly who gets to decide what is “merit?”
If you want for admissions to be 100% based on academic performance (how do you objectively measure that?) then we need to end affirmative action, and diversity slots for geography, majors, income, etc. Is that what we want?
24
@MyjobisinIndianow
what we want, what everyone should want is a fair playing field for everyone. Free college funded by tax dollars that’s what we want.
5
@MyjobisinIndianow That sounds like simply an argument against affirmative action period. that is the bee in your bonnet - not the idea that whites are getting in there without the grades to back it up, but the idea that minorities would get in without having to have the grades. If not, you would have written that if we want admissions on academic performance, then we must eliminate legacy admissions, affirmative action, development admissions, etc. I find it rather interesting that you choose to target admissions of diversity. Actually that targeting of those unlike the majority is the very reason affirmative action exists. What "we" want is an even playing field and recognition that college admissions is so far from it
7
If they eliminate legacies and donator admissions, it would go a long way to not needing affirmative action. I don’t get how someone who gets in due to their family has the nerve to think they belong in college more than a poor person with better grades or even an affirmative action student with better grades
I earned a PhD and have taught both secondary and postsecondary ed. in the humanities. When people inquire about my work or raise an eyebrow when I explain that it's spring break, there is always one thing that I make a point of explaining. Despite the myth of the liberal university that conservative pundits love to batter, postsecondary institutions are heavily conservative places. Ms. Crucet eloquently highlights this trend in admissions. The same myth of meritocracy goes for faculty hiring and promotions. About three quarters of faculty (more than one million) are now part-time adjuncts who make a disproportionally lower wage for their teaching and how typically earn no benefits nor retirement planning. Yes, professors in the humanities do tend to run politically liberal and progressive. But their professional behavior, ethics, and complicity often undermine these commitments. The political leanings of faculty in other fields are often conservative: political science, economics, professional programs. Administrators rule like CEOs, constantly pushing to cut costs and break labor even at places where money is no object (see Yale and Northwestern). It goes without saying that boards of trustees tend to fit this bill too.
25
@Ps and Qs A great addition to a great article.Spot on.
It was a long time in the making but it’s obvious by now the colleges and universities are really just businesses. They have largely lost sight of their mission, and the system is broken. A college degree is now largely a consumer item. If you can afford to go to a certain school of your choice and get admitted then go. Otherwise you’re much better off getting a equally good education at a “lesser” branded college. Virtually all college administrations have let down the American public.
16
An exciting attraction at the new Obama Library would be the Merit vs Money exhibit: President Obama’s university records alongside Trump’s. I’d love to see that.
We are talking about Private colleges and universities here. Once you think about them as the gated communities that they are, it all begins to make sense.
For the average smart student, one strategy would be to apply to one of your state’s top public university, do well there, and then apply to graduate school at your dream private university.
At the next tier, the herd is culled. The uber wealthy have leveraged the social optics and have moved on.
The private university looses all credibility with their faculty, students, and the world beyond if they are selling slots in their Master’s and pHD programs. They tend not to cross that line.
6
@BBB Most states' top tier universities are large sprawling campuses with thousands and thousands of students. For some 18/19-year-olds, no matter their intelligence, that may not be a good fit. It was not for my children. I tried; would've saved me a lot of money.
1
Found it quite shocking to discover, while exploring what I expected would be a stratospheric differential of coursework and resource material at the local Ivy bookstore, that the Ivy syllabus and readings for my major differed little from that at the public university. Could it possibly be so that my public school professors had as high a regard for me and my cohort as the profs had here in Ivy-land for students more privileged? What could be the difference between the two student populations? Could it be some secret formula, some recipe passed down among a chosen few? Let us be blunt: The Ivies and other "elite" schools have graduated a goodly crop of too-self-assured blunderers (e.g., Rumsfeld, the Bushes, Clinton). Maybe less arrogance and more talent-nurturing is in order.
44
While there is much about this article that I agree with, the fact that the college at issue is Cornell makes it not completely honest. Anybody who has gone to Cornell (I did) knows that there is a hierarchy among the 7 schools in the University. Arts & Sciences and Engineering, being true Ivy part of the the school. Much of Cornell is comprised of state schools that are much less expensive (thus the "only out of state school") she could afford. For the most part the state schools have higher acceptance rates (the one notable exception being if you want to go the agricultural school and you admit you want to major in biology, it is almost impossible to get in as it will be the same biology major as that found at the Arts & Sciences school, which is about 5 times more expensive, and thus extremely competitive and where many pre-med students from NY wind up). The Human Ecology School used to be called Home Economics for example. No mediocre legacy would be accepted at Cornell in the Arts & Sciences school which has an acceptance rate that rivals Harvard with test and grade score requirements to match. In the other schools maybe. While there is a huge problem nationwide that needs to be addressed (the scapegoating of Lori Loughlin and her poor daughter when this has been going on for years and they just paid the wrong people is ludicrous), the blatant problem she describes is more nuanced at the school she attended.
25
The playing field is thoroughly tilted. During the past generation, there is not a category of life that does not have a white, moneyed thumb on the US scales. This system CAN be fixed. Moneyed welfare can be eliminated.
1
@porcupine pal
It can be fixed, it probably won't. The powers to be are not going to willingly give up their political, social and economic advantages.
3
I think this article is a little over the top. Crucet may owe her job to the fact that she is a member of a minority group. I don't think there is any secret in that. Further, not everyone is a legacy student. Most white students at Cornell, I think met very high standards to get it in. Certainly, the white applicants she competed against to get her job at the University of Nebraska were not legacy candidates. They were part of a huge pool, probably hundreds of applicants for the job she has. If she was white, chances are she wouldn't be where she is. That is simply a distinct logical possibility.
13
So your argument is that it's okay to allow rich people to buy their way into university because there's a "logical possibility" that the author got her job because of affirmative action?
1
@AJ No. My argument is that I suspect the author is being hypocritical. She has been a beneficiary of affirmative action programs which are currently being challenged in court by Asian Americans as a source of discrimination against them. If one is outraged by legacy preferences one should also be concerned by open longstanding policies that give unfair advantage to some minority groups over others.
@Yankelnevich
“Crucet may owe her job to the fact that she is a member of a minority group. I don't think there is any secret in that.”
So, by your logic it then follows that every white person may owe their job to the fact that they receive privilege as a member of the majority group. Yep, I guess there’s no secret in that either.
1
Fair is not easy to define for all students in all circumstances. Is it fair to use only SAT scores to select students? Is it fair to set a minimum qualification standard and select randomly from among those who meet the criteria? Is it fair to consider other factors to increase the odds for students with educationally disadvantaged backgrounds? Is it fair to admit a legacy student if the parents donate large sums that enhance the educational experience for all students? Should there be a different definition of fair for schools with different missions, for example, a private college or a state university? Lying and cheating are not fair, most of us agree on that. I am not sure we agree on what is fair.
6
@MEM
Many school do not rely on SAT scores as a major factor. Some don't even require them. But keep in mind that some of us who did very well on them - despite our educational disadvantages - were able to leverage that good performance into acceptances at schools which otherwise would not have considered us.
2
Interesting article but didn't you already know about the USA's great economic divide while a high school student, and living in Miami? Yes, you should be proud of going to Cornell, more so than the student who got in just with money a/o status.
The rich and elite will always have advantages over everyone else. A country based on land grabs (from Native Americans) and slavery is a nation based on inequity. You shouldn't be shocked by status- the shock is everyone's acceptance of it.
7
I think most if not all college grads came to know that cash is the easiest way to get admitted. But cash also opens the door to expedited "concierge" treatment by hospitals. There are now probably no "non-profits" that don't give premium service to people who give them lots of tax-deductible money.
5
Well said, thank you. I've been trying to explain to people that that's how this system has always worked. As much as I valued my college friendships and my friends didn't make me feel as poor as I was, I knew they all had advantages I never would, even after graduate school. I was also told I got in to school because I am Puerto Rican and always responded with something like "No, I got in because I scored higher than you did on the SAT and did better in school in general."
9
I am about to retire after teaching for 30 years in community colleges.
Most of my students have been women, persons of colors and/or first-generation students.
Most have entered or are planning to enter allied health fields.
Many are very naive, unskilled learners because no one has ever taken the time previously to offer them a real education when they show up at college.
However, the idea that one's race or ethnicity or gender limits one's abilities to learn is just completely absurd...for those of us who believe in evidence-based findings.
It has been a great privilege to work with these students. I wouldn't want to work with any other types of students.
82
I can see how some would view legacy preferences as unfair, although I can also see how colleges view them as encouraging the alumni donations that they need to survive financially. I don't, however, see them as more unfair than admission preferences for athletes or for those from historically disadvantaged ethnic groups.
There are many ways in which the college admissions process deviates from a search for students with the greatest academic potential. Looking at only one such deviation is myopic.
32
@Joel
I don't think the author is advocating that we look at "just one" shortcut people use to get into elite schools. The author IS relating anecdotally, how she came to learn that the story she had been told about meritocracy has some very gaping holes in it. In her story, her classmate was admitted based mostly on the wealth and privilege of her family (being a legacy), which was and is accepted as being totally normal. Even more striking to the author, was the seeming entitlement, that enabled the girl to openly joke (brag) about gaining admission to Cornell, with sup par scholastic performance, without a trace of irony. The classmate KNEW she belonged because of the privilege she was born into. This girl had the advantage of not having to give it her all during high school because she knew could fall back on her safety net of privilege. This privilege is tied to whiteness in many (but not all) instances.
Right wing provocateurs love to stir up resentment by telling accounts of preferential treatment given to "undeserving" minorities over whites. There isn't however an equal amount of outrage (on the right) about those who essentially buy their children's college admission. I wonder why that is?
6
@Sean Thank you for articulating this woman's angst. 99 percent of the comments missed. Her anguish is that right wing provocateurs rant about preferential treatment given to "undeserving" minorities but assume it as a God given right that whites be given preferential treatment without regard to whether they deserve it. Hence, the title of her essay, "Wait, How Did You Get In Here?" She is talking to people who assume since she is a person of color, she got in because of affirmative action, and thus she does not deserve what she has. She is talking to that same person who has no problems with white students who got in because of a parent, not their grades. She is telling that person, "Don't you dare talk to any minority about not deserving something because wait a minute, how did YOU get in here?" Most of the comments completely missed that point.
2
That is one of the most cynical pieces I’ve read about this process. Instead of taking tremendous pride in her accomplishments, the writer has let the “reality” bring her down. She got in, didn’t she? She has benefited from this opportunity. The system may not be perfect, but it works for many, as it did for my immigrant father who used his education to raise a family, contribute to society and Instill in us a love and respect for education and the worlds it can open up. Yes, let’s try to eradicate the corruption when we see it, but never forget to celebrate the incredible benefits and opportunities that are college.
38
@Rita Koplin
"She got in, didn’t she?"
Yes she did. But who didn't get in that year, because of the unfair legacy admissions process. I don't think she is attacking the value of education. She is opining about an unfair system of outcomes, that is held up as being meritocratic.
Just because she made it doesn't mean she can't be a harsh critic of the system. She "made it" and went back to help others as a college access counselor. I would bet my paycheck that the "legacy" she had lunch with that day is still using every ounce of her privilege, without a trace of irony.
6
@Rita Koplin If you're really interested in "celebrating the incredible benefits and opportunities that are college", wouldn't you want the most deserving students have the largest possible opportunity to attend? Immigrant families like your own are at a disadvantage when they try to achieve admission at the best schools, but are turned away because there are (artificially) fewer spots for them.
Legacy admissions directly contradict what you want to celebrate.
1
I just don't see why this is such a big deal. So what if a few percent of the class in elite schools get in through "other than meritocratic" methods? There's still an opportunity for merit based admission and, assuming the classes remain rigorous, the degree eventually earned means the same thing. If these legacy students really don't deserve to be there then the rigor of the curriculum will sort them out soon enough. I agree that it's not absolutely "fair", but maybe that's a good welcome-to-the -real-world lesson for incoming freshman.
11
You say you just don't see why this is such a big deal. If your well-deserving child lost out an admission seat in one of these elite schools to someone who bought that seat, I am sure you will see why this is such a big deal.
16
It would be great to know what percentage of ivy league admissions is legacy. That information isn't disclosed, but it might be quite high.
5
@Mary M
What is clear is that an increasing percentage of slots at the top-rated schools is going to the wealthy. There was an interesting article in "The Atlantic" magazine last summer that quoted the statistics. I don't remember what they were, but they were shocking. For example, a very high percentage of students at these schools were from the top 1%. Economic and social mobility in the USA has substantially declined, and lags behind that of numerous other countries. When we begin accepting that access to things like education, health care, and the legal system should be based on money, we also have to accept that we do not have a democracy.
4
Back in my HS days, if you got in and couldn't afford to go, you didn't go... there weren't all sorts of lenders... which, interestingly, seem to have multiplied to a disastrous point for many kids, as admission to a pricey school meant that there were loan sharks to help make that "dream come true": this as, also, school tuition hikes reached a fevered pitch in the late 80s...Now then, ehem, in leveling the playing field to making school attendance more equitable and accessible, things have been bumped up to ridiculous bidding war hikes, a la the recent scandals: if you've got cash, you're more likely to get in---unless you happen to win a lottery of admission criteria. So it seems like the deck is stacked against those who have to scramble to pay and have to rack up debt (or not) against those elite school selections of students who are either are lucky enough to win scholarships and/or can pay full freight (and more! LOTS more!). So-called elite school admissions are still weirdly off-kilter as to economic/social vs. academic admissions.
4
The lesson from this scandal isn't so clear cut. Opponents of affirmative action, for example, can argue that the news from this past week is more evidence that middle- and working-class white applicants are unfairly treated both by the uber-wealthy as well as applicants who benefit from race-sensitive programs.
12
Affirmative action has been struck down many times in the courts. Legacy admissions is still completely legal.
2
@Mary M
Affirmative action programs are still legal in some shape & form. I'm not necessarily against them: I was only pointing out that the scandal does not really bolster the case for affirmative action as does Crucet.
Isn't it possible that many colleges and universities accept some students based on merit, while at the same time accept others based on non-merit factors like how much money parents have given or family members attending the school previously? Clearly the later is unfair and in effect excludes some meritorious students. But that does not mean that merit is a 'myth'. It just means fair and and unfair things can coexist. Welcome to the real world. I wonder what proportion of students at various schools get accepted based on merit vs. 'bribery'? That should be made public.
I got accepted to a school based on merit and worked hard to be able to get better educated and find meaningful compassionate work and creativity in this complex and often harsh world.
10
I am an immigrant, and a refugee from Tibet. I did not know English when I arrived first in the United States. I worked so hard to get in College and be successful. I was constantly told that “anyone can be successful and achieve America dream if one work hard.” Needles to say, I wanted achieve America dream, and break the poverty, and illiteracy cycle in my family. I really believed and thought that anyone could achieve America dream if I work hard, but I realized it is an America’s myth. Everything is about connection and donation. I never knew that donation helps to get you in top college. I mean this is about education and knowledge, not about how much you can donates.
People will never achieve America dream when America educational institutions accept students according their connection and wealth. This is the result that poor people stay poor and riche get richer in this country.
13
Yes, legacy admissions are extremely unfair. But as with many things in life, they represent a shade of gray.
Most if not all legacy students pay full price tuition (their families are, after all, rich). Legacy families, as was the case of the legacy student's family in this article, also make large donations to the schools they are (legally) bribing.
All this money from legacy families helps colleges offer scholarships to students who ARE admitted because of merit and not because of the good fortune of their birth.
A useful way forward would be to compel elite universities to reveal how many seats in freshman classes are, on average, actually reserved for legacy students. The ratio of legacy to merit-based admissions should be telling. It might tell us, after all, whether this is an injustice worth tolerating.
114
@John
Most if not all Ivies publish the admission percentage statistics for legacies, just as they do for international students and minorities. Not all legacies are admitted, although they have much better odds of being accepted. It's about institutional loyalty.
That's the same reason why applicants for early admission also have a much higher admission rate than those for regular admission--early applicants cannot apply to more than one of the Ivy+ schools, and almost always it's their first choice.
Moreover, you should not assume that a legacy applicant is void of merit--lots of them have immense merit.
5
@frugalfish
Many legacy admits may in fact have merit. But (as has been noted) the validity of current definitions of “merit” are highly debatable. Moreover, a privileged upbringing in and of itself enables legacies to meet the current measures of merit (high test scores, etc.). That said, the bottom line is that legacies account for over 30% of Harvard’s entering class, and the test scores and GPAs of said legacies fall 20% or more short of the averages for each entering class. Think Jared Kushner ...
Perhaps cynicism is misplaced here, but...I wonder what Ms. Crucet might have chosen to do had she been offered a way to, so to speak, put a thumb on the scale to inflate her attractiveness to admission personnel at selective schools. Beneath the surface of many American myths, behind the "Matrix" that's maintained, the brutality employed to deny access to the very things that are celebrated in this country are as meticulously protected as beauty myths. Theoretical ethics are touted, but I feel the pursuit of privilege is what motivates. Why else apply to Cornell? Collectively youngsters are left at the mercy of their first teachers. By my measure, Ms. Crucet is a remarkable success story. I don't believe Cornell is responsible for that. I congratulate her, and her folks, for a job well done.
4
When you’re a financial aid student at an elite college, you learn from both fellow students as well as the faculty.
The most important things I learned at Wellesley was that the filthy rich members of the ruling class deluded themselves into thinking they got there on their own merits, and that they had great disdain for the rest of us. “The poor are poor because they want to be,” is a comment I will never forget said by a classmate who the following summer had an internship at a multinational corporation run by her father’s good friend.
My experience at Wellesley propelled me into a life in service to the disadvantaged, including the last 19 years as an educator in high needs schools in New York City.
Frankly I’d probably be a wealthier person had I gone to one of my safe schools. But I also am truly grateful for the stellar education I received from my brilliant professors there.
111
You are so right about what you say and feel; imagine how many talented students did not get in may be and may feel bad about that or even about themselves. That is an additional unfairness. I presume we have that kind of unfairness across many if not all institutions and companies. For example, how does an engineer at Volkswagen feel if he or she was not promoted because of their unwillingness to work and install the manipulated software that got them into the Diesel scandal. Honest people have much harder to ‚make it‘ and those successful people brag about the business school mantra ‚if you are not lying, you’re not trying‘.
14
This may come as a shock to Ms. Capo Crucet, but not all whites summer in the Hamptons and are able to pull legacy strings.
I grew up decidedly middle class in the rust belt and was accepted to multiple Ivy League colleges but was unable to attend because my father, who had a serious gambling addiction, was unable to pay the relatively modest family financial obligation. I did fine at my flagship state school. And my Ivy League grad school.
No, life is not fair. But looking at everything through the prism of ethnicity is dismissive and distorting. As a father of 3, I would strenuously argue that parenting is a far bigger factor in academic success than ethnicity.
And, of course, the legacy admission at Cornell was certainly paying full tuition meaning her family was helping more deserving students of limited financial means attend an Ivy League university by de facto subsidizing them.
423
@Sparky, I don't see, anywhere in this piece, anything close to the assumption that all whites "summer in the Hamptons and are able to pull legacy strings." I don't see this piece as "looking at everything through the prism of ethnicity." Where did you even get this idea? Because the writer mentions that the legacy student was white? Surely the vast majority of legacy students at these places are in fact white? This piece addresses class barriers above all, an experience you shared. There is plenty of room for your story here; there is no need to clear an ethnic space for yourself because you were never crowded out of this piece in the first place. The writer here describes herself as a first-generation student, advising other first-generation college students.
227
@CS "This clear bias, based on wealth and so often tied to whiteness, doesn’t strike students, their families or college administrators as inherently unfair and even dishonest."
This is one of about 6 mentions that conflate race and class. Reread the article.
97
@Sparky The default defense for legacy admissions and/or Kushner "philanthropy" admissions, as you state, is that the money paid by these families can defray the costs for everyone else. Have you looked at the endowments for the Ivies and other prestige schools? If the real cost is that more worthy applicants are shut out because Harvard wants more money in its coffers, I'm not sure the reward is worth it.
47
Legacy admissions are fascinating. When I went to university in Canada some years ago (first one in my family to go) there was no question about parents and when my son went a few years ago there was no place to put any mention that I had attended the university he eventually chose.
I know private universities have more flexibility in admitting students than public ones do but if the goal is giving the best education to the best students then legacy no part in the admissions process and should be eliminated.
Now if money is a factor,... it still should be eliminated to encourage the children of the wealthy to strive to be the best they can.
5
As a college counselor serving low income, first generation students my biggest takeaway from this scandal is not the revelation that the rich and famous pay their children's way into top rated colleges, it is the reinforcement of the the fear I hear day after day from my highly capable students "that school is not for people like me".
129
@Mark Hanna What do they think when they read official stats for every Ivy League college where the majority of students are on financial aid?
@Ines A number of elite schools do indeed use "need blind"admissions and offer substantial financial aid. Some have made strides at inclusion of first gen, low income students (Vassar is a prime example). Unfortunately, it is my experience that recruiting and support in terms of changing perceptions that my students would be welcome (beyond the photos of minority students in brochures and websites) is not a priority. Limited budgets is often the excuse I hear and as private institutions they certainly have the right to determine their marketing programs. My point is that if they are truly committed to the lofty mission statements that most have to "educate all", they must get the message to the inner cities, barrios, rural enclaves, et al, that it doesn't matter who your parents are or what they have, if you want the finest education available AND you are willing to work for it, you are as welcome at our school as economically privileged and legacy students.
1
@Mark Hanna - Along with the bizarre perpetuation of the idea that the only colleges 'worth' attending are private ones on the East Coast. I really hate to be all Western about this, but did no one ever hear of the Claremont Colleges? Occidental? Cal Tech? University of California or, for heaven's sake, University of Arizona? What about the University of Texas, Colorado School of Mines, St. John's, Gonzaga? Your highly capable students have far, far more opportunities open to them than any of these children of the easily scammed. All you need to do is help them with the judgements about what is worth having.
1
This is the school version of the "#MeToo" anthology. We're all just waiting for the next name to drop.
17
Not all elite schools offer legacy points. MIT for one. It is a choice the schools have to make and it reflects their priorities.
215
@Henry
MIT, Cal Tech, Carnegie Mellon...no legacy points but these are STEM schools. It's easier to separate the students who are academically prepared from those who are not, no matter what amount of money and influence their families provide to the institution. As an engineer, I heard the STEM faculty members say (of first and second year Calculus, Physics, Chemistry classes) "This is how we weed out those who can make it from those who can't." Community or Junior Colleges provide a similar service.
3
@Henry Test scores and grades are not relevant for many college applicants.
MIT and the other STEM schools aside, taking into account the college slots taken by legacies, jocks, affirmative action admittees, and cheaters like those whose parents were arrested in the college admissions bribery scam, there aren't many slots left for qualified but middle-class, non-minority kids at the top schools.
There is no easy solution to the problem because legacies, jocks and affirmative action seem to be here to stay. And, yes, some cheaters.
2
Meritocracy is not necessarily a myth. It would be quite possible to have a three-day test and blind choice of students if universities wanted to. It doesn't because they don't.
10
@Mike Livingston. You have much more faith in the value of a standardized test than I do. Under your system, why not go to high school at all? Just have 4 years of test prep.
3
17:42
@Sparky In three days you can test several years of material pretty well. The written part of the entrance exam to the Ecole Polytechnique in France is three days long, and tests two years worth of material from intensive courses. If you "test prep" successfully, you are just learning the material you're supposed to be learning, so no problem. Oxford, Cambridge, the University of Tokyo, and pretty much any elite institution in the developed world other than in the U.S. or Canada, has entrance exams which test what you know. The A.P. exams in the U.S. are like this, just not used for college admissions (unless you take them as a junior). It's just another form of American corruption (excuse me, exceptionalism) which broadens admissions to consider other aspects of a candidate's portfolio, which are far more easily gamed than entrance exams.
3
Whether obtaining entrance into a college as a legacy admission or paying a bribe to gain admission, both actions are less common than the day-to-day bribery and cheating which occurs at many U.S. educational institutions. Of course, the media doesn't seem to care about that issue.
I know very few college graduates who did not witness either bribery to obtain higher grades or outright cheating on exams in order to pass a course. Indeed, a number of classmates were bold about just how much they cheated and bribed their way in order to graduate with honors.
As such, it seems odd for the media to act as if corruption and inequality is a shockingly new aspect about colleges. It has been this way for decades, if not for a century. (Read about how the Kennedy boys gained admission to Harvard.)
Colleges are not sacred temples. They are glorified paper mills which many people at first cheat to enter into and then, after admission, they unhesitatingly cheat to graduate from.
Welcome to humanity in all of its wonderment.
10
@Sándor
Cheating -- sure, it happens. But bribes-for-grades? How does it work? Could you please elaborate?
We should be questioning the role of highly selective, elite schools in filling the most privileged and powerful roles in America.
I went to a small engineering college that was less selective than the Ivy League Schools or even the best known public universities. But another alumni is the current CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, whose father was a auto factory worker for 40 years.
But if it wasn't so hard to get into, it was a rigorous program to complete. The required cooperative work assignments paid well enough to cover tuition and living expenses, allowing students to graduate debt free with five years of work experience.
The school is likely better at graduating diverse students than most of its peers. And none of my classmates were from the wealthy and powerful class. But the alumni are generally very successful, as Ms Barbra is an example.
On-line education is another opportunity to open the doors of some of the most talented professors to the world, with no admissions requirements at all. You only pay a reasonable amount of you want college credit. Harvard EdX is a good example of what is possible. Faculty-student interaction is actually better in these on-line programs than at a typical large university.
We need more new models and greater access for higher education.
20
I have my criticisms of standardized tests, but using the word "biased" toward wealthy, etc. is pretty heavy-handed. It's something like confusing cause and effect. Perhaps the author would best serve her argument with a little less resentment.
80
@Glenn Thomas: One infamous multiple-choice SAT question asked what one would put one’s clothes in when moving. Two of the choices were “suitcase” and “paper bag.” Folks from lower income families tended to pick paper bag, as their families didn’t own suitcases.
So yes, some of the tests have culturally biased questions.
16
@John M Anyone who is college ready should be reading quality books which are available for fee in any public library. From there they would understand the usage of suitcase in a formal test even if they cannot afford one. I am astonished at the implication that just because you cannot afford a suitcase you are not capable of understanding what it is. This is not a bidet after all. It's disparaging to poor people to assume otherwise.
@Glenn Thomas There was a question about golf on my SAT. As a Latinx woman from NYC I didn't understand the question. Also, minorities in this country are angry for a reason. It's a mistake to be blind to how racist this society really is.
1
This is a great commentary on the entire admissions process.
The current admissions scandal gives elite colleges like Cornell the opportunity to change how they allocate seats in each freshman class.
Will they take up this opportunity ,or will they pretend that the current admissions scandal is only about a few wealthy parents and coaches who gamed their system?
This may be when we truly find out smart they are in the elite colleges.
6
Funny - the reason I did a full set of AP's was because I enjoyed learning and I liked the challenge.
I also figured out pretty early in first year engineering that the person across from me at lunch had nothing to do with whether I succeeded at ODE's or not.
It must be exhausting parsing how everyone else around you arrived at where they are.
252
@SteveRR, I agree with you that it is exhausting parsing how everyone else arounf you arrived at where they are. That is at least one of the reasons why all American colleges should eliminate legacy, development, and recruited athlete categories altogether. I have a feeling Harvard will only lead from behind!
18
@Joe Not The Plumber: Look at the amount of Harvard's endowment and you'll see why they are not worried about the future.
8
@SteveRR
The Ivy league school I attended put a sheet of paper in your freshman dorm room with your AP scores (should you want to place out of anything), SATs and where you stacked up against the rest of the entering class - and if you were diverse - where you stacked up among your cohort. It felt like knives out for every body, honestly, but the only people who were ever treated as though they didn't deserve to be there were the minority students. You know what else is exhausting? Having to prove yourself every day.
16
The college situation has many more inequities than even this article portrays. Stanford at the time that I attended recruited wealthy people who were foreigners but who qualified as underrepresented among US citizens... one was even a member of a family of German origin, which emigrated to Peru circa 1945... the grandfather had fought for the Germans in WWII... he changed their surname to a typical Spanish surname, and his grandchildren seemed completely Peruvian, except for the blonde hair and blue eyes. The one I knew counted as underrepresented in Stanford stats.
Plenty of US white people... often rural... have absolutely no legacy or donation connections. A great choice would be to link arms with them as a result of this recent scandal... and characterize the offenders as privileged and corrupt. Focusing on race tends to reduce the opportunity for a grander coalition that could solve this problem.
103
@sonnel--And rural high schools often can't afford to offer AP classes either. Although being rural might offer an "underrepresented" status itself. Be sure to mention your rodeo or FFA or 4-H background!
17
@sonnel. I paid for college largely through being a resident assistant at a huge Big 10 school. I counseled many first generation college white students who grew up in rural areas and had many of the same issues the author had.
13
This is a great article. Preferrential treatment for donors seems sort of impossible to be rid of, because colleges need that money to function, especially if they want to provide financial aid for the other students.
But legacy admissions are completely absurd. The fact that anyone receives a bump to their chance of getting into a school just for being descended from a former student promotes the type of dynastic inheritances and concentration of wealth and power that this country strives to prevent.
Giving any sort of boost to legacy students should be banned as a form of discrimination that largely favors wealthy white students while ignoring the merit-based system that college admissions should be.
6
@Scott B--Legacy had been around for ages, and state schools do it too. I graduated high school in 1969, and my first choice (state) school offered me a break on grade point, which I didn't need. I chose the other school I applied to because it gave me in-state status, which made school affordable.
1
@Scott B. I suspect big donors get much more of an advantage than legacies whose families can't afford to write sizable checks. I am not from the donor class, but I see the value in the money they offer the schools.
Surely, some of that money subsidizes students who are academically deserving but would be unable to attend without significant financial aid.
1
@Scott B "dynastic inheritances and concentration of wealth and power that this country strives to prevent." Slight correction: that this country once strove to prevent. Exhibit A: The Trump Family/Cabal/Crime Syndicate.
For binary people, life is simple, as they are.
For many families, contributing to charities and colleges is a big part of their social commitment, others not so much. Many people live in the world of thinking that everything they have, is based on their hard work, themselves, their virtue, ultimately their self centeredness.
My grandparents were immigrants with no high school education, my parents barely got out of high school and landed in the Depression and WWII, and I struggled through college. Now my kids have the kiss of death on them since they are not first generation college kids.
My family has and continues to make big sacrifices for our family education. Many legacy parents do the same. We are grateful, we work hard, we sacrifice, but we get no financial aid, we are abused by the FAFSA, and we are scorned by the PC types who see us as privileged because we are white and have achieved a modicum of success from hard work and sacrifice. We are not privileged. And we have little respect for the limited judgment and perspective of binary thinkers, who simply judge broadly and who don't really have a clue.
168
@Paul. Agreed! My wife and I work our tails off and sacrifice enormously since we don't qualify for financial aid and have to come up with 75K a year to send our daughter to college. (With two more right behind her).
But, somehow, rather than be seen as loving, devoted parents who are, in fact, subsidizing other students who get significant aid, we're seen as the problem from those who have not progressed past binary thinking.
39
@Paul, Do your kids really have "the kiss of death on them" for not being first generation college kids? How does this work, exactly? Good for you and your family for all the struggle and success. But how does the fact that a current generation now starting out where you started from, struggling to attend college, make them any less deserving of their shot than you were of yours? And how can their chances in life possibly be a "kiss of death" for your children? Shouldn't everyone deserving get a chance? Surely your own kids, by virtue of having grown up in an educated household with at least one parent who attended college, by the benefit of all that you, through your struggle, have been able to provide them, and yes, also by virtue of being white--for this does confer privileges that those without whiteness do no share--have good opportunities in life? What is this "kiss of death"?
12
@CS Mostly financial. FAFSA and The other financial services just look at our gross income, without a view to the high costs of living in a extraordinarily expensive area. FAFSA looks at national averages as to allowable costs when they mechanically come up with EFC - expected family contribution. We live in a state with high taxes, high housing, high everything, but we get no financial aid recognition of those high costs. FAFSA also treats many expenses for kids, like private schools or anything as optional. A few years ago when we applied for financial aid at a private school when I was unemployed, the financial aid person, a minority, suggested we sell our house and live in an small townhouse so we could pay full boat and subsidize minority kids. And the minority kids that have been picked by some private schools get well treated, we get to apply for loans to make ends meet.
The issue at the crux of this issue is some people expect someone else to pay through the nose while they should get a huge subsidy. While I recognize the 1% have it good, there are many people who are classified as upper middle class economically, who don't have it so easy. The balance is the issue I am trying to outline and that binary thinking, PC attitudes, are small minded. I am still good with that.
7
The greatest leveler of any playing field is a library card (if it is used wisely) and the love of reading. (defined by how well your parent(s) read WITH you as a child and started the process)
Not all must get into a college or university to have their worth in society affirmed. I know this is not the popular view, but that does not make it any less true.
What is true is that if you get into college (a good college at that) and do well within it, that you most likely will secure yourself more financially. There are plenty of people that will say that it unlocks everything, and perhaps that may be so.
If it is going to college to make more money as the end all be all to keep up with the higher echelons, then one has to ask why we are not changing the game altogether ?
I think we are getting closer to doing so.
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@FunkyIrishman: Agree with you about reading and library cards - those were two big items in my family when I was growing up. A library card is a passport to ANYTHING you're curious about, and it's free.
A passion for reading is the key to many things in life. I'd add that having curiosity is also crucial.
My father never got past 9th grade in school, but he was intelligent, and he read everything he could get his hands on. He also had an intense curiosity about the world.
His inherent intelligence, along with hard work and love of reading, led him to ace a highly competitive work-related exam at age 57 - and the exam results got him a promotion at age 60. He was able to retire at 65 with a better salary and pension than he would have otherwise had.
I remember vividly his focus on doing well on that test - and how many hours he spent, sitting at the kitchen table in the evenings, studying and memorizing for that test for many months in advance.
My siblings and I saw him demonstrate very powerfully that if you want something, you need to give it the time and effort required. We also learned it's never too late to make the effort.
And it all started with reading!
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@FunkyIrishman
I suspect the comment, "greatest leveler of any playing field is a library card" is the most insightful revelation I'll read this week.
4
Ivy League schools will continue to attract brilliant students and professors and must do so to offset the possibility that the schools are merely diploma mills willing to sell a piece of paper to the highest bidder. But the reality is that vast numbers of people are excluded from these gateways to the good life and power, not through lack of effort and ability but through an accident of birth, in this case, birth into the home of the not so rich and not so famous. There is nothing American about this kind of unfairness, so in that sense I do think that the Ivys hate America.
While I think that the ending class-based discrimination should be a condition of continued federal funding, I think also it's unlikely that will ever happen. Thus, for most people, that is just one more hurdle to jump, not unlike the numerus clausus that these schools inflicted on Jewish students for decades. In face of such obstacles, the answer is not to retreat into despair but to study harder and be mentally tougher than the trust fund kids. You will indeed have the last laugh.
6
@Philip
In other words, you believe in the meritocracy which this episode has revealed to be a fraud and which is belied by the last 40 years of income re-distribution (upward).
It ought to be obvious by now that the Trumps of this world are getting the last laugh.
7
@jrd: No, the Trumps of this world are dumb, and their last laugh will be in a gilded cage (hopefully as guests of a federal prison).
I would not trade my life, as hard as I have worked for what I have, for the fake-success of people like the Trumps. They're all surface, no depth - and their stupidity is deeply boring. If you worship the external, I guess you'd say they're successful, but IMO they are complete losers in every respect that matters.
If, as a society, Americans stopped thinking money was the most important thing in life, we'd all be a lot better off in every way.
1
I was going to suggest to Ms. Crucet that when her children are ready for college, she might be interested in a legacy admission. But somehow one doubts that she's going to make the required donations.
I am also wondering if her lawn sign war in Lincoln is still a thing.
8
Great article. The brief criticism of a supposed overreliance on test scores seems oddly out of place, however. I'm not saying that standardised tests like the SAT aren't biased, or that admissions should be based on test scores alone. But what's a better alternative? Legacy admissions? A greater emphasis on athletics, when coaches can evidently be paid off? Or extracurriculars, which can simply be made up? Or even essay writing, which can devolve into who can fabricate the most convincing story of hardship (remember T.M. Landry?)
Perhaps we should place an even greater emphasis on race, and continue to pit one group of minorities against another - not to mention the white kid growing up in a poor family?
Rather, let's focus on:
- Reducing bias in college entrance exams
- Creating more opportunities (and awareness) for the less privileged to better prepare themselves
- Investing more in public education - because why should it come down to the very limited number of spots at a select few Ivies
To paraphrase Churchill, test scores may be the worst form of admissions, except for all the other ones we've tried. Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water, please.
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"she joked about her mediocre math grades in high school, mentioning that though her school offered them, she’d never taken any A.P. classes." ...How, then, had she managed to get in?..Legacy."
It's one thing to get in, perhaps undeservedly. But that does not help in the classroom.
Are these people also coddled in the classroom? Do their test booklets and term papers say legacy? preferential treatment?
Life isn't fair or based on merit, but I would hope that the instructor grades based on merit. No other way under any circumstances is acceptable.
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@Joshua Schwartz. It’s well known that there is an “understanding” that wealthy legacy students whose families donate to the school will not be allowed to fail. Doesnt matter how they actually perform in their coursework. That’s how so many future American politicians make it through Ivy League universities.
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My father-in-law was punished by the University for giving a failing test grade to an athlete when he scored 20% right. Makes you wonder how many students in colleges are there for higher education.
Do the students who are not legacy, rich, or athletes bring the grades up?
Rich legislators want the rest to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Then they keep taking away supports for the middle and low income people. Now we find that that higher education, that entryway into better careers, has been reserving most slots for the rich, the legacy, the athletes. The few spots left are fought over by whites and Asians who feel that too many poor, blacks, and disabled are getting undeserved privileges despite meeting entrance criteria. How about expecting ALL students to meet minimum criteria to enter and to keep minimum grades to continue at the college?
21
@Umm..excuse me
"It's well known"? I taught at an Ivy League university, and I never once witnessed this "understanding." The hundreds of students I taught got the grade they earned, regardless of their last names.
The admissions and development offices are totally separate from the people in the classroom. In my department, it would be a scandal if someone from those offices called us up and asked us to go easy on a wealthy student.
119
I was a first generation student. I went to the Bronx H.S. of Science and had good grades, but not straight As. When it was time to apply to college, the guidance counselor told me not to bother with Cornell, because they had a quota on Jews, only allowing a handful in. That was back in 1960. Things may have changed regarding Jews, but overall the picture is still one of inequality.
36
I was a first generation child in my family going to college in the 1960s and have been forever grateful for my Cornell education. I was in all my science classes with students from Bronx HS S. I was so impressed by there outstanding preparation! It seemed everyone was from BHSS! Really. So maybe they had a quota on BHSS? I think maybe your instructor was not truthful with you. Don’t know how I managed in classes with them as my tiny high school had no AP classes!
8
I started at Cornell in 1971, and either a lot had changed since the '60s, or you were given misleading information. About 100 students from my NYC
high school applied to Cornell that year--with a majority of them being Jewish--and about half of them, myself included, were accepted. And on the campus itself, Jewish students constituted a significant percentage of the student body. Even back then, there was a Center for Jewish Living for the more Orthodox students, a place that included a Kosher dining hall, as well as a thriving Hillel.
That being said, I know a lot did change in those 10 years or so--when I entered Cornell as a pre-veterinary student, I was told the vet school had a quota of 2 women/year. By the time I graduated, that had changed to an almost 50% representation by women in the vet school.
There had also been a curfew until the year or 2 before I started, and 24 hour "visitation" by a guest had also been prohibited. But by '71, it was a whole different story!
BTW, I was a first-generation college attendee from a lower-middle class family. I paid my way through college with merit-based scholarships and money earned working up to 3 jobs at a time. It wasn't always easy, but college costs were also a lot lower back then.
8
@Diane’s
I'm not sure anyone at Bronx Science was accepted at Cornell in 1960 (except at the Ag school which was part of the State U. system). I know one reject went to Harvard.