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Recently, many have expressed outrage about the college admission scandal, and the nation has seemingly been scandalized by the notion that parents would use their wealth to scheme their children into elite colleges and universities. Lori Laughlin and her daughter, Olivia Jade, who was accepted to USC as a member of the rowing team despite her inability to row, were both fired from all their major public roles. In announcing the criminal charges against the parents involved in the admissions scandal, U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling stated that “There will not be a separate admissions system for the wealthy.” Amid all this outrage, one might think these parents disrupted a meritocratic admissions process and created a route for the rich to gain an advantage, which Attorney Lelling will not have, but one would be wrong. As The Times broke down here, a landmark study found that children from the top 1% of income distribution are 77 times more likely to attend elite colleges or universities than children from the bottom 20%; there are roughly equal amounts of students from the top.1% as there are from the bottom 20% at Ivy League and highly selective schools; most Ivy League schools have more students from the top 1% than from the bottom 60%, and more than 80% of students from the top 1% of attend selective schools or better, while only roughly 10% of students from the bottom 20% do so. The data clearly indicates that the rich use their wealth to gain admission into elite schools, and it’s time we stop pretending that college admissions is a meritocracy and embrace selling admission spots to the rich.

Despite the overwhelming data that clearly demonstrates that the rich, and not the hard-working or the brilliant, attend elite colleges and universities, most parents of students at elite schools (and the schools themselves) promote the demonstrably false and harmful notion that elite schools are filled with the best and brightest students. To do this, the parents and schools note that their kids and students ‘earned’ their admission, and work in tandem to ensure that that the vast majority of students who ‘earn’ admission have rich parents. The schools require extra-curricular activities and meritocratically choose the student with a private trumpet instructor. In an alleged attempt to give all students a fair chance, the schools rely on standardized SAT and ACT scores.

However, as both parents and schools are well aware, these tests are easily gameable for those with time to study and the money to hire tutors. Additionally, elite colleges and universities give great credence to those students applying from ‘competitive’ private high schools, whose parents, only coincidentally, of course, are rich. As a result, despite all elite schools’ Howard Schultz-like insistence that they are need-blind, and despite the presence of their oft-touted brilliant faculty, elite schools have not figured out how to structure their admissions system such that students from the top 1% are not 77 times more likely to be offered admission than those from the bottom 20%. Since the students at these schools, do have the highest test scores, come from the most ‘competitive’ private schools, and participate in unbelievable extra-curricular activities, almost everyone continues to buy into the notion that students at elite schools are the best and brightest.

The parents involved in the admissions scandal help us dispose of this notion by demonstrating that their method of getting their children into elite schools was just a more efficient version of the method the vast majority of parents employ to get their children into elite schools. The parents involved in the admissions scandal certainly could have taught their children how to row, and if they did, everyone would have been oddly happy with their children attending schools allegedly for the best and brightest, but why pay for, and have your kids participate in, rowing lessons when you could just pay the coach? Having a parent who pays a coach does not make one the best and brightest just like attending an elite school, having unlimited free time, opening a startup hedge-fund at five, and having a parent that hires you a rowing coach, an SAT tutor, a college-admissions essay writer, and a college admissions counselor does not make from the best and brightest. However, unlike those who attend elite schools touting their high-school, SAT score, and incredible business experience, those involved in the admissions scandal acknowledged, at least to themselves, that, in general, spots are bought and not earned.

The acknowledgment that admission spots at elite schools are bought and not earned gives rise to the rare idea that could benefit the poor, the rich, and universities themselves: exchange 80% of admission spots at elite schools for a million-dollar donation. First, this will help eliminate all the wasted money spent on crew instructors, SAT tutors, and admission counselors, as well as all the wasted time kids must spend doing these useless activities just to maintain the façade that admission spots are earned. (Sadly, the fencing, water polo, and crew industries may take a hit) Second, elite colleges can continue to ensure that the vast majority of their students are rich and get an extra million per student. Third, rich parents can avoid the hassle of hiring all the various instructors that make their children appear smart and hard-working, and can write off a million-dollar charitable donation, which schools can use for the noble causes of building another 50 thousand-dollar fountain or 50 million-dollar building. Fourth, all those who cannot afford the million-dollar donation can meritocratically compete for roughly the same 20% of spots they fight for now, without schools worrying that they do not have enough rich kids to accept the very poor, and, most importantly, with everyone acknowledging that most are rejected because elite schools are predominantly for the rich, and not because they are, as Mayor Pete described Harvard, for those with super-powers.

Still, one may worry that this acknowledgment would harm the rich, because without the justification that elite schools have the best and brightest students, employers would not be able to justify almost exclusively hiring the rich kids from elite schools. However, the rich can rest assured that this acknowledgment would not fundamentally disrupt the way employers hire from those schools, because they can justify their hiring from these schools by arguing that regardless of who is admitted to them, the spectacular education the schools provide makes their students irreplaceable.

JoeJoe

Writing since July 2019 · 1 story contributed