Gamal Abdelaziz is accused of paying $300,000 to get his daughter admitted into the University of South Carolina based on false qualifications. John Wilson is accused of paying $220,000 to be admitted to the same school for water polo, and $1.5M to guarantee admission for his daughters into Harvard. Also under scrutiny are top athletics coaches accepting millions of dollars to allow underqualified kids into their program. These, among others, are the latest scandals for college admissions and show how some parents are able to pay massive amounts of money to unfairly get their children into top universities when they would not be qualified to go otherwise.
Elizabeth Bruenig from the Washington Post provides her opinion on a similar scandal from earlier this year, she says that this proves that "you can get ahead simply by having rich parents, and elite credentials aren’t strictly the fruit of grit and skill." Parent paying for their unqualified children to go to top universities breaks the idea of social mobility in the US as it means rich families can get the best educational opportunities while everyone else needs to work much, much harder for the same thing. In addition, the reason why schools like Harvard are so nationally recognized as exceptional is because they admit only the best students and thus their graduates are meant to be equally exceptional. If everyone cheated, Harvard would not be as impressive a school because it would not be made up of the best students, only rich students. People who cheat the system are unjustly piggy-backing off of people who have talent and work hard because when employers see Harvard on resumes they think of the exceptional students at the university, not of someone who cheated to enter.
Another problem with rich parents being able to get their children the best opportunities is that it allows many future generations of that family to live easy life-styles while regular people need to continue to work hard for still lesser outcomes. A rich family can pay for their children to go to a top school when they are unqualified and the children will be able to get an excellent education and the family will continue to amass more money. However, others are forced to work hard and have talent to enter these top schools, and work hard the rest of their lives to support their families. In addition to increasing economic inequality, people who became rich once can have generations lazily live off of their riches and contribute less to society than someone who worked hard their whole lives and deserved admission to Harvard.
These scandals represent an attack on meritocracy and social mobility in America. It denies opportunities to hardworking students and gives them to unqualified students solely because the latter's parents have more money, further enriching the family to the cost of other, poorer families.
About the recent scandal:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/12/education/admissions-scandal-usc-parents.html
Opinion on a similar scandal from earlier this year, the author provides and interesting position on social mobility and rich families.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-college-admissions-scandal-isnt-fair-nothing-about-our-social-mobility-system-is/2019/03/13/79d4eb30-45ab-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html
4 comments:
I think that the recent college admissions scandals have revealed many of the inequalities that exist within our school system, and the systemic barriers that exist to disadvantage certain students. School funding relies heavily property taxes, which means that families living in affluent areas are able to provide a better education for their students, while families in lower income areas do not have access to the same level of enrichment and education in their school districts. These vastly different environments are not equal in terms of opportunity or learning, but solutions to this inequality are difficult.
Many methods that have been created to address the issues within college admissions, such as Affirmative Action, and the UC decision to go test blind, have mixed data supporting them (even the UC's own widespread study found that despite racial discrepancies in SAT scores, when viewed holistically, disadvantaged students' SAT scores were able to help them get in). The problem with addressing just one part of the inequalities in college admissions, such as the SAT, is that it ignores the same inequalities that will continue exist in every other factor, such as GPA or extracurriculars.
Potentially, a more effective (but probably unrealistic and much more difficult) solution would address the root of these inequalities rather than trying to mitigate only some of the effects. Overall, it is difficult to have a system that is supposed to be based on merit, such as college admissions, when students are simply not on level playing fields. How much of student success is self-driven, and how much is environmental? In a country that has an increasing issue with wealth inequality, it is difficult to know who is really "qualified."
A few months ago I watched a documentary called "Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal," which really opened my eyes to the number of "doors" money can open for students (Like to trailer: https://youtu.be/LFHj8e7mU_I). The documentary reveals the undertakings of Rick Singer, a "college counselor" who would open "side doors" as he called them for children of some of the wealthiest families in the United States. By photoshopping images and altering resumes or portfolios, he was able to transform these kids into top athletes and gain them admission through the athletic departments of the schools they were applying to, contacting directors of the various departments and essentially describing bribes/donations that would be made to their programs should the student get accepted and then not even play on the team. Kids who had never played a sport before were made to look like top high school athletes on paper, which made it easy to avoid raising flags for other school administrators or admissions officers. This whole documentary highlighted dishonesty and greed present in various campuses around the country, and similarly exposed this terrible notion that parents believed their children weren't good enough on their own, and needed to cheat their way in to be secure (most parents didn't even tell their children they had payed to get them in, so imagine the reactions the children had when the scandal was brought to light - horrible and crushing to think about). Every cheater that gets admitted into a school takes away another deserving person's spot, which is entirely unjust. I think that this recent scandal along with the Rick Singer scandal have highlighted the lack of adequate security with regards to college admissions and ensuring honesty amongst applicants. Given the wide range of environments people grow up in and experiences they have, the college application process already is not equitable, so I think that the best way to approach this is to figure out ways to improve conditions in areas which lack educational resources, and enhance communities with innovative and engaging opportunities for students. This is much easier to say than achieve, but channeling money into establishing community centers, libraries, and other such resources could prove very beneficial in many areas around the country that currently lack them. It is important that the "cheating culture" emerging in the U.S. be mitigated and hopefully removed altogether, so increasing equity and access to quality education along with safeguarding the admissions process are important steps in order to do so.
The recent college admissions scandals in the past few years have only further highlighted the variety of inequities existing in America's education system because I agree with many points that this blog post makes including that of mentioning students from affluent and wealthy families are more likely to be successful and attend prestigious colleges because they have more opportunities given to them. Especially since regions like the Bay Area where the education system is notoriously expensive, the resources available for students here is far different in comparison to that of students attending schools in regions like the central valley, whether even though we're in the same state, the atmosphere and campus culture may not be as cut throat. In addition, there is mounting pressure and stigmatism regarding college and I've witnessed this countless times on campus where people have symbolized the college someone goes to as a representation of how educated they are. This issue isn't just stemming from students, but also from parents because they want their kids to attend a prestigious university. As a result, the mounting pressure has resulted in many families becoming even more desperate to send their kid to a prestigious university and are willing to take steps even if they are illegal to achieve this and attain a certain amount of "Validation". In order to minimize this level of education inequity, more funding should be placed in the education system for areas that have a larger amount of students who are underperforming or struggling, and this money can go towards supplying more teachers, administrators, tutors, etc. Although this is unrealistic, the issue of education inequity is going to persist if nothing is done about it because students from less economically fortunate families are less likely going to maximize their academic potential since there's less opportunities available towards them, or be able to attend college.
College admissions scandals are interesting, but they're nothing new. At the personal level, it isn't rare to fudge small details on an application, or misrepresent certain characteristics about yourself. At a family level, wealthy parents often do donate to schools to improve a student's chance of entry. However, at the Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT level (HYPMS), those schools have endowments in the $10B+ range. If a parent isn't donating 9 figures or better, it's not enough to buy your way in. Oracle founder Larry Ellison famously made heavy donations to Stanford hoping to get his kid in, and his kid got rejected. At the very top end, it's hard to buy your way in. At the same time, labeling college admissions as a meritocracy glosses over many important details. What's the single most important factor in college admissions? Course rigor and grades. Wealthy students can afford tutors, educated parents take their kids to museums and create pro-learning environments more often than uneducated parents, and push their kids to take advanced classes. Considering extracurriculars and test scores: wealthy or connected students will have opportunities to partake in elite extracurriculars. I'm talking about researching with college professors, starting organizations that actually have an impact, etc. Yes, a student from any background can do this with the right amount of luck and grit, but it's far easier for a wealthy student. Also, they can afford SAT/ACT tutoring. Khan Academy prep is good, but it pales in comparison to a $250/hour 90 minute session with a standardized test expert, who can teach you all of the deepest tricks of the test and explain practice problems in depth to you. College admissions scandals are disconcerting yes, and blatantly falsifying information is alarming, but the meritocracy of college admissions was never really fair. The wealth level of a student's parents determines so much, that even before that student touches a high school campus, their college is almost already figured out (within a certain range of schools).
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