April 11, 2019--Yale for Sale

Tuesday, in Boston, federal prosecutors threw the book at more than a dozen parents who refused to cooperate or plead guilty to illegal activities they engaged in to assure their children were admitted undeservedly to some of America's most selective colleges.

By adding fraud and money laundering to the initial cluster of charges prosecutors significantly upped the ante so that, if convicted, the accused could spend 40 years in the slammer. Though 10 years for first-time offenders is more likely that's still a lot of hard time.

Among Tuesday's defendants was Hollywood actress, Lori Loughlin who must have mistaken the court appearance for a Red Carpet event as she appeared all glammed up, smiling as she shook hands with the prosecutors and worked the courtroom, posing while signing autographs for some of those observing the hearing.

Orange jumpsuits, then, may turn out to be the new black.

Thinking more about the admissions game, I have a few heretical thoughts--

Though I love lacrosse and field hockey I do not see why students who engage in these and other sports, when applying for admission, are given a leg up. Including, if they qualify for the varsity team, full scholarships. With tuition at many of these elite places totaling more than $50,000 a year, this is quite a deal. 

And, as we are learning, this arrangement presents opportunities for corrupt coaches with admission vouchers to make a fortune in bribes.

Rather than admission by coaches' prerogative (sport-by-sport they are given x number of dedicated places in each incoming freshman class) in addition to the old fashioned way of seeking admission (doing well on the SATs and in high school course work, evidence of a commitment to public service, writing a persuasive personal statement, and securing and submitting strong letters of recommendation), why not put a few dozen slots aside for the highest applicant cash bidders? Doing it unabashedly and with full transparency?

For example, a few million dollars contributed to the scholarship fund that focuses on low-income students, or to the development of a new major in, say, computer science, or to upgrade the library, or to build a new dorm "buys" your child a coveted place in the incoming class.

Additionally, the $500,000 of under-the-table payoffs Loughlin and her husband allegedly made available so their daughter (who incidentally on Facebook says she has no interest in going to college) would be admitted to USC, the beneficiary of the bribing is just their daughter and her parents who would have bragging rights about their child's "achievement." 

But, by my scheme, buying one's way into, say, Yale, would benefit many students and could be viewed as an act of generosity. It also would be tax deductible!

We might as well cynically but truthfully admit that the rich have many more lifelong advantages than people with fewer assets. Including all sorts of benefits they can afford to provide when it comes to their children preparing for and, one way or another, seeking admission to college.

My suggestion, which I am liking more-and-more as I think about it, at least goes some way to level the playing field. Pun intended.

March 18, 2019--The College Retention Game

For the past week we've understandably been focusing on college admissions. 

The public is learning about how our society's ultimate expression of meritocracy, where if you have the goods, no matter your background, opportunities await, is in large part a corrupt, hypocritical scam. 

Pay-for-play in its many forms is how college admissions works when it comes to admitting students to many of the nation's elite colleges. The truth is that the process is not a competition on a level playing field where merit wins out, but a rigged system where the already successful and entitled have two legs up.

But then there is another game--how students admitted to the Ivies and similar institutions are coddled and protected even when they don't deserve it.

Allow me to illustrate by an example from my own undergraduate years at Columbia.

What did I know. I was an inexperienced, striver kid from a Brooklyn immigrant family. But I did notice that a few of my classmates, who associated with each other, had family names that were familiar.

There was Arthur MacArthur IV (the general's son), Peter Fairchild (whose family were scions of the aircraft industry), and others whose people founded some of America's most successful businesses and whose surnames revealed that they came from the world of Who's-Who.

At freshman orientation the dean welcomed us by among things indicating that now that we were Columbia Men (women were not yet admitted) the college would do all it could to help us succeed. 

He went on to tell a story about an orientation he attended at a large state university. Its dean told the assembled class, "Look to your left," which everyone did, "Now look to your right," which the freshmen did. "By this time next year, one of you will have dropped out or been expelled."

The Columbia dean continued, "Though this was that university's policy--admit many and then prune the class based on academic progress, or lack thereof--Columbia's policy was just the opposite. "We expect all of you, 100 percent of you, to thrive. And we will do what we can to help assure that."

To already cynical me this sounded like cheerleading. I intended to work hard and do well all on my own and not wind up in academic trouble.

But this was not true for all my classmates. In fact, I came to know a few, including some from prominent families (neither Peter nor Arthur, who did well), who majored more in carousing and beer drinking than literature or mathematics or sociology.

I knew one quite well. At the end of the first semester he had not completed all his courses and for the ones he did finish he earned straight Ds.

He was summoned to meet with the dean who told him though it is not unusual for freshman to fall pray to campus enticements, he needed to work harder and do better or he would find himself at the end of the academic year on probation.

Which is precisely what my friend did not do--he continued to get Ds and was as promised placed on probation.

He did not do much better during his sophomore year and once again was invited to meet with the dean, who informed him that unless he improved he would be faced with the possibility of academic dismissal.

The dean this time remind my friend that his family sent generations of their sons to Columbia and all had done well and graduated. For that reason, and because of his family's generosity to the college, he was making an exception. He would get one final chance to raise his grades.

But again my classmate failed to do so and he (and I) expected him to be expelled. 

He wasn't.

The dean one final time time told him that since he was going into his third year and that the college had a policy of not expelling students who were versions of juniors. "Versions" because he had not completed enough courses to be an actual junior. 

The dean shrugged and told him that he therefore could continue until he graduated.

I wondered about how my friend would have fared in that midwestern university we heard about at orientation. The answer is obvious. And I wondered about his family's generosity. What they must have been doing to show their "appreciation" to the dean and the college for their "understanding" treatment of the son who was expected to enter the family business after four years at Columbia. 

The answer to that is equally obvious. 

If I had thought to search, I likely would have found a lecture hall newly inscribed with his family name.

September 30, 2013--The 99th Percentilers

As the Occupy Wall Street protesters reminded us last year, there is the one percent and then the rest of us who make up the 99 percent.

Also in New York--in Manhattan--there is another 99 percent. Actually, 99 percentilers: those 4-and 5-year-olds who score in the 99th percentile on the exam that determines whether or not (mainly not) one's toddler is admitted to the city's most competitive and prestigious private schools. Places such as Dalton, Trinity, and Horace Mann. Schools that from this early age significantly determine if junior 12 years later will be admitted to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. And after that, who knows, the Supreme Court, Wall Street, and even the White House.

New York is the town that Lake Wobegon envied--where every kid is not just above average but way, way above average. Some are even 99 percentile scorers on the Early Childhood Admission Assessment exam that up to now has been the filter that separates the anointed from the just OK.

And if your child is among the anointed, that of course means you are as well. Nothing is more affirming than that--it means you passed along your superior DNA and all the tutoring and chauffeuring from chess lessons to French lessons, from peewee soccer to peewee field hockey paid off. One's foundational work is done and all that remains is resume-building for college applications.

And bragging.

According to a report in the New York Times, here's how it feels among the wealthy in Manhattan if your child does not score in the 99th percentile--

Justine Oddo is just such a mother whose twins got into "only" the 95s. She opined, "It seemed like everyone got 99s. It was demoralizing. It made me think my kids are not as smart as the rest of the kids."

Maybe yes; maybe no. It could be that Ms. Oddo did not shell out the $200 an hour it costs to have one's child tutored for the private school admissions test.

Well aware of all the coaching and prepping, the Independent Schools Admissions Association recommended to its 140 members that they no longer use these exam scores. What to do with applicants is another story--using numbers and percentiles makes life easier than having to rely on interviews and letters of recommendation.

Yes, they do require these letters, though what a recommender would write about a youngster just out of diapers is hard to fathom.

"He's a good eater."

"She knows how to use a smart phone."

"He knows his alphabet and can count to 100."

"She can take off and put on her own snowsuit."

In the meantime, the parental celebrating continues. One couple whose daughter is a 99 percentiler threw a big catered bash for her and her dozens of best friends at their Hamptons cottage.

One guest wondered what they will do for an encore when she gets into "their school of choice."

Maybe a long weekend in Paris?

September 6, 2013--Magic

For some reason probably related to the passage of time we just now know three or four young people who are high school seniors and are in the throes of applying to college.

They are all excellent students, by Wobegon standards well above average, and it has been our great pleasure in recent years to have had numerous conversations with them about their thinking and have attempted to help them select just the right half dozen places to which to apply.

Our favorite part of the process is to hear their ideas about the personal essays they will be required to write as a key part of the application process.

We know enough about how the admissions business at elite colleges works to urge them not to turn too much of this over to advisors and coaches who charge lots of money to help the children of the affluent prepare their applications, especially encouraging them to write something to distinguish themselves from the also-well-prepared "competition." Admissions professionals can spot over-doctored essays and are inclined to quickly place them in the reject pile.

The young folks we are engaged with this year have not spent the past 10 years building resumes out of volunteerism, travel, and arts and science projects but have pursued deep interests that they would have otherwise followed even if they weren't college-bound.

One friend's granddaughter wants to find a college where she can continue her ballet training. She isn't thinking about dance as her eventual profession and doesn't even care if there would be ballet classes on campus.

"It's just that it's so important to me, has been since I was little, that I need to have access to a studio, on campus or off, where I can take classes."

"Are you thinking about writing about ballet in your application? It might be a good . . ."

With an apologetic smile she cut Rona off, "I am already drafting something. And maybe not about what you might think." It was Rona's time to smile. "For me," she continued, "it's all about balance, the balance that ballet requires and trains you to perfect."

"That sounds interesting," I said. "How about . . ."

With an even broader smile this time she interrupted me. It was clear she wanted us to hear her out, unfiltered, and not be unduly influenced about what "adults" might preemptively say or suggest.

"But I am not writing about ballet techniques and the classes I've taken, or even the performances I've been a part of."

"But that's what colleges are looking . . ."

"Maybe they are, but I want to write about the ways in which ballet has been and continues to be essential to me."

"For example?" Rona wisely thought to ask questions rather than make comments or prematurely offer suggestions.

"For example, what I have taken from my involvement with ballet is not just about the physical balance it emphasizes, as important as that is, but how it contributes to my inner, non-physical sense of stability and centeredness. I'm not sure this will work in an essay--but it's what I am attempting to express. I know my dance limitations and therefore prefer to attempt to write about ballet in a personally metaphoric way."

She paused to see what we thought. Neither one of us said anything. "I hope this won't come across as sounding sophomoric and manufactured in a personal-essay-writing tutorial. I know I have to stay on the safe side of the line, making this sound insightful, authentic, and written in my own words and voice."

Again she waited to see what we might have to say.

I jumped in--"I love how you're thinking about this. Especially the 'personally metaphoric' part. That seems appropriate, not sophomoric at all, though I can see the danger, in the wrong hands, of it becoming smarmy. But," I added quickly with Rona nodding vigorously, "in your hands there is minimal danger of that."

And just yesterday we had lunch with the son of a close friend who was up in Maine checking out the state's troika of top-notch liberal arts colleges--Colby; Bates; and my favorite, Bowdoin.

"You know about my interest in magic?"

In fact we did. For years he has literally been playing tricks on us, often over Sunday morning breakfasts. At first, he perfected simple card tricks which we could see though since his technique was primitive. He was, after all, at that point, only eight years old. But then, over time, his tricks metamorphosed into magic. They became more complex and his technique, even at close range over the breakfast table, flawless and truly mysterious.

"Well, as everyone has been telling me, if I write my personal statement about magic it had better be about more than the tricks themselves. And to be competitive I need also to talk more than about the meaning of magic to my life. Even to me that's boring."

He shrugged as if he was still struggling with how to approach the subject. "I'm thinking of coming at it from a perceptual and neurological perspective. You know," and neither Rona nor I in fact did know, "the brain's ability to fill in perceptual voids. Film is a good example. Twenty-four images a second are projected, but because of the brain's capacity to make things whole when they are in reality are made up of parts, we 'see' [he made air quotes] the projected images as seamless, not herky-jerky."

"I get it," I sort of did, "This sounds like a promising tack. Blending your interest in magic and science is . . ."

"Is not what I want to do. I'm actually more interested in philosophy than science and am looking for a way to connect it with my magic. The kinds of tricks I am now working on, I think, have 'philosophical' [air quotes again] implications."

"Tell me more," Rona said.

"Well, isn't one of philosophy's historic concerns the struggle to determine how much free will we have as opposed to how much is predetermined?"

"Wow," Rona said, duly impressed, "You really have tricks that deal with this?"

"There is this one that I do that involves a sealed envelope on which something is written. I then show someone from the audience a stack of cards that have all sorts of different things printed on them. After going through a lot of process and shuffling, I ask them to pick a card at random from the pile. To use their 'free will.'" He winked at us.

"After that I have them open the envelope and, low-and-behold, the card in the envelope--as if predetermined--has the same thing on it. Amazing, right?"

We were impressed.

"At the moment of working on this but haven't got it fully figured out. I know what I'm thinking about is a stretch and I don't want to come off as too cute or clever. To make it work, I have to hit the philosophy part just right."

"And all in 500 words," his father added.

"I agree," I said. "And while you're being philosophical, you know from Aristotle, don't you . . ."

"Can you believe it," Rona interjected, "we're sitting here by the water eating oysters and he's talking about Aristotle?"

I knew she was fooling with me and so continued, "You could consider citing Aristotle, who I think in his Poetics, wrote about the 'suspension of disbelief.' How in drama, as an example, even though we know there are actors pretending to be kings, rather than dismiss that as make-believe, we suspend our disbelief so we can be drawn into 'believing,'" my chance to make quotation marks, "they're kings rather than mere mortals."

"I do know about that," he said, "It's actually of great interest to me and it is very much a part of what allows magic to work. But," he winked again, "it wasn't Aristotle who wrote about suspending disbelief. It was Coleridge. You know him, Samuel Taylor Coleridge."

I hate being wrong about these kinds of things but to be corrected by him felt both deserved and wonderful.

All excited, Rona said to him "Hurray up and finish growing up, will you, so we can turn the world over to your generation. It's time for us, who made such a mess of the world, to step out of the way."