The Blurry Line
Tuesday a huge scandal broke: rich people were buying their kid’s enrollment in some of the top universities in the United States! USC, Stanford, Wake Forest, the University of Texas, Georgetown, Yale, and UCLA were all named.
Wait a minute – rich people have been buying their kids into schools for years. That’s why there are buildings with rich peoples’ names on them, endowed “chairs” in varying departments (remember the “bin Laden” chair at Harvard), and named fields and stadiums. Sure the kids have to meet entrance requirements, but in the “black box” of college admissions, they get a “legacy” boost and a “financial endowment” boost.
So what’s different about Tuesday’s outrage? Well first, unlike the vague quid pro quo of donating money to the institution and depending on the admissions office to recognize the effort, this was more of a “sure deal.” We should assume that the “rich kids” probably had good grades in high school (quid pro quo works even better in private prep schools) but didn’t have the College Board scores to make the cut. The two scams used here either guaranteed an outstanding College Board score, or guaranteed an athletic admission waiver allowing a lower score into the institution.
Both of those are currently legitimate ways to get into school. Great grades, average Board scores, but run 10.2 in the 100 meter dash? USC needs you, and that 100 meter clocking will make up for an average test score. Did you really think all those football players at Notre Dame met all the academic entrance requirements? The Fighting Irish want to win some football games too.
What’s different about this example, is that these weren’t 10.2 100 meter runners, or 347 pound football tackles. These were kids with “created” credentials, not actual athletes at all. The forged athletic successes weren’t good enough to be on scholarship, just strong enough to make it onto the tail end of the water polo, or rowing, or tennis teams (not that these kids could even play the sports.) It was those last few team slots, where coaches don’t have scholarship money but do have some enrollment “waivers” to fill out their squads. Add faked credentials to a huge sum of bribe money, and the coach put the “athlete” in for enrollment.
I’m sure some coaches decided that was a great fundraiser. I can hear the internal conversation now: “…well, I can get the money the school won’t give me to make my team better, more competitive, build a new track, and it only costs me a spot on the roster that wouldn’t probably play anyway. It’s just like an endowment!!?” Or some coaches: “I deserve a raise, I need this to support my family, I always wanted to go to the Bahamas!!!”
None of this makes the fake credentialing and lying right. It was absolutely cheating, and sets a horrible example for the team members and other students. But it really not a huge leap from what happens today, just a little shuffle over an already blurry line.
And what about those kids who cheated on the ACT or SAT? Here’s another dirty little secret: success in college is much more closely correlated to success with grades in high school than with the outcome of a single standardized test. A good friend in college had a 4.0 GPA out of an elite prep school, but completely froze on the SAT. A combined score of 850 (out of a possible 1600) meant that the top colleges were off the list. Luckily for him and us, Denison University was willing to look past the test score, and we got a brilliant and successful student.
But the most competitive schools in the nation have to find some way to sort out their admissions. Everyone has a 3.9 or 4.0 (or in this modern age of grade inflation, a 4.4 or 4.5!!) So the next step is using the Boards, get those 36’s on the ACT and 1600’s on the SAT (and even higher with the essay portion kicked in.) They know it isn’t a matter of future success, but there has to be some way to take the almost 30,000 applicants to Yale and narrow it down to the 2000 that are accepted.
There’s a major industry in “teaching the test” today. Parents pay $43/hour (Sylvan Learning Center, Columbus, Ohio) to tutor kids and raise those scores!! Reality for parents is that it can be a good investment: in the state universities in Ohio, the scholarship money starts at 25 on the ACT and goes up dramatically with each additional point. A few thousand now could save many thousands in tuition costs later.
For those kids who have grades and simply aren’t good test takers, there are plenty of great colleges in the United States for you. But if parents have to have their kid in Stanford, or Yale, or USC or the others, and the test prep classes won’t cut it – then they have found a way to spend their money – cheat on the test. Have someone else take it or have the test proctor correct it afterwards. It’s all cheating, and it’s all about money. Pay off the Proctor, put the correct fingerprint on test, then have the brilliant “test proxy” step in and score another 36!!
No: it’s cheating, forging, and defrauding the test and the colleges. But if the standardized test score really doesn’t say that much about future success in college, why not? They are just buying a sure thing, instead of a risky college endowment that might not result in admissions.
Sure, the kids who don’t cheat, and the parents who can’t buy their way in, get screwed. There’s no denying it’s wrong, and the real damage being done is that it simply is one more way that the rich get richer, and the poor get worse. But something to think about: it’s only different in “degreed” from what colleges accept everyday. Sure it crossed a line, but it’s a very blurry line, one that’s been moved a whole lot already. Sure the cheaters who got caught should be in trouble, but the whole process was slanted for the money before. To make it “right,” it will take a whole lot more than sending some celebrities to jail.
