Charges against parents accused of gaming the admissions process are a defense of the institutions’ property, not of meritocracy.
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[JB question: A rather strange, legalistic, ambiguous NYT editorial ?]
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Federal prosecutors presented themselves as champions of meritocracy on Tuesday as they announced the indictments of 33 affluent parents who they say sought to buy spots for their children at selective institutions, and of college employees accused of helping them.
“There can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy,” said Andrew Lelling, the United States attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He described the parents charged in the case as samples from “a catalog of wealth and privilege,” and he added, “For every student admitted through fraud, an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected.”
If the allegations are true, people should be held to account. But this case is not a defense of meritocracy in college admissions. What the government actually is defending is private property — the right of the colleges to make their own decisions about admissions, and collect the payments.
Indeed, Mr. Lelling himself made clear at a news conference on Tuesday that the government is well aware wealthy people regularly donate money to colleges to secure the matriculation of their children — and the government is not attacking the conduct of that business as usual.
“We’re not talking about donating a building so that a school is more likely to take your son or daughter,” he said at the news conference. “We’re talking about deception and fraud.”
The key distinction here is not just the amount of money, but the recipient. A donation is made to a college, while a bribe is paid to an employee who, in effect, is stealing an admissions slot, hawking it and pocketing the proceeds. (To comply with tax laws, donors also cannot engage in an explicit quid pro quo with a college. The well-rehearsed pas de deux of donations and admissions must be made to appear as a voluntary exchange of gifts, not a binding deal.)
The allegations underscore the urgency many American parents feel about securing a place for their progeny at a selective college. In an era when most Americans are struggling to succeed economically, many of those who have prospered are terrified that their children will not get every opportunity to replicate that success.
According to the indictment, the organizers of the scheme pitched parents on the idea that everyone else was cheating, too. “The playing field is not fair,” one told Gordon Caplan, co-chairman of the global law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, in a conversation recorded by the government. Parents were encouraged to take their children to therapists who would certify that they had learning disabilities, so they would have extra time to take the tests, often with a proctor paid to manipulate the results.
This is infuriating for parents and students who chose to play by the rules in seeking college admission — or had no choice but to do so. But no one should be under the illusion those rules are strictly meritocratic.
Merit is not easily defined. American colleges have long valued athletic ability, a quality rarely considered in college admissions elsewhere in the developed world. Schools similarly may value artistic talent, or other forms of merit not closely correlated with grades or standardized tests. And colleges have a legitimate interest in emphasizing various forms of diversity.
But it seems safe to stipulate that being born to wealthy parents is not by itself meritorious.
Wealthy families often spend heavily to groom their children as candidates for admissions to selective colleges. Private school tuition, tutoring and test preparation classes, campus visits and coaches who help to write personal essays are all advantages largely unavailable to less affluent students, irrespective of innate talent. Paying for tutoring is different from paying someone to take a test for you — but students without money don’t have either option.
Indeed, the very nature of the crimes alleged by the government illustrates the ways in which college admissions are not based only on academic merit. For example, John Vandemoer, the coach of the sailing team at Stanford University, is charged with certifying a landlubber as a sailing team recruit in exchange for a payment to the sailing team of $110,000. The important point here is that Stanford reserves some slots in each class for people who are good at sailing.
Even when considering comparable applicants, colleges favor the wealthy. The widespread practice of preferentially admitting the children of alumni is a fund-raising technique.
And for the truly wealthy, there is always the option of making a significant donation.
Whether students are admitted because their parents paid for a boathouse, or because their parents bribed the sailing coach, it is still the case that merit alone is not deciding the issue. [JB comment: ?]
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