I suppose the question comes down to this: who is stupider,
the offspring of Felicity Huffman, Lori Loughlin, and others who couldn’t get
into college without their parents spending (collectively) millions of dollars
on bribes, or the parents who got caught spending millions just to get their
kids into a college they weren’t qualified to get into?
This reminds me of a Chinese kung-fu movie whose name I
don’t know, but the plot dealt with a young man whose family was killed by
outlaws and he wanted to learn kung-fu to extract revenge. The problem
was that he failed the test to get into the local kung-fu school, so he had no
way of learning martial arts. He then concocted a brilliant idea—he would
get into the school by applying for a position as a teacher at the school, and
once he was inside, he could learn kung-fun and revenge his family. Of
course, the problem is, if he isn’t good enough to get in as a student, how
could he get in as a teacher?
If Lori Loughlin’s kid couldn't get into USC by way of her academic
credentials (credentials that could only be burnished by having a rich parent
who could pay for private schools), then how would she do well there once she
got in via being on the crew team? If you aren’t smart enough to get into
a college but you are admitted anyway, you’ll spend four years surrounded by
classmates who are smarter than you because they did get in legitimately.
Maybe you’ll graduate with what used to be called “a gentleman’s C” (I’m not
sure what it would be called in tis “MeToo” era) but your GPA won’t make the
Dean’s list.
Of course, I’m applying logic to the situation. From
what I understand from perusing various articles in the general media, no one
involved thought the college admissions process was logical. Wealthy,
famous people had kids who couldn’t get into prestigious schools, so OBVIOUSLY
the selection process was biased (it never occurred to these people that it was
biased in favor of intelligent people). A huckster convinced rich idiots
that, to get into college, your kid doesn’t have to be smart; your kid needs a
“brand” that will impress admissions offices. I’m a little unclear on how
paying off coaches to say your kids are on crew team helps their “brand,” but
then I got into an Ivy League law school by doing awesome on my LSAT.
Prestigious schools are prestigious because they can be
selective; they can be selective because they attract a large number of
applications because they are prestigious. It’s a “chicken and egg”
situation.
One of the consequences of the scandal is that now there is
a lawsuit for $500 billion by someone who claims their kid was kept out of a
“good” school because of all the corruption. One source said that the
plaintiff’s child ended up at UC Davis, which was on Money’s list of the 20
Best Colleges in America. Of course, as was pointed out in the movie Lady
Bird, who wants to go to a college known for its veterinary department?
The most ridiculous aspect of all this is that most studies
agree that going to a prestigious college does NOT increase a young person’s
chances for success. Extensive research has shown that where your kid goes to college doesn’t have much, if
any, impact on subsequent success in life or business.
People who go to prestigious schools succeed because they are smart enough to
get into a prestigious school legitimately, and if these types of students opt
to go to a non-prestigious school (for financial or geographic reasons), they
tend to succeed anyway because of their inherent qualities, not the quality of
their education.
But the point of the offspring of famous, wealthy people
getting into a prestigious college is not to succeed later in life, but to be
seen as being a prestigious student. In a way, it’s like buying military
medals on e-Bay and then wearing them to show how brave you are; or, the Scarecrow
in The Wizard of Oz becoming smart just because he’s handed a diploma without
having gone to school.
Legislators in California have naturally jumped on the band
wagon and are demanding UC do something about the broken admissions system, as
if no one with good grades or test scores can get into UC Berkeley because of
the tens of thousands of wealthy parents sending checks for $500,000 to the
admissions office there (if there were really that many wealthy parents willing
to pay $500,000 to get their kid into UC, they could the few non-rich students
who somehow squeak in attend for free).
I don’t understand parents who want to cut corners for their
kids and give them stuff they didn’t earn on their own. Dim-witted kids
who get into an elite school are either going to learn how stupid they are, or
decide brains are for suckers and stop working. I agree with the old joke
about the dying man who went to his lawyer to draw up his will. The
attorney asked him what he wanted to leave his family, and he said his oldest
son should get a million dollars, his two younger sons should get $500,000
each, and his daughter should get $250,000. The lawyer told him his
entire estate was worth $100,000, so where would the children get this
money? The man replied, “Let ‘em work for it, just like I did!”
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