Wealthy and influential parents often routinely use their privilege to game the college admissions process. And it's perfectly legal.
SAN FRANCISCO — "There can be no separate college admissions system for the wealthy," Andrew Lelling, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, said at Tuesday's press conference announcing charges against dozens of parents for paying bribes to get their children into some of the nation's elite universities.Polls show that the vast majority of Americans believe college admissions should be based on merit, weighted toward students with the best grades and the highest test scores.
How much of an edge does legacy give students? A Princeton University study found that being a legacy applicant was the equivalent of adding 160 SAT points to a student's application. The acceptance rate for legacy applicants is two to three times higher the normal admissions rate. Estimates vary, but Golden says at least half of the available spots at the nation's elite universities are taken by students benefiting from some kind of preference. Most of those preferences, which he calls"preferences of privilege," tilt white and wealthy, putting college-bound students with fewer resources at a sharp disadvantage.
Students at the nation's top colleges don't just get world-class instruction. They gain access to a rarefied social network, swinging open doors that are closed to most.
“There is a front door of getting in where a student just does it on their own and then there’s a back door where people go to institutional advancement and make large donations, but they’re not guaranteed in,” Singer said in his testimony."I created a side door that guaranteed families to get in." "We are all about social mobility and we are not aristocratic and yet we have this system that advantages the already advantaged and does so openly," Kahlenberg says. "As we become a more diverse and hopefully more democratic nation, it just becomes harder and harder to defend these anachronistic practices that are deeply unAmerican.
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