You are a senior at a fancy private school in New York City, and tragedy has struck. It is December, and you have just been deferred—or perhaps even rejected—by the college to which you applied early decision. Now, while classmates are celebrating their admissions letters and starting their senior slides with rowdy parties and expensive vacations, you need to spend the next few weeks frantically preparing new applications while putting a brave face on things for your friends. But not to worry. A counselor from Command Education stands ready to assist you in the process, fine-tuning those new applications and doing everything possible to raise your chances of admission to a school that will prepare you, in due course, for a secure position in the American elite. The only catch: this counselor’s services, for just these few weeks, cost $250,000. This is not a typo.
Ill point out as well that this would all matter much less if we followed a very reasonable policy proposition put forth by, of all people, Bernie Sanders in his 2016 campaign --- make all federal finanical aid available only to pubic institutions that received a certain standard of state funding and met federal accreditation standards (eg certain standards for breadth of general education and for the proportion of faculty hired on a full-time rather than contingent basis). Yes, it would return us to a scenario in which elite schools were entirely playgrounds of the rich and in which the curriculum would be an expression of the ideology of its private funders. At the same time, but it would also make that point clear to students, families and high school guidance counselors -- and to employers. Given the option between a quality education at a much more heavily subsidized rate at a public school, would people not already in the elite care as to whether they got admitted to a wildly expensive institutions not eligible for federal financial aid or federal accreditation.
Your very smart piece raises fundamental questions about the American system of higher education for the elite. The admission process is unjust and corrupt. But the solution you propose is neither practical nor scalable. When I was chair of my department I couldn't get the faculty to "waste" a day on showing up for an important meeting and you're suggesting that they'll actually agree to read some regurgitated handwritten essays of highschoolers to select who should be admitted to the college. Like they care. Most professors at elite universities consider teaching a burden that gets in the way of their "research." You were a dean at JHU. You know very well how impossible it is to get the faculty to do ANYTHING. My solution is cheaper and simpler: lottery. It really doesn't matter who gets in because once a student is in s/he is part of the club. Anyway, everyone gets an A in nearly every course, and students get this grade not because someone actually evaluates the work carefully, but rather because giving an A is the easiest way to get the grading over and get back to "research." Everyone is happy. The students think they're brilliant and they don't bother the professor. Even better, they give the professors glowing reviews in course evaluations and Rate My Professor, which allows the latter to believe that they are actually good educators.
Elite universities have been exposed as overpriced hot-beds of stupidity and antisemitism. Reforming the fairness of the admission process is the least of its problems.
I find your article to be quite disjointed and verbose, with no real clarity as to what you are advocating for re improved college admissions practices. The current negatives are (mostly) clear;
yet the corrective course of changes, much less so.
Ill point out as well that this would all matter much less if we followed a very reasonable policy proposition put forth by, of all people, Bernie Sanders in his 2016 campaign --- make all federal finanical aid available only to pubic institutions that received a certain standard of state funding and met federal accreditation standards (eg certain standards for breadth of general education and for the proportion of faculty hired on a full-time rather than contingent basis). Yes, it would return us to a scenario in which elite schools were entirely playgrounds of the rich and in which the curriculum would be an expression of the ideology of its private funders. At the same time, but it would also make that point clear to students, families and high school guidance counselors -- and to employers. Given the option between a quality education at a much more heavily subsidized rate at a public school, would people not already in the elite care as to whether they got admitted to a wildly expensive institutions not eligible for federal financial aid or federal accreditation.
David:
Your very smart piece raises fundamental questions about the American system of higher education for the elite. The admission process is unjust and corrupt. But the solution you propose is neither practical nor scalable. When I was chair of my department I couldn't get the faculty to "waste" a day on showing up for an important meeting and you're suggesting that they'll actually agree to read some regurgitated handwritten essays of highschoolers to select who should be admitted to the college. Like they care. Most professors at elite universities consider teaching a burden that gets in the way of their "research." You were a dean at JHU. You know very well how impossible it is to get the faculty to do ANYTHING. My solution is cheaper and simpler: lottery. It really doesn't matter who gets in because once a student is in s/he is part of the club. Anyway, everyone gets an A in nearly every course, and students get this grade not because someone actually evaluates the work carefully, but rather because giving an A is the easiest way to get the grading over and get back to "research." Everyone is happy. The students think they're brilliant and they don't bother the professor. Even better, they give the professors glowing reviews in course evaluations and Rate My Professor, which allows the latter to believe that they are actually good educators.
Elite universities have been exposed as overpriced hot-beds of stupidity and antisemitism. Reforming the fairness of the admission process is the least of its problems.
doron
I find your article to be quite disjointed and verbose, with no real clarity as to what you are advocating for re improved college admissions practices. The current negatives are (mostly) clear;
yet the corrective course of changes, much less so.