Finally! Let's tell the truths here about college admissions, folks. This article in The New York Times now exposes the level I have seen since The Son, back in 2012, was applying to colleges.
The Son, back in 2012, received rejections from Cornell and Harvard with his 2320 SAT score, co-captain of the Speech and Debate Team, Eagle Scout, 5s in APs in Calc 1 and Calc 2, a weighted 4.0, and where he took nine AP courses, where he had mostly A's, and four 5s and five 4s on the AP tests, interviewed so well the woman at Harvard and the guy at Cornell each said he was the best they ever interviewed in their years of interviews, and were enthusiastic supporters for him to get into those two institutions. I knew The Son was a close call for Harvard, but damn, if I wasn't shocked with Cornell's rejection, a school which prided itself on having the top entomology program in the nation, and where the head of the San Diego Natural History Museum considered The Son a genius with bugs, including recognition of genus and all that stuff, and where The Son had already met a few prominent entomologists because of The Son's part time and summer work at the Museum since 10th grade. After studying up, at the time, on how the college admissions processes worked, at least on the surface, I have since said, after the experience, and observations from that experience: "Son, I failed you. Had I made $300,000 a year, instead of under half that, and had I not been sick all these years with heart problems, I'd have had you fill in the section on requested aid, saying 'Nope! No aid needed. We'll pay full boat!' And you'd have been a Cornell or Harvard man."
What I would say, after the experience, is the elite schools especially had "buckets," and, when you asked for the aid, you were put into the bucket with the Ivy League strivers, mostly Asian students these days, who often outdid The Son (Yes, let's be politically incorrect here). The Ivies and Stanford had big buckets for legacies and those who came from wealthy enough families who could pay full boat, as I call it. Those students had much less competition with each other to gain acceptance into the Ivies and Stanford. I remember both application forms for Cornell and Harvard asked if one had a parent or grandparent had graduated from the institution. It was that blatant.
When The Son received extremely generous scholarships from Case Western Reserve and Colgate,* mentioned in the article, our family was ecstatic, as both schools had, and continue to have, great reputations among academics for their rigorous courses, though far less so from the general public. When The Son and I traveled to the schools, I saw there an abundance of upper-middle class students and families at the Acceptance Day weekends. I said to The Son, "Son, these are the places where the strivers from upper middle-class families, with no legacies at Ivies and Stanford, go. I'd say this is excellent, all things considered." Personally, I adored Colgate, as it was my humanities school heaven--and the alma mater of Charles Addams, Kevin Phillips, Michael Hiltzik, and Chris Hedges, among others (and Bill Parcells, for those who think football is an important criteria for a school)--However, the main entomology professor we met at Colgate said privately to The Son--"I am thinking of retiring before you graduate. Where else did you get in?" The Son replied UC Davis, a wonderful place, especially for entomology, but now more expensive for us than Colgate and Case Western, due to their generous scholarships. When The Son mentioned Case Western Reserve, the Colgate entomology professor leaned back, smiled, and said to The Son, "Check with me after you see Case Western. I think you're going to want to go there more than anywhere else." The Son and I were shocked. Cleveland, Ohio? What? Over UC Davis even, the school The Son coveted since 10th Grade, at least? Nah. I told The Son I would pay more for UC Davis as that was the budget anyway--though that budget for tuition and room/board essentially doubled between 2009 and 2012, I should add.
Long story somewhat short: The Son attended CWR's Admissions Weekend or Weekday, I forget which, and loved CWR after spending nearly 48 hours there. He said he never felt more at home, based upon the level of intellectualism within the sciences and math.** I did a tour of Cleveland, and found it to be an amazing place; one that was revitalizing itself with "meds and eds." I was impressed, too, how CWR did not have its students do the cafeteria work, janitorial work, etc. that one sees at UC campuses. The students did lab work for pay, and the largely African-American community immediately around Case Western Reserve had union jobs for those manual labor positions, and some had children who matriculated at CWR. Note to University of Southern California: Call Case Western Reserve to teach you how not to inflame and condescend to a poor, minority community around you. The Son would walk CWR's campus late at night with no fear of the type that plagues those at USC. Imagine that. It's not the ultimate policy solution, but it is far more kind. And with CWR next to the famous Cleveland Clinic, which is a wonderful medical institution which takes in and treaats anyone, and, in 2017, saved my life, well, do the public policy math. Meds and Eds.
Anyway, The Son decided on Case Western Reserve, and in August, we traveled there for orientation. I met more parents, and, damn if they were not almost all upper middle-income earners. I met Indians (India, not Native American), African-American, Euro-American, Jews, etc., almost all, and when I considered their occupations, their way of speaking, their talk about the scholarships received, and how their sons (much more sons than daughters at CWR, as it was 55% male, much like engineering schools) were blocked from the Ivies, I knew I was speaking with upper-middle income families. Then, I learned the CWR admissions department had done a study of the Class of 2016 (as the freshman of 2012 were called). The study showed two of the top 10 cities where students came from were Beijing, China and Seoul, S. Korea. This was said during the student-parent assembly. I turned to The Son, and said, "Oh, so that's where the rich people come from! Wow! International wealth!" And so, when The Son met some of those students along the way, they came from the neuveau riche of those two no-longer-aspiring capitalist-oriented nations.
So was it really a surprise to read in the New York Times article this morning that CWR and Colgate were among the schools which did not admit a lot of poor students? Not really. The best of the poor students get pulled into the U of Chicago, Stanford, and the Ivies. CWR, Colgate, and the others listed in this article, focused on those students who were upper-middle class strivers who had high SAT scores, high grades, extracurriculars, and personalities that would have otherwise landed them in the tippy-top elite school ranks, and with these schools' endowments, ensured they were able to offer students over 50% off in tuition and room/board, so that both schools were less expensive than a public college like UC Davis by anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a year. For us, with our $20,000-25,000 in medical costs each year, and The Daughter four years behind, these offers were godsends. Funny aside: The Son, on CWR's FB page for incoming freshman, sardonically asked his fellow freshmen to list the schools in which they were wait-listed. Immediately, the stories came in: The Son's was U of Chicago (U of Chicago told us, he may get in, but we must pay full boat. Yeah, right.). Other students chimed in with Harvard, Yale, Cornell, MIT, Cal-Tech, Stanford, and Dartmouth. The Son called me, and said, "Dad, you were so right about what you are seeing in all this college admissions stuff."
One thing about MIT and Cal-Tech, though. Those places are almost all meritocracies, as close as one can be. They don't seem to care about legacies or even rich people, though being rich would help a bit, I'm sure.
The lie here is "Needs-Blind Admissions," which all the schools The Son applied to claimed to have at the time. I knew then they were liars. Now, much of the rest of the nation knows.
As I said to The Son, we worked hard paying for our own Meds and Eds, and that kept us from any real retirement savings, and forced our move to New Mexico, where, thank goodness, we are doing well. During high school, we put The Son into an SAT Prep course for top students (and rich ones, too), and even hired a couple of guys who knew the application process, who helped us research schools--they pushed hard for The Son to apply to Case Western Reserve, I remember--and offered advice as to how application essays are written, and the like. These two fellas were shocked at the change in results they saw from 2011 to 2012, as they were honest and truly just trying to offer assistance and advice, not anything fraudulent as the actresses and financier families were doing. I remember one saying to me, "Your son was so 'Ivy League material.' I don't get what happened. He should have gotten an acceptance from Cornell at least." Now, he knows why, though I told him back in 2012, and he frankly had a hard time believing me. He had just thought the sea-change, as he checked with other advisor-friends around the nation, was just a weird blip.
I continue to insist Harvard is the pinnacle of American higher education. I know and adore its history and the institution overall. Last year, I came up with an idea for Harvard to defend itself against the Asians-Quota case: Harvard, admit you are not a meritocracy. Admit that 30-40% of your class are relatively mediocre students from rich families and legacies. Then, say, "We're a private institution, dammit, and if we want to do 5% set-asides for students from oppressed minorities, who have at least as good grades and such as our legacies, then who are you, on the US Supreme Court, to tell us we're bad? Got it? Now, buzz off, and have a good day."
I wrote this "modest proposal" last year to Noah Feldman, Constitutional law professor at Harvard Law School. Funny, I never got a response. Sorta like what happens to letters Derek and Clive would write, and get no response (No link as the entire bit to which I refer, "The Horn," is on YouTube and it is the King of Not Safe for Work, and highly Politically Incorrect at all levels).
* Unfortunately, The Son is a fool like his Dad. He believes in intellectual pursuits. The Son is even more of a fool because he takes on the hardest subjects--he decided to forsake a regular Bio major at CWR for a major called Systems Biology (or BioInfomatics at a few other places), and then minor in Evolutionary Biology. Then, applying to PhD grad school, he could have tried for entomology, his first love. But no, he went for BioMathematics. He is now finishing his first year at North Carolina State, which apparently has a top program in that subject, next to Cornell, where the soon-to-be-retiring grad school professor at Cornel had become The Son's mentor, even as he could not get The Son accepted at Cornell. Oh well. As I once or twice remarked with a smile to the author of this book, "Excellent Sheep," The Son is a fool for following what the author of the book advises. I say that, but I admit, I am damn proud of The Son. I am the Failure-Fool, and hope he will find more success in life. I just wish The Son was as proud of himself, sometimes, and had more confidence in himself. There is always lots of drama, where he tells us, Oh, I did poorly on this test last week, and then, the next week, he tells us "Oh, I got a 96." Ugh! But, again, both parents find The Son brilliant, honest to a fault, and an all around morally-based intellectual person. He writes, from what others say, very good poetry, and his heroes include Stephen Jay Gould (with whom he shares a birth date) and E.O. Wilson (with whom he shares Eagle Scout status).
** The Son received rejections from Oberlin and Reed, also mentioned. I just think they found him too "science-y," though he is very much imbued with humanities major thinking, owing to The Parents' environment.
PS: The title of this extended blog post is a play on the title of this book. And if you want to learn how to observe how poor, middle, upper-middle and rich people behave, two books worth perusing or reading are: the late Paul Fussell's "Class: A Guide Through the American Status System," and Lewis Lapham's "Money and Class in America." Both are written with sly, sardonic, journalistic styles, and are as enlightening as enjoyable reading.
