Merit

What is missing from the coverage (and especially the commentary) on the college admissions scandal is an understanding of just how arbitrary some of these decisions are.  They aren't arbitrary in terms of throwing darts at a dartboard, but we process these decisions in ways that have no connection to how those decisions are actually made.

Basically, a college admissions office will look at their stack of applicants first in terms of "Who can we say 'no' to?"  They will cull out the ones with low board scores, poor grades, no extracurriculars and, yes, no money.  Let's say they have 10,000 applications for 1,000 spots.  Hopefully, they can throw 4,000 applications in the trash pretty easily.  That leaves 6,000 applicants.  Depending on the school, they might need to admit 2,000 in order to fill 1,000 spots.  That means 2/3rds of the "qualified" applicants are rejected.  Being "qualified" doesn't mean much.

In putting together a freshmen class, they need to field all their sports teams (I guess), the marching band, have some artists, some scientists, some humanities people.  And then they need to apportion financial aid.  So you have a pile of kids who need aid and a pile of kids who don't.  And you want some wealthy parents you can hit up for money.  That is part of your job.

Let's pause for a moment to consider the outrageous cost of a four-year college, despite the fact they are shaking down every parent and alum at every opportunity.  They have billion or multi-billion dollar endowments, but they are constantly looking for more money.  Harvard does not need to charge tuition, but they still feel the need to let in guys like Jared Kushner.  And that's perfectly "legal."

Colleges love full pay kids.  They REALLY love full pay students of color, but of course the wealth gap in this country means that there are few of them.  They want a certain number of kids who will be the first in their family to go to college.  But in order to fund the 100 full aid, first time college students, they will admit 200 rich kids who maybe don't have a ton of other things going for them. 

What this scandal did was show that even those advantages weren't enough for some.  William Singer basically took all the nerves and uncertainty out of the process for his wealthy clients.  Maybe their kids get in.  Maybe they have to go to their third or fourth choice.  But these kids were going to college (and graduating without debt).  Singer's "side door" smoothed out the uncertainty.  It's illegal, because he committed all sorts of crimes and bribes to do it, but there are plenty of ways that wealthy people smooth the road for their kids. 

The most important component of a college education is not the school, it's the student.  If a student goes to Podunk College and works her butt off, she will likely go on to be pretty successful (unless her debts crush her before she gets started).  If a student goes to Liberal Arts College and gets drunk every day...well, maybe.  But yeah, if you go to Harvard and get drunk every day, you're probably going to have doors opened for you because Harvard. 

I don't think these rich kids were stealing spots from minorities.  Those are different pools of applicants.  They were stealing from other reasonably wealthy people who didn't need aid, but perhaps had something else to offer the school - trombone in the band, editor of the newspaper, bench warmer for the hockey team. Those people who were screwed can fight back.

The lawsuits are going to be epic.