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The results of standardized tests are manufactured. The transcripts are made. High stakes admission decisions are based on extracurricular activities, ghostwritten personal essays and the size of the check written by the claimant's parents.
[[[[The college admissions scandal has raised many questions. We answered them here.]
American universities are often the envy of the world, august institutions that select the best and brightest young people after an objective and rigorous selection process.
But the corruption scandal unveiled by the Justice Department this week – and a number of other high-profile cases that have hit the headlines in recent months – has shown that the admission system was an entirely different one. system: exploitable, arbitrary, broken.
At the heart of the scandal lies a persistent adulation of very selective universities. "The elite colleges have become a status symbol to which the legitimacy of meritocracy is attached to them, because entering sanctifies you as a meritorious one," said Jerome Karabel, a sociologist at the University of California at Berkeley and a historian. admissions to universities.
The case, in which dozens of parents are accused of buying spots in elite universities for their teenagers, comes as admissions to colleges were increasingly monitored.
Last summer, a plethora of secret files in a lawsuit against Harvard was made public, highlighting the particular preferences with regard to admission and the back doors of some candidates.
Then, last year, a preparatory school in Louisiana invented stories based on racial stereotypes to bring its students to selective colleges.
The complaint filed by the federal government this week indicates that the organizers of the corruption project have identified and exploited weaknesses in the admission process: special accommodations during standardized tests and system of booking seats for students favored by sports coaches . Parents have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get higher scores on their children's tests and to fraudulently recruit them into sports shops.
The accusations against the parents, which include Hollywood actresses and powerful leaders, revealed how thin the demarcation between admission aides was, which most middle-class families consider not only legitimate, but de rigueur, like sending a child to a Kaplan class to get help from the SAT and outright fraud, like paying a ringtone to pass the test for the student.
[[[[Read the full list of people indicted here.]
Since the scandal broke out, university consultants and admissions directors have found themselves in a delicate, sometimes defensive position. They expressed their astonishment at the way in which the system had been handled, knowing full well that they could, as part of the system, take some responsibility for an uncontrollable admission process.
"It's not exactly broken, it's breakable," said Theodore O'Neill, Dean of Admissions at the University of Chicago from 1989 to 2009.
Parents Charged in Scandal Benefit from Extra Time on ACT or SAT Exams, According to Court Documents, Corrupted Test Administrators to Allow Another Person to Test or Correct Student Responses .
Cheating on standardized tests has long been considered a vulnerability of admission. In 2011, Long Island attorneys accused students of hiring other people for them to pass standardized tests. Testing officials also reported problems in Asia, where SAT and ACT scores were delayed and in some cases canceled due to allegations of widespread fraud.
[[[[Find out how the college admissions scandal is fueling the debate about the relevance of SAT and ACT.]
The tests, which also regularly face attacks that strongly favor wealthy students and who can afford to train, become optional in a growing number of selective schools.
Colleges report using a "holistic" admission system – factors such as hardship and service to the community – in part to account for the benefit to those who can attend better schools or schools. pay for a coaching test.
But reports of fraud at the T.M. The Landry College preparatory school in Breaux Bridge, La., In November, showed that these measures were also vulnerable. A New York Times investigation found that school administrators falsified transcripts, invented student achievements, and exploited Black America's worst stereotypes to create stories that could be transmitted to selective schools.
Some of the revelations this week are reminiscent of the admission secrets revealed during the trial that took place last October, in which American students of Asian origin rejected by Harvard accused the university of downgrading their nominations on the basis of subjective measures. The documents in question shed light, among other things, on the dean's and the director's little known lists of interests, well-kept lists of candidates related to major donors or other persons of interest to the university, and the Z list, a back door for students. who were borderline academically.
William Singer, the university consultant, accused of being at the center of the corruption ploy, has even described his services as "side door", according to court documents. Compared to the more traditional way of providing a building, for example, which could cost millions of dollars, the door proposed by Mr. Singer cost only hundreds of thousands of dollars, a relative windfall.
[[[[Learn more about William Singer, founder of a preparatory business for graduate studies, which is central to the case.]
Other documents in the Harvard trial showed the great benefit that universities grant to recruited athletes. at Harvard, their admission rate in recent years was 86%.
This week, the corruption survey showed how even these preferences can be played.
Prosecutors said that parents were paying millions of dollars through Mr. Singer, sometimes through charities, to coaches, administrators, and sports programs so that they designate themselves. their children as athletes recruited in sports of choice like water polo and sailing. Often, children had no experience playing in a competitive sports team and were not supposed to play once they arrived.
[[[[Here are the best college coaches involved in the admissions scandal.]
The scandal has raised questions about whether such sports preferences are right – even necessary.
"Ivy League and the sport, for me, is an oxymoron," said Christopher Hunt, admissions consultant at the university.
Mr. O'Neill said it was certainly possible to deny recruitment preferences in major sports such as football, but it was harder to justify less popular programs.
"It seems absurd that white upper middle-class children benefit essentially because of their ability to play minor sports that make no sense to most people," he said. he declares.
But other experts said the elimination of these preferences would be counter-productive.
"If you want to follow a track and field program, you have to recruit athletes," said E. Gordon Gee, president of the University of West Virginia. "If you're going to have an orchestra, you have to have orchestra musicians."
The survey may encourage more schools to reconsider other preferences for admission, such as those intended for alumni or children of alumni. Universities say that these preferences encourage community and fundraising, but enthusiastic criticism has grown as a result of Harvard's lawsuit, and recent news about the influence of wealth on college admissions is likely to maintain this fire is on.
According to court records, the rate of admission of bequests to Harvard was 33.6%. The rate for the 2022 class as a whole was less than 5%.
"It's like going to the movies – you need a ticket," said Mimi Doe, founder of Top Tier Admissions, a university consulting service. "Your notes and notes lead you to the door. But guess what? Half of the seats are surrounded by a large red cord. "
Mr. Karabel, a sociologist, said that the corruption crisis simply reflected the problems of society at large. "I think, as America has become increasingly unequal, wealthy parents are desperate to pass on their privileges to their children and avoid downward mobility at all costs," he said.
Equitable access to education, the engine of upward mobility, he suggested, is the victim.
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