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TechnoratiAt The Elite Colleges - Dim White Kids
Autumn and a new academic year are upon us, which means that selective colleges are engaged in the annual ritual of singing the praises of their new freshman classes.
Surf the websites of such institutions and you will find press releases boasting that they have increased their black and Hispanic enrollments, admitted bumper crops of National Merit scholars or became the destination of choice for hordes of high school valedictorians. Many are bragging about the large share of applicants they rejected, as a way of conveying to the world just how popular and selective they are.
What they almost never say is that many of the applicants who were rejected were far more qualified than those accepted. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, it was not the black and Hispanic beneficiaries of affirmative action, but the rich white kids with cash and connections who elbowed most of the worthier applicants aside.
Researchers with access to closely guarded college admissions data have found that, on the whole, about 15 percent of freshmen enrolled at America's highly selective colleges are white teens who failed to meet their institutions' minimum admissions standards.
Five years ago, two researchers working for the Educational Testing Service, Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose, took the academic profiles of students admitted into 146 colleges in the top two tiers of Barron's college guide and matched them up against the institutions' advertised requirements in terms of high school grade point average, SAT or ACT scores, letters of recommendation, and records of involvement in extracurricular activities. White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race.
Who are these mediocre white students getting into institutions such as Harvard, Wellesley, Notre Dame, Duke, and the University of Virginia? A sizable number are recruited athletes who, research has shown, will perform worse on average than other students with similar academic profiles, mainly as a result of the demands their coaches will place on them.
A larger share, however, are students who gained admission through their ties to people the institution wanted to keep happy, with alumni, donors, faculty members, administrators, and politicians topping the list.
Applicants who stood no chance of gaining admission without connections are only the most blatant beneficiaries of such admissions preferences. Except perhaps at the very summit of the applicant pile - that lofty place occupied by young people too brilliant for anyone in their right mind to turn down - colleges routinely favor those who have connections over those who don't. While some applicants gain admission by legitimately beating out their peers, many others get into exclusive colleges the same way people get into trendy night clubs, by knowing the management or flashing cash at the person manning the velvet rope.
Leaders at many selective colleges say they have no choice but to instruct their admissions offices to reward those who financially support their institutions, because keeping donors happy is the only way they can keep the place afloat. They also say that the money they take in through such admissions preferences helps them provide financial aid to students in need.
But many of the colleges granting such preferences are already well-financed, with huge endowments. And, in many cases, little of the money they take in goes toward serving the less-advantaged.
A few years ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education looked at colleges with more than $500 million in their endowments and found that most served disproportionately few students from families with incomes low enough to qualify for federal Pell Grants. A separate study of flagship state universities conducted by the Education Trust found that those universities' enrollments of Pell Grant recipients had been shrinking, even as the number of students qualifying for such grants had gone up.
Just 40 percent of the financial aid money being distributed by public colleges is going to students with documented financial need. Most such money is being used to offer merit-based scholarships or tuition discounts to potential recruits who can enhance a college's reputation, or appear likely to cover the rest of their tuition tab and to donate down the road.
Given such trends, is it any wonder that young people from the wealthiest fourth of society are about 25 times as likely as those from the bottom fourth to enroll in a selective college, or that, over the past two decades, the middle class has been steadily getting squeezed out of such institutions by those with more money?
A degree from a selective college can open many doors for a talented young person from a humble background. But rather than promoting social mobility, our nation's selective colleges appear to be thwarting it, by turning away applicants who have excelled given their circumstances and offering second chances to wealthy and connected young people who have squandered many of the advantages life has offered them.
When social mobility goes away, at least two dangerous things can happen. The privileged class that produces most of our nation's leaders can become complacent enough to foster mediocrity, and less-fortunate segments of our society can become resigned to the notion that hard work will not get them anywhere.
Given the challenges our nation faces, shouldn't its citizens be at least a little worried that the most selective public universities - state flagships - dominate the annual Princeton Review rankings of the nation's best party schools, as measured largely by drug and alcohol consumption and time spent skipping class and ditching the books?
Should Harvard, which annually turns away about 2,000 valedictorians and has an endowment of nearly $35 billion, be in the business of wasting its academic offerings on some students admitted on the basis of pedigree?
Peter Schmidt is a deputy editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education and author of "Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War Over College Affirmative Action."
© 2007 The Boston Globe
20 Comments so far
Show AllThis is just another race-baiting article which panders to white, feel-good guilt. Gee, I wonder what the reaction would be if Schmidt wrote an article about "dim Latino/brown kids" or "dim black kids." And yes, affirmative action is racist!
America's #1 Dim, Rich White Kid Who Attended TWO Ivy League Universities: George W. Bush
raymondo writes:
Are children is learning.
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sad ryamondo, you should have said: childrens can learn.
It's cheaper to whine about the Ivy League than it is to improve public universities. Berkeley used to be the equal of Harvard before the Reagan tax rebellion turned public education in California into a sewer at all levels.
At least the upper class is willing to pay for education even for their "dim" offspring, while the Limbaugh Nation just wants more SUVs to haul their fat butts from one shopping mall to the next.
Inside, it has to be related to the way universities are being funded. USA as a society is moving away from the notion that higher education is 'public good'. It is now a luxury item to this society. So one has to pay for it- society should not. Thus, state and federal funding is in steady decline. So, it is no wonder- the colleges in USA- specially the large state collages will again depend more on wealthy alumnus, rich parents and their dumb kids. The article presents a snapshot - but more ominously it is the trend. http://theoldiowl.blogspot.com/2007/09/higher-education.html
Let's do some math. Harvard turns away 2,000 students annually. An application fee must be somewhere around $400. After we multiply those two numbers, Harvard would have acquired some $800,000 just in application fees alone. Let's assume the cost of processing those applications was around $200,000. That would still give them a profit of $600,000 per year.
That alone could put a few "humble" but intelligent students through college.
Galen September 28th, 2007 8:55 pm
Make no mistake about it Bu$h gives MBA's a VERY bad name....
Personally I believe Bush Senior BOUGHT it for his stupid son....
University presidents don't run universities. They raise money. The principal task of a university president is to increase the financial holdings of his school. He lobbies legislators, hits up alumni, entertains rich people, and applies the goodwill of the institution he represents as his donors may command. Lower-level administrators take care of the actual running of the school. The president runs errands for boosters.
That's why Lee Bollinger's caustic remarks should come as no surprise. He's the university president who attacked Columbia University's invited speaker, the president of Iran, in an epithet-laced introduction worthy of a lynch mob. The assembled mob responded appropriately.
Bollinger's misconduct is understandable when we consider that he and his like are parasites whose first allegiance is to the privileged imperial aristocrats who feed them. You can be sure Bollinger kissed all manner of butt to get where he is, and he did what lackeys always do: subordinated principle to the will of his masters. His masters have decreed that we shall have a war against Iran, and they wrote Bollinger's script for this occasion. We should be grateful that the world got a whiff of this species in all its fetid glory.
I used to work for a company whose sole mission was to get the upper class into the colleges of their choice. I believe it is the most expensive college admissions service in the country as well. I quit after three months, mostly, I'll admit because I and my co-workers were treated with zero respect by the CEO of the company (few employees last more than a few months there), but also because the practices I witnessed were unquestionably unethical. I heard the CEO tell a client once that because he was male, white and of the upper class that he needed her services because he didn't have the advantage of affirmative action. I nearly exploded.
Are children is learning.
Was one of these 'Higher Institutions of Learning', Columbia, per chance?
University MBA = Bush
Trade School diploma = I'm employed.
Glad I went to trade school.
while distance learning might work fine as a means to a degree, one of the other things that happens in college is the making of friends who will help each other via connections for quite possibly the rest of their lives. When poorer students, no matter their race, are excluded from instutions they have no chance to move up the ladder by using the social network that can often serve a more useful tool than the degree itself. This aspect of college life is often overlooked in this discussion.
Wow, what a startling discovery, MONEY talks! Of course
it does, in politics, in court, in school or down at a trendy club, people with money have an advantage. Did anyone need someone to tell us that?
Bush proved that any student who's Daddy can afford to buy him a Gentleman's "C" can grow up to become a moronic & horrible President
They already had a Class War and Bush/Cheney/Rove won. It is called the "War on the Middle Class" and it includes all races and genders. It is actually going quite well.
Might as well face it, folks, if Hillary gets in to the office of President, the class wars will continue fighting little skirmishes that pop us from time to time. She also plans to keep the Iraq occupation going and to attack Iran. Oh what great times in which we live!
"Don't forget that poor white kids get the shaft, too — and I appreciate that fact that you do mention it. True, we have had an advantage due to skin color, but skin color is how the "elites" keep the rest of us divided and conquered. Class and race are entertwined."
Agreed. However, what's needed in the US academy is a class analysis. In a country that still cultivates its myth of itself as a "classless society," but that still needed an excuse for distinguishing between the "worthy" and the "unworthy," race became a substitute for class. M.L. King was conveniently assassinated just as he was beginning to shift his focus from a race analysis to a race-class analysis. And each time a Democrat politician raises the question of wealth inequality, he/she is accused of fomenting a class war. Well, maybe a class war is precisely what's needed.
"When social mobility goes away, at least two dangerous things can happen. The privileged class that produces most of our nation's leaders can become complacent enough to foster mediocrity...."
Isn't that how Bu$h got his "free ticket to ride?"...And how positively bubbly fuc@#$%^%n marvelous that turned out!!!!
Forget about IVY League colleges and instead try doing online/distance education. I could work full time and still study even though I admit that it was quite a hassle since I had family. But I do thank the author for completely exposing the FRAUD of these IVY League universities.
Don't forget that poor white kids get the shaft, too -- and I appreciate that fact that you do mention it. True, we have had an advantage due to skin color, but skin color is how the "elites" keep the rest of us divided and conquered. Class and race are entertwined.