Most families don’t pay bribes to get their kids into college — but many wealthy parents know other ways.
When law enforcement officials announced Tuesday that they’d charged about 50 parents, counselors, standardized test score administrators and college coaches in what they described as the “largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice,” they portrayed the arrests as an antidote to the influence of wealth in the college admissions process.
But even if those charged in the case, which include famous actors as well as chief executive officers and other high level executives, face consequences for allegedly using bribes to get their children into elite colleges, experts say money still confers an advantage in the college-going process. The people charged in this case, allegedly decided that, “despite the unfair societal advantage their children had, they were not even going to be able to hack it on the rigged meritocracy working so heavily in their favor,” he added.
“When you go through institutional advancement, as you know, everybody’s got a friend of a friend, who knows somebody who knows somebody but there’s no guarantee, they’re just gonna give you a second look,” Singer allegedly told a prospective client. “My families want a guarantee.” High schools with a tradition of sending a lot of students to a particular college may have a better relationship with that admissions office than schools that don’t have the resources to create that type of relationship, Hawkins said. A student’s demonstrated level of interest in a school can also play a role in whether they’re admitted and one way college officials measure is by visits — something low-income students can’t always afford to do.
‘Worst-kept secret’ The confusion and lack of transparency surrounding what it takes to get into an elite school may be part of the reason families are so eager to get an edge and the case will only add to the lack of trust students and parents may have in college admissions, said Anna Ivey, a college and law school admission consultant and the former dean of admissions at the University of Chicago’s law school.
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