‘Father is Surgeon,’ ‘1 mil pledge’: The Role of Money in USC Admissions
wsj.com
wsj.com
Not with that attitude it won't!
(Because all the bankers got rich instead of incarcerated, "next time" is inevitable.)
You can't have “socialism among he privileged”; that doesn't make any sense. If you want to say cronyism, say cronyism, and leave socialism, which has nothing to do with it, out of the description.
Maybe cronyism is a more correct term, but I don’t see why it’s such a problem to use the above phrasing.
Yes, and it's an extremely dumb saying that only makes sense within a particular misunderstanding of what “socialism” means that derives from hostile mischaracterization by capitalists.
(Socialism about collective, rather than private, ownership of the means of production, whereas capitalism is about private ownership of the means of production. The rich in America very much enjoy the benefits of private ownership of the means of production.)
However, if you had to prognosticate, how will admissions at elite institutions look like 12-15 years from now, after all the dust had settled?
More of the same (since people have short memories & outrage is short-lived)? or genuine change for the better?
edit: grammar
For example, the Web pretends to be secure. Universities pretend to be different than for-profit corporations. And so on...
Sad.
We want people to participate in this unfair system, so we tell them the system is fair.
I understand what you’re saying, but to me the obvious answer is to stop supporting this old unfair system.
But less glibly, I bet you would find many such people in this thread.
It's probably better to keep making our current system more transparent and work for prices to better reflect society's values than to "exit capitalism".
Does that mean don't try anything? Of course not. Life isn't black and white. I don't believe involuntary taking from those who have to give to those who do not is a sustainable plan. Rather, somehow incentivize those who have to help voluntarily. My suggestion: more proliferation of employee-owned companies.
The Pareto principle remains. Wealth is measured. Ergo, there will always be people who maintain a network of wealth that far exceeds the norm.
I don't think that people will stop trying to accrue wealth, it's more likely they will just do more to get around whatever regulations you propose. For example, Ireland and tech companies.
I'd prefer to see a silly non-sense good for parting fools from their wealth, like BMWs and Lambos or the custom cars that run up to a few million a luxury car is a great way to attach a big price tag, get the rich's money - and not deprive anyone of anything useful.
I want to make billionaires obsolete.
There are problems to be sure. But if your goal is eliminating poverty...well..we're already doing that quite rapidly. It seems more like this sentiment comes from envy of the super-rich, rather than compassion for the extremely poor. And that I understand, but it doesn't seem to me to be a very good reason to reshape civilization.
I don't think the literal meaning of democracy is a "ridiculous narrow representation of democracy". We may agree that the right to vote does not, on its own, in all cases, entirely embody all aspects of the democratic ideal. But it is certainly not a "ridiculously narrow interpretation".
> Is it still democratic representation when some people are barred from voting for no good reason? Subjected to undue burdens or intimidation?
I'd say it is still democracy, but imperfectly implemented. The overwhelming majority of Americans are able to vote. Should it be better? Of course. But the idea that the poor in aggregate are unrepresented politically is ludicrous.
> How bad do these distortions have to get before we conclude that we're no more "democratic" than the old USSR? They had elections too, so it's all good, right?
We're a lot more democratic than the USSR. To suggest otherwise is the height of privileged conceit. Modern Russia is more democratic than the USSR, and if you think our democracy is equivalent to theirs, take a trip over there and try running against Putin in the next election. See how that works out for you.
They vote every couple of years for candidates that are also accepting millions in donations from wealthy donors. No public airtime is provided so they only hear about candidates who can raise money. They go to their workplace where the owners make all the decisions. Collectively most decisions in our economy are made by the capital owners or the political candidates who could raise the most funds from capital owners.
Regular non capital owning people in America have significantly less political power than those with money. That is not democratic representation.
Aka the definition of democracy, yes.
> that are also accepting millions in donations from wealthy donors. No public airtime is provided so they only hear about candidates who can raise money.
Candidates that the wealthy don't like raise money all the time, though. Most rich people didn't like Trump. They certainly don't like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. If your assertion is that money in politics systematically disenfranchises the poor, then you may want to re-examine the current democratic field.
> They go to their workplace where the owners make all the decisions. Collectively most decisions in our economy are made by the capital owners or the political candidates who could raise the most funds from capital owners.
Except that they choose to go to those workplaces. They may choose to do whatever they wish with their own time and labor.
I’m reminded of the factory workers in other countries whose indigenous land was stolen by the government so they could no longer farm. The one fertile farming land land was used to build factories. And the indigenes people, who no longer had any land to farm on, finally “chose” to work in the factory.
I disagree with you strongly that voting every few years is the definition of democracy if you mean to say it is the entire definition of democracy. There’s been thousands of years of history and philosophy as it relates to democracy and voting every few years is far from the only idea people have had about it. In particular voting for representatives is participation in a representative democracy, which is one kind of democracy. There are others.
Sure, primitive accumulation is a real problem. But you can also follow that chain arbitrarily far back in history and it doesn't really get you anywhere. If you want to go live off the land, that's certainly fine with me, i'm just saying: don't expect to receive the fruits of modern civilization if you aren't participating in it.
> I disagree with you strongly that voting every few years is the definition of democracy if you mean to say it is the entire definition of democracy. There’s been thousands of years of history and philosophy as it relates to democracy and voting every few years is far from the only idea people have had about it. In particular voting for representatives is participation in a representative democracy, which is one kind of democracy. There are others.
Of course, there are many reasonable reifications of the 'democracy' abstraction. However, voting for representatives every few years is very reasonable one, and the idea that it is "not democracy" is simply wrong.
I think “basically any” is overselling it (particularly when combined with “incredible pace”)
Climate change is hard to overlook, for example.
Income inequality is rising. That leads to more of the kind of statements you’re objecting to.
It's not inequality per se that's at fault, but a system that serves the powerful thus increasing it.
As long as such a system is in place the powerful will exploit it for their gain disregarding casualties like the environment.
If you do still want to mess with the current system, you probably aren't actually concerned with helping the poor.
The worlds poorest will suffer from climate change the most and this system is only making it worse.
They may be (ostensibly) better off now, but their children certainly won't.
I'm not assuming that, i'm merely stating that this one does. If your goal is to benefit the poor, and you have a system that does so, you should be happy. If you are not happy, it is not because you are upset about poverty.
> The worlds poorest will suffer from climate change the most and this system is only making it worse.
Yes, and unfortunately mitigating climate change is directly at odds with alleviating their poverty. It's a tricky problem.
Problem is these benefits are superficial. On one hand you get cell phones and cheap flights, on the other rivers of plastic and land devastated by mining.
And it isn't even worth it, because a large part of the profit inevitably goes to those responsible for this devastation, so wealth is actually extracted from these places.
> Yes, and unfortunately mitigating climate change is directly at odds with alleviating their poverty.
It is in this system only, which allows it in the name of profits for the powerful.
It's not superficial to the people that are no longer starving and dying of preventable diseases.
> And it isn't even worth it, because a large part of the profit inevitably goes to those responsible for this devastation, so wealth is actually extracted from these places.
So, it's not worth lifting people out of poverty if some other people also get rich?
> It is in this system only, which allows it in the name of profits for the powerful.
You think you've got a design for a social system that would lift more people out of poverty while harming the environment less? I'm all ears.
If you’re actually serious, look up Communalism or Murray Bookchin. There are in fact real and detailed ideas about alternatives that would still lift people out of poverty without a wealthy class extracting wealth from those places and people.
Yes, climate change is a significant exception.
> Income inequality is rising. That leads to more of the kind of statements you’re objecting to.
Income inequality is not a bad thing on its own, though. It is bad when the people at the bottom are struggling to get by, though. And it's the struggling-to-get-by people that are disappearing at an incredible rate.
Yes, let's. You're the one pretending to read minds and attribute emotion. Stick to facts, bub.
Here's another hint: just because someone's not talking about the global poor doesn't mean they don't care. That's just not the conversation they're trying to have right now. The current topic is inequality in US college admissions. Insisting that people talk about something else is just concern trolling. It's deflection from the fact that those admissions claim to be meritocratic but clearly aren't, thus a defense of both inequity and misrepresentation. Why are you so soft on things that disgust others?
Like I said, feel free to insert any other emotion that explains the facts.
> Here's another hint: just because someone's not talking about the global poor doesn't mean they don't care. That's just not the conversation they're trying to have right now. The current topic is inequality in US college admissions.
Which current topic? Did you read the comment I was originally responding to? It was making statements much broader than college admissions.
I think the misconception is on 'easily'. It took me a lot of work at every possible part of the chain to get to where I am. While it wasn't easy for me to get into a role I am very happy with, I wouldn't have gotten here without a lot of studying and hard work.
going to your lack of phone screen issue, do not rely solely on applying to websites. I don't know what all the best things to do are, but you do need to approach it smarter. For example, try introducing yourself to the recruiters on linkedIn. The reply rate (for me, and for many others that I saw) is about 1/50 - harsh.
Should you have insisted on not using those connections and used only the standard job sites? Is this unfair to people who might not have those connections that you did? Are you perpetuating the problems with "the system"?
Definitely I could see it either way. For sure you were smart, entrepreneurial and motivated and successfully figured out how to navigate "the system".
In fact my main thought is that your comment seems like a great example of how it gets very grey about what the right thing to do is awfully quickly.
- Encourage the growth of multiple "systems" so that the monopoly power of "the system" are distributed
- Face the reality that there will always be some sort of concept of "the system" and address it by teaching people how to navigate "the system" or "systems" in school
To be considered successful in Italy you had to have those, on top of doing well in school and working hard -- and part of working hard was building those connections.
The US meanwhile has done a great job of eradicating a lot of those ties in a Jihad Vs. McWorld sense, and leaving you as an individualist consumer.
> shows that the media systematically skew data, trends, and uses selective stories to make people think that the world is getting worse.
The rule of law and contracts.
When you just bribe the coach, it helps no one but the coach.
You are paying money to {univeristy|coach}, with the expectation that (a) the payment will help your kid's admissions prospects, and (b) {university|coach} will maintain the facade that money did not have any influence.
That's bribery.
That's not really true though. For the coach, sure, as the payments happen is secret. But for the school? If I buy Harvard a new building and get my name put on it, everybody knows about it, and nobody is surprised when my kid gets admitted.
Donations are currently considered an acceptable form of bribery because the universities have spent decades crafting the narrative that a donation doesn't actually affect an applicant's prospects. But this is plainly not true.
If you want to have a moral leg to stand on with your distinction, we should require universities to be transparent about which donations are buying spots for which students.
In a state school, it's obvious that this is wrong since this would be a violation of equal protection. However, I'm not sure I understand what is wrong about buying an advantage at a private school. Does a private school have some statutory responsibility to be "fair?" Does anyone have an inherent right to go to a private school? Sure, we're supposed to be outraged and pretend we are angry about a rich person getting accepted to Harvard because their mom donated $10 million towards a new medical library -- but is that really unfair or unjust? Is the rich kid going to Harvard preventing the poor kid from going to UMass? If you donate millions to a school, shouldn't that earn you the right to go there? You're literally paying for the school to exist.
We could make this more fair though by ending tax exemptions for universities (specifically their endowments.) If they are to benefit from public subsidization, then there is at least some moral obligation to serve society a bit more fairly than they do now. It is quite unfair that one can donate $10 million to Harvard, enjoy the tax deduction from the charitable donation and, at the same time, receive a financially valuable benefit of your child's admission into the school. It would be like me donating a tax-deductible $10 million to an airport and my child getting free Gulfstream flights for four years as an untaxed benefit. If we eliminate the tax exemption, then there's no conflict of interest -- now, it's just a business transaction rather than a business transaction masquerading as philanthropy.
I challenge you to name a perfect system in the universe that was created by a human. Just because perfection doesn't truly exist doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for it anyway. Or else what's the point in even being here?
Also, I totally reject this on the basis that education is a public service that allows economic mobility - restricting it to the rich, whether in a public or private setting - is immoral.
So because you have to pay for something, only the rich will afford it? Just like only the rich surf the internet, because AT&T charges a subscription?
The reason the former is considered acceptable is because the universities have spent decades making us think that this is a normal, reasonable thing. And telling us not to worry, because they would never allow themselves to be influenced by a donation when making admissions decisions. This is plainly false. University administrators are fucking hypocrites.
Clearly Mr. Brunold wants people to focus on the $50k to $100k donation range that doesn't grant an admissions advantage, but no one seems to care about those other than him (and maybe the WSJ).
There's people who spend their whole adolescence studying for the SATs and their parents pay for every possible tutor and advantage they can find. Side note, my friend's mom got him diagnosed with ADHD so that he could get extra time on SAT (spoiler: he never had ADHD).
> From 1981 to 1990, three separate analyses of all the prior studies were published in peer-reviewed journals. They found a coaching effect of 9 to 25 points on the SAT Verbal and of 15 to 25 points on the SAT Math. In 2004, Derek Briggs, using the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, found effects of 3 to 20 points for the SAT Verbal and 10 to 28 points for the SAT Math. Donald Powers and Donald Rock, using a nationally representative sample of students who took the SAT after its revisions in the mid-1990s, found an average coaching effect of 6 to 12 points on the SAT Verbal and 13 to 18 points on the SAT Math.
I have not seen any studies on the effect of accomodations, though.
I think the amount parents will pay for those relatively meagre extra points, and the fact that the parents in this case had to resort open bribery, speaks relatively well for the meritocraticness of the current system.
Open the books, show us that nothing is being swept under the rug, and just let the undeserving children of millionaires go to third tier schools.
It's a pity accents aren't properly fakeable yet.
Furthermore, the Harvard case has also demonstrated that interviews are used as a tool to suppress the chances of Asian applicants. While it may seem cold to reduce candidates to their applications, if the goal is to provide a consistent admissions process interviews are not a good choice.
I'll say the opposite - all college donations and income should be publicly available as soon as the ACH transaction clears. Questionable sources immediately flagged. Make every single dollar within the education system completely transparent. Then if some kid gets admitted, and we also see their parents made a $5 million donation, we can go ahead and appropriately stain that kid's admission.
What about the kids who really earned that admittance and their parents made a sizable donation? Then the parents donate their funds to another educational institution. Or the kid attends another institution. Wherever these two actions overlap - immediately assume fraud over anything else.
On bribes directly to individuals - their funds are all publicly available as well. If that's a problem, there are millions of other jobs they could pursue rather than being a useless parasite on the education system.