Buying your way to ivy league

[gimmethesimplelife]

flowerseverywhere,
sounds like we both had the same initial thoughts about the applicants who were rejected. The fraudsters took a spot that these deserving students could have gotten.
I did have to laugh a bit at one of the moms who said they were doing this so their daughter did not have to wind up at ASU [which I assumed was Arizona State University]. Bet they're wishing now they took that route!

Ay Carumba, ASU isn't that bad!!! Rob

[bae]

Regarding legacy: My DDs best friend was an excellent high school student, high achiever, into sports and community service AND she had two parents who both went to the university of her dreams. .... She DIDN'T GET IN!!! I still can't figure out why.

I have a friend, Princeton '72. His wife is Princeton '72. His son was applying to Princeton. His son did not give in.

At the time, his Dad was a billionaire, and had endowed a chair at the Computer Science Department at Princeton. One of the kid's other references was a billionaire, Princeton '86, and was contributing heavily to the school. I wrote the kid a good reference as well, as he was my summer intern, and I too went to Princeton.

Kid did not get in. Went to UC Santa Cruz, and I think he came out better for it.

I've been involved in the Princeton admissions process for decades now. As I understand it, it is pretty darned random. Almost everyone who applies has sufficient objective qualifications. The decision-making process involves "designing" a class with the correct overall composition of talents and interests, and weighs heavily towards applicants who are "interesting" and not just cookie-cutter checklists.

So if you are a really good violist from the Pacific NW, and Princeton decides they want 2 of them for the incoming class, and your application doesn't get dragged out of the pile until after they've already picked two, you are out of luck. If yours is the first they grab, you are set.

I'm convinced my daughter got in on the strength of her essay about goat-farming on a small remote island. And her viola skills.

[iris lilies]

I know it requires a bit of conjecture on your part, but have her subsequent happiness or achievements suffered at all because of it? I’m guessing a kid like that would do well regardless of the calligraphy on her sheepskin.

I myself attended one of those huge Big Ten educational feedlots, and never really felt the worse for it. Observing the performance of our educated elite, do we have reason to be especially impressed?

Maybe the real scam is how beguiled we are by the mystique of “highly selective intstitutions”.

Exactly. I think the Ivies are valued in some circles well beyond their value.
In my youth I bought into the mystique, but now I do not. I think East Coast values are pretty much out of sync with Midwestern values and we really do not care about German cars and estates in Westchester county and the right schools and Wall Street jobs and etc. Are you a captain of industry?yeah so what.


It seems impossible for the East Coast elite to respect that Midwesterners are quite happy with our State U degrees living in our $175,000 houses, driving our Ford pick ups and working in our own communities of like minded people.

Unless I had a super smart child, I wouldn’t much worry about which university they went to. And I do mean super smart I don’t mean garden-variety top student. I would want my super smart child to have the advantages of the super teachers and fellow like minded students In their college experience. But in even that I am Projecting that the top university would provide these things when perhaps maybe they would not who knows.

[bae]

Unless I had a super smart child, I wouldn’t much worry about which university they went to. And I do mean super smart I don’t mean garden-variety top student. I would want my super smart child to have the advantages of the super teachers and fellow like minded students In their college experience. But in even that I am Projecting that the top university would provide these things when perhaps maybe they would not who knows.

I think it really matters how good the particular department your child is studying in - the professors, the other students, the resources they have available, and so on. I went to Princeton for physics and statistics - at the time they were the world leader and the top folks in my area of interest were there, and worked with me every day. My daughter went there for Classics, and specialized in such a small sub field that there were only a couple of professors in the USA in her area, most at Princeton. She had to go off to Cambridge for part of her undergraduate study for particular courses. She's now at Cambridge working on her Ph.D., in an absurdly small field.

[bae]

What must it be like to be one of the kids who discovers on the front page of the newspaper that their parents bought them a seat in college, and that they didn't get in through their own efforts? Ick.

[LDAHL]

What must it be like to be one of the kids who discovers on the front page of the newspaper that their parents bought them a seat in college, and that they didn't get in through their own efforts? Ick.

I think that would be a lesson best learned early in life, hopefully before a ludicrous sense of entitlement and self-importance sets in. Although getting accepted based on your skill in a sport you never played or a test you didn’t take might be a clue for the brighter ones.

[bae]

I think that would be a lesson best learned early in life, hopefully before a ludicrous sense of entitlement and self-importance sets in. Although getting accepted based on your skill in a sport you never played or a test you didn’t take might be a clue for the brighter ones.

I read that one parent even arranged for an actor to be a proctor for a fake exam for their kid, so the kid wouldn't suspect.

Yowza.

[Teacher Terry]

So bizarre!

[LDAHL]

I read that one parent even arranged for an actor to be a proctor for a fake exam for their kid, so the kid wouldn't suspect.

Yowza.

Good God. Sort of makes Chelsea Clinton’s career look like something out of Horatio Alger.

The good news is they can probably afford a lot of therapy.

[catherine]

I have a friend, Princeton '72. His wife is Princeton '72. His son was applying to Princeton. His son did not give in.

At the time, his Dad was a billionaire, and had endowed a chair at the Computer Science Department at Princeton. One of the kid's other references was a billionaire, Princeton '86, and was contributing heavily to the school. I wrote the kid a good reference as well, as he was my summer intern, and I too went to Princeton.

Kid did not get in. Went to UC Santa Cruz, and I think he came out better for it.

I've been involved in the Princeton admissions process for decades now. As I understand it, it is pretty darned random. Almost everyone who applies has sufficient objective qualifications. The decision-making process involves "designing" a class with the correct overall composition of talents and interests, and weighs heavily towards applicants who are "interesting" and not just cookie-cutter checklists.

So if you are a really good violist from the Pacific NW, and Princeton decides they want 2 of them for the incoming class, and your application doesn't get dragged out of the pile until after they've already picked two, you are out of luck. If yours is the first they grab, you are set.

I'm convinced my daughter got in on the strength of her essay about goat-farming on a small remote island. And her viola skills.

That makes me feel better...interestingly we had friends with very bright twin girls. They both applied to Princeton. One got in; the other didn't. The one that got in received all kinds of accolades from the community. How did the other one feel, I've always wondered.

As a sidebar, bae, as I wean myself off of my home here just a couple of miles from Princeton, that town is going to be one of the places I really miss. It's a beautiful town. We've spent a lot of time there; Christmas Eve's at Nassau Presbyterian and Winberie's, We've shopped there, eaten there, walked around there. My kids have spent after-school hours there. We've eaten breakfast at PJs Pancake House, snacked at Thomas Sweet and had drinks at the Yankee Doodle Tap Room, Lahiere's. I have clothes from .. well, I won't admit to people here where I have clothes from in Princeton. But I did buy a lot of furniture from the consignment shop on Harrison Street. I gave birth to my daughter outside the emergency room (in the ambulance) at the Medical Center on Witherspoon. Saw many, many shows at McCarter, home of my very favorite play, Our Town (see my auto signature). And my dear BIL even appropriates use of the track for running.

Yeah, I'll miss it. Do you?