The recently revealed admissions scandal seems to have it all: Three Stooges levels of ineptitude, crude Photoshops, six-figure payoffs, corrupt coaches, and a cadre of low-level celebrities for good measure. But those who see this scandal as anything other than a moment of levity are missing the forest for the trees. The U.S. Department of Justice filings confirm what we already knew — or should have known: Elite-college admissions exists chiefly to replicate class privilege.
This became depressingly clear to me during my three years as an assistant dean of admissions at an elite college. I saw how the system is rife with inequities and loopholes; how unscrupulous wealthy people are willing to pay admissions fixers to exploit those loopholes; and how grifters adjacent to the process cash in on whatever influence they wield. As I wrote in The Chronicle Review a little more than a year ago, “Admissions at elite institutions can make a fool and a liar out of anyone.”
Dozens of people, including famous actors, college coaches, and a university administrator, have been charged by federal prosecutors for their alleged roles in an admissions-bribery scheme involving Yale, Stanford, and other elite institutions.
To harp on this cluster of odious dimwits and greedy fixers obscures the insidious day-to-day practices in which the entire community of elite prep schools, independent college advisers, and admissions offices are complicit. This scandal offers a convenient and cartoonish scapegoat for a complex system of affirmative action for wealthy people. It allows many of us to express an impotent ire, to rant and finger-point, to revel in a sense of schadenfreude — the calling cards of social media. It also lets elite colleges off the hook.
The U.S. News headline about this incident read “50 Charged in Largest College Admissions Scam Ever.” Technically, I suppose that’s true. But what about the grand scam of everyday admissions? “Elite-college admissions is at root a story of class warfare,” I wrote in these pages. “This is not directly attributable to any fault or desire on the part of admissions deans, it’s simply a byproduct of the parameters within which the system operates.”
Meritocratic admissions at elite institutions is the real scam. The idea of a phony soccer player is goofy for its novelty; Division III athletes being tipped into admitted classes through a warped quota system that benefits wealthy white men is a grim reality. The construction of a fabricated profile with illegitimate test scores and extracurriculars is tragicomic; a prep-school applicant carefully curated by elite counselors, tutors, essay writers, and independent admissions advisers is routine.
In short, the real corruption of elite-college admissions is more mundane than this scandal suggests, though far more deleterious to America’s meritocratic ideals. To view this scandal as the problem is to unintentionally reinforce the actual problem: In a truly meritocratic society, higher education should correct inequity; instead, elite higher education exacerbates inequity.
The irony is that this scandal can look like an argument for restoring a meritocratic system that wealthy people are trying to subvert through extreme measures. That’s simply not the case. As Doron Taussig, an assistant professor of journalism at Ursinus College who is working on a book about perceptions of meritocracy, told me: “Flaws in meritocracy are defined as problems because they are violations of meritocracy,” but rarely are they taken as evidence that meritocracy is a bad or incoherent idea.
In other words, this isn’t a system wealthy people have to subvert; it’s a system set up for them to participate in without guile or palm-greasing. If falsified ACT scores and Photoshopped water-polo pictures were what corruption looked like, we could solve it. But the problem isn’t the criminal subversion of meritocracy, it’s the mundane ways in which the illusion of meritocracy perpetuates itself and gets us to buy in.
So this scandal is less a cautionary tale than a farce. As I wrote a little more than a year ago, “The actual system of affirmative action in place for wealthy white people (especially white men) is so well-oiled that few would even know to name it. You’d have to pay attention to factors well before college. It’s societal and holistic, and goes far beyond clichéd (though fair) talking points about legacy admits. Those are the tip of the insidious iceberg.”
When we’re all done jeering on Twitter, it would help to get back to that meaningful conversation.
Jason England is an assistant professor of creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University. You can find him on Twitter @JasonAEngland1.
