What We’re Reading — New Yorker: Want to Fix College? Admissions Aren’t the Biggest Problem

By Nicholas Lemann April 5, 2019
<p>The culture of obsession about getting into a selective college is wildly unrepresentative of the college experience of almost all Americans. (Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)</p>

The culture of obsession about getting into a selective college is wildly unrepresentative of the college experience of almost all Americans. (Craig F. Walker/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)

This piece appeared in The New Yorker on March 20, 2019:

The indictment last week of more than thirty clients of William Singer, the Max Bialystock of élite-college admissions, by the U.S. Attorney in Boston was, among other things, a form of de-facto federal-government support to journalism, because it gave so many people so much to write about. It wasn’t just that the details were so juicy—celebrities, rich helicopter parents and their spoiled kids, S.A.T. cheating, coaches taking bribes—but also that they seemed to confirm something that many people already feel, which is that the admissions system is deeply corrupt. Over the years, as the ratio of available slots in the very best colleges to the number of aspirants for them has become more and more insanely lopsided, and the way that the decisions are made has remained mysterious, it has become almost impossible to avoid concluding that somebody in this system is getting screwed. Maybe it’s kids from disadvantaged backgrounds, or kids who don’t fit into any of the categories that bring you special consideration, or, most likely, it’s you and people you know. Nobody seems to believe that the process is fair.

Read the rest of this piece at The New Yorker.