The Price of Admission, a book review
May 21st, 2007How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges — And Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, by Daniel Golden, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal
Contributed by: Ross Lenhart
Senior Vice President, Stein Communications
George applies to his state university and also to Yale. He is refused at his state university and is accepted at Yale. George’s father is a well-known Yale alumnus, and George Junior waltzes through the Eli gate to a Cole Porter tune on a warm September morn, perhaps taking a seat of a student who was more deserving.
According to Daniel Golden, this scenario is repeated time and time again on the American university horizon — especially in the admissions offices of our elite and prestigious colleges and universities. This scenario is what The Price of Admission is all about. This book is a great read for those connected in any way with college admissions. Golden raises many questions that we have all known to have been there but, like a sore on our body, we refrain from scratching it because the end result could be somewhat unhealthy. Sometimes it’s hard to get out of our comfort zones and confront those questions that are right in front of our eyes. But these are questions that never go away — by their presence year in and year out, we adopt those ways of thinking without thinking at all. It’s just easier for us that way, and they lie there persistently right under the rug in front of our desks. Golden wakes us up from this sleep walk and causes us to think. This in itself makes this book worthwhile.
It’s all about privilege, and it is about the ongoing recipe of the admission office mixing privilege together with affirmative action together with what is just plain fair into a bowl to be mightily stirred at the right temperature to satisfy appetites, and thus making everybody happy in the hungry halls of ivy. Oftentimes, according to Daniel Golden, the cooks overplay the privilege part of the mixture to the detriment of the other two ingredients, creating something less than a healthy diet for the future of our American society and for the American university conscience.
This book is not boring, and it is not filled with statistics to make a point. Golden is a storyteller and uses real world examples. At times it reads like a novel. Each chapter covers how privilege sneaks into the world of college admissions in a variety of ways. Just to name a privileged few:
Political Privilege: President Terry Sanford of Duke often calls Dr. Jean Scott, Dean of Admission, into his chambers to discuss the admission of the less qualified sons and daughters of the politically important in the great State of North Carolina since President Sanford is the former governor. Dr. Scott marks each request and graciously and courageously holds her ground, and then exits Duke, with its political privilege, for less pressured territory. She is now the President of Marietta College after holding other subsequent prestigious positions in college admissions.
Legacy Privilege: Notre Dame requires that somewhere between 20 or 25 percent of all freshman classes be legacy students, thus denying places to other students who might be more qualified who do not have a leprechaun tied tightly around their necks.
The Privilege of Wealth: Senator Bill Frist contributes $20 million to his alma mater, Princeton University, and just by coincidence his son applies and is accepted to Princeton within 12 months of the contribution. There is strong evidence that there are those in his son’s senior class at St. Albans who were more qualified academically and were denied acceptance to Princeton. Senator Frist is on record as opposing affirmative action, except maybe as it affects his own family.
Faculty Privilege: Golden brings up something which is not often discussed — that of lowering the gates for sons and daughters of employed faculty members who are often receiving a tuition remission, in addition to the affirmative nod in the selection process.
These are just a few of “the privileges” cited in The Price of Admission. Race and gender privilege are also covered. The book is filled with fascinating examples of the ways in which our system of selection to our colleges and universities is cloaked with fallacy right before our very eyes. I am sure that there are those who will challenge Golden on the grounds that such privileges birth solid, strong, and financially solvent college and university communities. I am certain Golden would answer, “But at what price?” Golden not only strums the strings of our guilty conscience regarding privilege and the college admission process, but he takes it one step more and cites those purists who perform the process of selection in a privilege and wealth blind way. His two examples are Berea and Caltech. His whole point is that American education must act in a way that is filled with integrity. This in itself has to be part of the educational process — to teach our young people from the get go that their own selection to attend their college or university has been based on fairness and equality. What better lesson could a student learn approaching higher education? Golden made me feel that there has to be a sense of social and moral responsibility about the process itself — devoid of “privilege.”
Speaking of privilege, I had the privilege of a short conversation with Daniel Golden after his session at the most recent NACAC Convention in Pittsburgh. He is personable and likeable. Not particularly a crusader type, but an individual truly concerned about the future of American higher education. I encouraged him to look into another matter “under our rug” — that of the obvious lowering of the academic gates for those who are physically (but not perhaps mentally) privileged in order to fill our athletic college and university coffers. With a grin, Daniel Golden winked and said that perhaps he would.