单选题
American universities like to think of themselves as engines of social justice, thronging with "diversity". But how much truth is there in this flattering self-image? Over the past few years Daniel Golden has written a series of stories in the
Wall Street Journal
about the admissions practices of America"s elite universities, suggesting that they are not so much engines of social justice as bastions of privilege.
Golden shows that elite universities do everything in their power to admit the children of privilege. If they cannot get them in through the front door by relaxing their standards, then they smuggle them in through the back. No less than 60% of the places in elite universities are given to candidates who have some sort of extra "hook", from rich or alumni parents to "sporting prowess". The number of whites who benefit from this affirmative action is far greater than the number of blacks.
The American establishment is extraordinarily good at getting its children into the best colleges. The former president George Bush and his rival in the election John Kerry were "C" students who would have had little chance of getting into Yale if they had not come from Yale families. A1 Gore and Bill Frist both got their sons into their alma maters (Harvard and Princeton respectively), despite their average academic performances. Universities bend over backwards to admit "legacies". Harvard admits 40% of legacy applicants compared with 11% of applicants overall. When it comes to the children of particularly rich donors, the bending-over-backwards reaches astonishing levels.
Most people think of black football and basketball stars when they hear about "sports scholarships". But there are also sports scholarships for rich white students who play preppie sports such as fencing, squash, sailing, riding, golf and, of course, lacrosse. The University of Virginia even has scholarships for polo-players, relatively few of whom come from the inner cities.
You might imagine that academics would be up in arms about this. Alas, they have too much skin in the game. Academics not only escape tuition fees if they can get their children into the universities where they teach. They get huge preferences as well. Boston University accepted 91% of "faculty brats" in 2003, at a cost of about $9m. Notre Dame accepts about 70% of the children of university employees, compared with 19% of "unhooked" applicants, despite markedly lower average SAT scores.
Two groups of people overwhelmingly bear the burden of these policies—Asian-Americans and poor whites. Asian-Americans are the "new Jews", held to higher standards (they need to score at least 50 points higher than non-Asians even to be in the game) and frequently stigmatised for their "characters" (Harvard evaluators persistently rated Asian-Americans below whites on "personal qualities").
单选题
How do America"s leading universities admit the children of privilege according to Golden?