DeacMan
Well-known member
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- Mar 20, 2011
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I don’t understand your point. Obviously money matters. I’m saying merit should be more important than money. I thought that was a common belief.
Of course merit matters. But merit has never been the end all and be all in college admissions and that isn't new or surprising. Beyond "money" we all know there are loads of things that have ZERO to do with true "merit" that impact college admissions. It isn't merit when Asian-American student No. 101 who has significantly better test scores and grades than your kid or my kid doesn't get into XYZ elite university because the school thinks it has filled their quota of Asian-American applicants by admitting applicant No. 100. How about the kid from Minnesota who can't get into, say, Wisconsin because they have so many applicants from Minnesota and she's a marginal applicant, but breezes right through admissions at Florida (arguably a better school) because the school wants "geographic diversity". Your parents being employed at Cargill isn't "merit" - it's just luck in that instance. The University of Florida isn't really way better off for having average blonde chick from Minnetonka instead of more qualified applicant from Pensacola. Money is just yet another factor in the same parade of stuff. Someone, afterall, has to pay for all the bright shiny toys on campus and the distinguished Marlin Perkins Chair of Animal Husbandry. From the day colleges started admitting students, money has mattered.
What is news here is that there was testing fraud and the payment of bribes directly to individuals who had influence over the process without the knowledge of the universities.
Merit has never carried the day fully in college admissions and never will.