The Moral Center of Meritocracy Collapses

[Mme. Defarge]

You are shocked—shocked—I know. According to the FBI, a network of 33 wealthy parents engaged in a massive fraud to buy places for their children at elite colleges. Didn’t they realize that there are many perfectly legal ways to do that?

You can hire a legitimate college counselor for $10,000 and up. You can get test prep for anything from $120 to $375 an hour. You can buy personal coaches, fencing equipment, and squash-club memberships, often for less than the price of a Sub-Zero refrigerator. You can arrange for unpaid internships that will allow Junior to shine as a true humanitarian. You can game your way into a great private school—it’s so much easier to play the angles in kindergarten or sixth grade than in college admissions. If all else fails, you can just make a big donation to the school of your choice.

Have the rich gotten dumber? Or are they getting cheaper? Actually, the affidavit suggests that there are two deeply connected structural problems. The first is that the price of admission has gone up. The second is that the moral center of the meritocracy has collapsed.


Now let’s talk family values. “The parents are the prime movers of this fraud,” says Andrew E. Lelling, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts. It is touching, and sad, that many of the defendants appear to have taken great care to make sure their children did not learn about the efforts to cheat on their behalf. But it’s also deeply twisted. “Son, I love you, but you’re too stupid to know what I have to do for you”—is that the message?



https://www.bing.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/584797/

[TlalocW]

1. A friend of mine here in the Kansas City area

Has a very bright high school daughter who is looking into colleges, and he said that they joked that they should have put things on her application like rowing since no one would check, New England colleges would like it, and since it's Kansas, it's funny.

Then this scandal happened, and he jokes that the main difference between him and the parents involved is that he's not on the, "Full House," reboot.

TlalocW

[EarthFirst]

2. These people are making extreme sacrifices for their children...

Mom’s A6 lease will have to be renewed and given to the youngest sibling rather than the 7-series promised on entering their sophomore year in high school... -parents purchase a new Tahoe for mom...

The 17 days they were to spend in Alaska this fall has now been parsed down to two week in Martha’s Vineyard...

The keel on the schooner took a beating on a shoal in Newport last summer and needs a new composite replacement; however they are having a Kevlar repair done this season...

The slate roof tiles on the arboretum need repair. A Pennsylvania quarry slate is chosen rather than imported German limestone...

The reality that they are creating for their child is hardly without sacrifice on their part!