The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges -- and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates - Hardcover

Golden, Daniel

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400097967 ISBN 13: 9781400097968

Publisher: Crown, 2006

Synopsis

Every spring thousands of middle-class and lower-income high-school seniors learn that they have been rejected by America’s most exclusive colleges. What they may never learn is how many candidates like themselves have been passed over in favor of wealthy white students with lesser credentials—children of alumni, big donors, or celebrities.

In this explosive book, the Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Daniel Golden argues that America, the so-called land of opportunity, is rapidly becoming an aristocracy in which America’s richest families receive special access to elite higher education—enabling them to give their children even more of a head start. Based on two years of investigative reporting and hundreds of interviews with students, parents, school administrators, and admissions personnel—some of whom risked their jobs to speak to the author—The Price of Admission exposes the corrupt admissions practices that favor the wealthy, the powerful, and the famous.

In The Price of Admission, Golden names names, along with grades and test scores. He reveals how the sons of former vice president Al Gore, one-time Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist leapt ahead of more deserving applicants at Harvard, Brown, and Princeton. He explores favoritism at the Ivy Leagues, Duke, the University of Virginia, and Notre Dame, among other institutions. He reveals that colleges hold Asian American students to a higher standard than whites; comply with Title IX by giving scholarships to rich women in “patrician sports” like horseback riding, squash, and crew; and repay congressmen for favors by admitting their children. He also reveals that Harvard maintains a “Z-list” for well-connected but underqualified students, who are quietly admitted on the condition that they wait a year to enroll.

The Price of Admission explodes the myth of an American meritocracy—the belief that no matter what your background, if you are smart and diligent enough, you will have access to the nation’s most elite universities. It is must reading not only for parents and students with a personal stake in college admissions, but also for those disturbed by the growing divide between ordinary and privileged Americans.

About this title

About the Author

Daniel Golden is Deputy Bureau Chief at the Boston bureau of The Wall Street Journal, where he has covered education since 1999. Previously, he was a reporter at the Boston Globe. The recipient of numerous journalistic honors and awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Award, he holds a B.A. from Harvard College. He lives with his wife and son in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Reviews

The frenzy surrounding college admissions has spawned a vast and profitable industry. Especially among affluent families, the hiring of private tutors to prepare for the SAT, coaches to nurture athletic skills, and college consultants to help prepare the right application portfolio have become familiar features of adolescence. Of late, the pressure on Junior to get on the track to Harvard has been pushed to ever-younger ages. In large cities, it is not uncommon for parents to hire counselors to coach their toddlers for the interview for admission to pre-school. In a bizarre foreshadowing of what is to come later, some pre-schools now proudly offer early decision programs for 2-year-olds. And just when it seemed that all the possibilities for satire had been exhausted, parents began to push for enrollment in the best play groups for 6-month-olds.

Stepping into this cauldron of anxiety about admission to elite colleges is Daniel Golden, a Wall Street Journal reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for a series of articles on the inner workings of college admissions offices. In his provocative and stimulating book, The Price of Admission, Golden makes a powerful case that the number of well-to-do whites given preference to highly selective colleges dwarfs that of minorities benefiting from affirmative action. He follows this central theme in a wide-ranging series of case studies of systematic preference for the wealthy, the privileged and the famous, as well as legacies, faculty children and -- most innovatively -- athletes in such patrician sports as rowing, horseback riding, fencing and even polo. A tough investigative reporter, Golden does not hesitate to name names -- not only of specific institutions (including Harvard, Duke, Brown, Notre Dame, the University of Virginia, Princeton, Stanford and Amherst) and administrators, but also of individual students (including the sons of Al Gore and Sen. Bill Frist) whom he deems to be beneficiaries of preferences for the privileged. The result is a disturbing exposé of the influence that wealth and power still exert on admission to the nation's most prestigious universities.

That virtually all elite private colleges give preference to the sons and daughters of alumni will come as a surprise to no one. But preference also extends to wealthy applicants whose families have been identified as potential donors -- "development cases" in the parlance of the trade. Golden documents that even Harvard, with its $25.9 billion endowment, is not above giving preference to the scions of the super-rich. His primary example, however, of development cases being central to the admissions process is Duke, where the university embarked on a systematic strategy of raising its endowment by seeking out wealthy applicants. Golden estimates that Duke admitted 100 development applicants each year in the late 1990s who otherwise would have been rejected. Though this may be something of an extreme case, special consideration for applicants flagged by the development office is standard practice at elite colleges and universities.

Also enjoying substantial preference at elite colleges, both public and private, are varsity athletes. In a fascinating case study of women's sports at the University of Virginia, Golden shows how the effort to comply with Title IX, a gender equity law that has the praiseworthy goal of ensuring equality between female and male athletes, has had the unintended effect of giving an admissions edge to female athletes who play upper-class sports. Between 1992 and 2002, the number of college women nationwide in rowing, a sport highly concentrated in private schools and affluent suburbs, rose from 1,555 to 6,690; more recently, the number of female varsity horseback riders increased from 633 to 1,175 between 1998 and 2002. The net effect of the rise of these overwhelmingly patrician sports, Golden argues, has been to further advantage already advantaged women.

After spending most of the book roundly criticizing the admissions practices of many of the nation's most prestigious colleges, Golden turns to what he considers a model institution: The California Institute of Technology. Unlike other leading colleges, Caltech does not allow the prerogatives of privilege -- whether wealth, fame or legacy status -- to affect who gets in. In stark contrast to other top institutions, Caltech believes that it is possible to raise the funds necessary to maintain a great university without using admission as a bribe, and its own distinguished history supports that belief.

But the Caltech admissions policy, though exemplary in its integrity, is not without problems. In no small part because of its narrowly conventional definition of merit (primarily scores on standardized tests, grades and rank in class), it has been notoriously unsuccessful in enrolling African Americans; in 2004, just one out of 207 Caltech freshmen was black (for purposes of comparison, the black proportions of the undergraduate student body at MIT, Stanford and Harvard -- all of which use a more flexible definition of merit -- were 6, 10 and 8 percent, respectively).

A recent study by the Century Foundation estimated that only 3 percent of freshmen at highly selective colleges came from the bottom socioeconomic quartile, compared to 74 percent from the top quartile. Growing awareness of this shocking disparity has led a number of leading private colleges and universities, including Amherst, Harvard and Princeton, to take measures to increase the number of low-income students. But Golden is surprisingly ambivalent about these efforts, fearing (perhaps justifiably) that the admission of more poor and working-class students will be accompanied not by a reduction of preference for the rich, but by a decline in the number of middle-class students. The Caltech model that he finds so appealing is utterly inadequate to address the problem. Given the magnitude of class disparities in educational achievement, only affirmative action for the disadvantaged -- what former Princeton president William Bowen has called a "thumb on the scale" for low-income students -- promises to produce significant results.

The Price of Admission estimates that the end of affirmative action for the privileged would open up roughly 25 percent of the places in the freshman class at elite colleges and, in so doing, free up spaces for aspiring students of modest origins. Based on my own research, I would estimate a figure of 10 to 15 percent -- still a considerable number. But the main beneficiaries of such a shift -- absent a more profound change in the prevailing definition of merit -- would not be the socioeconomically disadvantaged, but rather the children of the upper-middle class.

In his final chapter, Golden issues a series of sensible and hard-hitting recommendations -- among them, ending legacy preference (already a fait accompli at Oxford and Cambridge universities in supposedly class-bound Britain), abolishing preference for athletes in upper-crust sports and for faculty children, and developing conflict-of-interest policies for the staff of the admissions offices. Equally important is his suggestion that a firewall be constructed between the admissions office and the development office -- a change of no small moment in institutions where the link between the two now looks more like an autobahn. But if the past is any guide, change is unlikely to come from within and will await a social movement with the strength and clarity of purpose to demand that our colleges and universities, at long last, live up to their professed ideals.

Reviewed by Jerome Karabel
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

A heavy-hitting, name-naming exposé by Wall Street Journal deputy bureau chief Golden concludes that Ivy League admissions offices do not practice meritocracy. Instead, top-drawer schools reward donor-happy alums and the "legacy establishment," which Golden defines as "elites mastering the art of perpetuating themselves." Moreover, the "preference of privilege" enables wealthy candidates to nose out more deserving working- and middle-class students, especially new immigrants and Asian-Americans. Golden backs his assertions with examples comparing the academic records of entering students: e.g., Al Gore's son was admitted to Harvard despite his shabby record, although a better prepared Asian-American was rejected at all Ivy Leagues because he was "unhooked" (in admission parlance, not well connected or moneyed). Asian-Americans, notes Golden, are the "new Jews," for whom a higher bar is set. Golden tracks shameful admissions policies at Duke, where the enrollment of privileged but underqualified applicants has helped elevate the school's endowment ranking from 25th in 1980 to 16th in 2005; Brown is skewered for courting the offspring of entertainment industry notables. Golden suggests reasonable, workable tactics for resurrecting the antilegacy campaign in Congress (led by Senator Kennedy) and devotes a laudatory chapter to the equitable admissions practices at Caltech, Berea College (Kentucky) and Cooper Union (New York City). (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

HOW THE "Z-LIST" MAKES THE A-LIST: Harvard's Payback for Big Donors


On a mild evening in early spring, corporate executives, lawyers, oil barons, money managers, high-priced consultants, and heirs to Brahmin fortunes strolled unrecognized across Harvard Yard from their suites at the Charles Hotel or Harvard Inn. Hardly a black or Hispanic face could be seen as the gray-suited, gray-haired businessmen--some leaning on walkers, others spry and ruddy-faced, with athletic builds honed on Harvard crew or tennis teams--and women in silk scarves and slimming black pants made their way through an unmarked door into Annenberg Hall. There was no campus announcement of the gathering, and no press coverage allowed.

Bouquets of forsythia and tulips decked out the usually spartan freshman dining hall. The visitors enjoyed cocktails, wine, and appetizers--beef tenderloin, crab cakes, asparagus spears--as well as the attentions of Lawrence Summers, then Harvard's president. Several guests chatted about the latest show by the Hasty Pudding Club, the student theatrical society that puts on a musical burlesque every spring featuring Harvard men in drag.

Then the Harvard band, perched in a balcony overhead, struck up "Ten Thousand Men of Harvard," and the group sat down to a candlelit dinner. Wine refills put the crowd in an expansive mood, and they frequently interrupted Summers's after-dinner speech with applause. The sole exception was when he outlined his initiative to boost enrollment of students from families earning less than $40,000 a year by making their Harvard educations free. He appeared to wait for an ovation that never came. I interpreted the awkward silence to convey a message, perhaps even a threat: If you make room for more low-income students by rejecting our children, we'll stop giving our millions.

The April 8 dinner kicked off the 2005 annual meeting of what is likely the wealthiest advisory group in higher education: Harvard's Committee on University Resources. Little known and rarely mentioned in the media, COUR is not actually a committee in the usual sense--it doesn't formally make or advise on university policy--but Summers or any other Harvard president needs its support. It consists of Harvard's biggest donors, who form the financial backbone of an endowment that totaled $25.5 billion as of fiscal 2005, making it the nation's largest, more than $10 billion ahead of second-place Yale's.

Committee membership has tripled in the past fifteen years, propelled by the university's record-setting $2.6 billion fund-raising campaign, which lasted from 1994 to 1999 and relied heavily on multimillion-dollar gifts. "As a member of COUR, you will be asked to play a leading role in the proposed campaign," committee chairman Robert G. Stone Jr. told members in 1991 in the first issue of its newsletter. By 2004, COUR's 424 members, handpicked by university fund-raisers, included ten of Forbes magazine's four hundred richest Americans, led by Microsoft chief executive Steven Ballmer (2005 net worth: $14 billion), oil tycoon Robert Bass ($3 billion), and banker David Rockefeller ($2.5 billion). Most are alumni of Harvard's undergraduate college or its graduate programs, but not all; Bass, for instance, went to archrival Yale, followed by business school at Stanford.

To qualify for membership, donors must generally have given at least $1 million to Harvard--or be expected to do so--although a few smaller donors were picked for their prowess in raising large sums from wealthy classmates and business associates on Harvard's behalf. The seventy-three members of the group's inner circle, the executive committee, have typically given or raised at least $5 million, and sometimes much more.

A free dinner and a newsletter aren't the only signs of Harvard's gratitude to COUR members. The school summons top faculty to the committee's annual meeting to expound on such topics as nanotechnology and the science of aging. It names athletic facilities, research centers, faculty chairs, fellowships, and scholarships after donors.

And, in the most valuable reward of all, Harvard gives a massive admissions edge to their children, who flourish in a selection process that lacks conflict-of-interest rules and systematically favors the wealthy and well-connected. Although Harvard bridles at any suggestion that its slots are for sale, I found numerous instances in which a child's acceptance closely preceded or followed a major gift from the parents, giving at least the appearance of a quid pro quo. Most notably, a politically connected New Jersey real estate mogul with no Harvard ties pledged $2.5 million to the university only months before his elder son--a student below Harvard's usual standards--was admitted.

Harvard admits fewer than one in ten undergraduate applicants, turning down more than half of candidates with perfect SAT scores. Nine-tenths of its freshman ranked in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. Its graduate and professional schools boast similarly high standards: Harvard law school, for instance, accepts only 11 percent of applicants.

Children of major donors enjoy far better odds. By examining Who's Who entries, alumni records, and other sources, I found that 218 of 424 COUR members, or more than half, have had at least one child at Harvard. Many donors send more than one child to Harvard, bringing the total number of COUR members' offspring who have enrolled there over the years to at least 336. Nearly three hundred of these children attended Harvard as undergraduates, with most of the rest attending the law and business schools, which provide an entree into the corridors of American power.

Since, by my count, at least eighty COUR members either do not have children or their children have not reached college age, the number of COUR offspring who have gone to Harvard works out to 336 children of about 340 eligible members--an astonishing enrollment rate of one child per major donor. Given that the typical married couple in the United States has one or two children, that wealthy women tend to have fewer children than the average, and that many children of COUR members never apply to Harvard at all, a conservative conclusion would be that the university welcomes well over half of applicants from the families of its biggest donors.

Through their easy access to Harvard, the children of COUR members don't just gain intellectual polish. They also acquire a prestigious career credential and high-powered friends and spouses, consolidating their families' place in the American aristocracy. "Last year we completed a double 'hat trick' when my youngest daughter, Morgan, married Harvard classmate John Stafford," investment banker Ralph Hellmold, a member of the Committee on University Resources, boasted to his Harvard classmates on their fortieth reunion in 2002. "Thus, each of my three daughters has not only graduated from the college, but married her own Harvard man."

Executive committee member James O. Welch Jr., former vice chairman of RJR Nabisco Inc. and a Harvard alumnus who endowed a professorship in computer science, leads the way in the admissions sweepstakes, with six sons who graduated from Harvard. Welch declined comment. Similarly, Finn M. W. Caspersen's generosity has not gone unrewarded in admissions to Harvard Law, a school whose preference for children of well-heeled alumni was satirized in Legally Blonde. The heroine of the hit 2001 comedy, played by Reese Witherspoon, learns from a classmate that her dim-witted ex-boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, "got wait-listed when he applied. His father had to make a call."

Caspersen, a Harvard Law alumnus who also sits on the COUR executive committee, formerly headed consumer lending giant Beneficial Corp., which specializes in making high-interest loans to consumers with poor credit. He and his wife have endowed several faculty chairs at the law school and donated to its library, where the rare-book room is named after them. Caspersen, who now runs a private investment firm, chairs a $400 million fund-raising campaign that the law school launched in 2003. Four Caspersen children--Finn junior (who also has a Harvard bachelor's degree), Erik, Samuel, and Andrew--have enrolled at Harvard Law. The Caspersens declined comment.

Professor David R. Herwitz, who served for years on the law school's admissions committee, told me that Caspersen's sons were fine students and "totally admissible." He added, "Any school, particularly one with a long tradition, becomes something of a family. What kind of a crazy world would it be if people who had gone to the school and made contributions would be told: your kid is very close, but not close enough?"



Undoubtedly some children of COUR members were superb candidates whom Harvard might have admitted even if they were unhooked. For others, the preferences of privilege outweighed test scores or grades below Harvard norms. These fortunate candidates with marginal credentials--like many minorities aided by affirmative action--are often saddled with self-doubt, wondering if they deserved their Harvard admission.

Most COUR children at Harvard have been legacies--a group to which Harvard acknowledges giving at least a small admissions boost. Harvard accepts one third of alumni children, nearly four times its overall admission rate. Legacies constitute 13 percent of the student body. William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard, who has been a guest speaker at COUR meetings, told me that he personally reads all applications from alumni children. He said the average SAT score of legacies admitted to Harvard falls just a couple of points below the school's overall average, and that he uses legacy status as a tie-breaker between comparable ...

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1400097967
• ISBN 13: 9781400097968
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336