Editor’s note: PAW invited readers to share their thoughts on the national college-admissions scandal.
While I readily acknowledge a low boil of ignorance with regards to the specifics of the scam, having spent over 15 years in the college-admissions industry, I felt it rather vocational to comment with regard to the scandal. Most of my experience had me living in Hong Kong and mainland China. It is incumbent upon us to remark upon the rather discouraging fact that many top schools have students who have gained admission based upon falsified records, e.g., transcripts and ghostwriting. Having conceded this fact, we must take two additional steps.
First, we must appreciate the degree and/or extent to which these spots in incoming classes mean students who are in many instances more talented than their wealthy counterparts (who could afford my services) lose the opportunity to attend out of sheer pecuniary disadvantage. Second, the overwhelming and discouraging truth is that admissions is by definition discriminatory, variable, and arbitrary. I have since left the industry and am trying not to gain myself admission to purgatory for my sins of commission in working in it for so long. I hope to realize Princeton’s mission by joining Teach for America. Where there is smoke, there is all too frequently fire, and college admissions at the international level has long been ablaze with the bonfire of the vanities — that is to say, unfair and rife with sinister moral instability.