Ramblings of a Technology Addict

Wednesday, March 12, 2003

Made the Post again...

Once again, I'm quoted in Cindy Webb's Filter column. Today's topic? Instant Messaging in the workplace.
12:07:41 PM comment []

The Wall Street Journal: How to buy your way in.

This morning I wandered down to the kitchen to get a soda from the machine and stare at the bleak headlines of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post for a few moments before tottering back to my desk. Usually the front of the WSJ doesn't do much for me, so I tend to flip back to the Personal Journal section of the paper to read Mossberg or somesuch.
Boy was I in for a shock this morning. There, on the cover of the personal journal, in large letters is the following headline: 'Buying' Your Way Into College. If this, alone, hasn't incensed you to the point of apoplexy, go out and grab a copy and read the article. Including such tips as "Be Tactful: Parents should work through an intermediary - such as a friend on the college's board - to speak to the development office about the family's interest in contributing" (because I have SO many friends on various boards...) and "Hint Broadly: List a parent's occupation as 'private investor' or 'founder' or give the home address of an estate."
It astounds me that a paper like the Wall Street Journal would be advocating skating your way into a college on the wings of a parental donation to shove their slacker kid into a decent school. Denison was full of these kids. Parents didn't have the sway to find them a slot at Harvard, so they ended up drunk and high at Denison while not showing up to class. I hated these fuckers. These were the guys that bumped me out of classes, only to not go or to get Cs.
For a publication like WSJ to be advocating such a practice blows me away. I kept hoping for the author, (Daniel Golden, by the way) to write that this was a jest, or that he was kidding, or that this was the plot of the next Freddy Prinze Jr movie, but no such luck. Is this how the rich really live in the United States? Cutting checks for $2,000 to $5,000 a year for a few years before their child is of applicant age to a college they want their child to go to?
We need to stop trading on privilege and wealth in order to secure education for our slacker kids. Universities may need new libraries and dormitories, but I'm not sure that getting them on the premise of letting in people who are obviously not qualified to be there in the first place. Filling our higher education system with people who are willing to use their connection, both financial and personal, is not what this country needs. This country needs more people who are doing well in college, not buying their way through.
9:36:36 AM comment []