In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I found this piece via Instapundit, Why Match School And Student Rank? which echoes my own views on Ivy admissions, which were formed by my own experience as an undergraduate and the views of Ferdinand Lundberg in books like The Rich and the Super-Rich, which in my view is up there with Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and Milton's prose in both style and intent. His thesis is this: Elite colleges are machines for laundering privilege. That is: Harvard accepts (let’s say) 75% smart/talented people, and 25% rich/powerful people. This is a good deal for both sides. The smart people get to network with elites, which is the first step to becoming elite themselves. And the rich people get mixed in so thoroughly with a pool of smart/talented people that everyone assumes they must be smart/talented themselves. After all, they have a degree from Harvard! . . . People ask why Harvard admissions can still be bribed or influenced by the rich or well-connected. This is the...