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<p>No, I’m afraid that proves nothing for precisely the point I mentioned previously…Princeton is grade inflated (or at least it was during her time). Frankly, most of the top-tier private schools are grade-inflated, especially in the humanities, such that it really isn’t that hard to get decent grades. In fact, that is precisely why Princeton recently passed a new policy to actually try to deflate its grades. Why would it do that, if grades weren’t inflated before? </p>
<p>[Princeton</a> sparks grade inflation debate - News](<a href=“http://media.www.theloquitur.com/media/storage/paper226/news/2005/10/21/News/Princeton.Sparks.Grade.Inflation.Debate-1037010.shtml]Princeton”>http://media.www.theloquitur.com/media/storage/paper226/news/2005/10/21/News/Princeton.Sparks.Grade.Inflation.Debate-1037010.shtml)</p>
<p>Now to be fair, I agree with you that she did have some sort of merit, which does make her case somewhat different from the Bush/Kerry/Gore cases. But that’s neither here nor there for what we are talking about is a matter of perception - that some people did (and still do) get into top schools for reasons having little to do with academics. In Shields’s case, there still is lingering suspicion that she also used influence to get her admitted, which means that she can be included in the same breath as those political ‘fortunate sons’. The difference is that she also had some merit which made her different from those ‘fortunate sons’, but nevertheless, she is perceived to have had influence on her side also. All of that simply fuels the suspicion that people get in to schools like that only because they have the right connections rather than purely due to merit, or, put another way, perhaps somebody even more deserving than her didn’t get in because he didn’t have the proper connections.</p>