<p>This is a question & answer session with Marilee Jones, Admissions Director at MIT, published in the 'Chronicle of Higher Education.' </p>
<p>These kinds of discussions always remind me of Mark Twain's comment: Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it.</p>
<p>As long as the process exists as it does, you are going to have pushy parents, some who will write the essays, and many who will provide whatever they can to get their offspring admitted. Moreover, there is really no way to fix it short of using a lottery for college admissions -- all those who want to go to Harvard put their name in a barrel and then someone blindly picks the accepted class. (And even that wouldn't work because someone would find a way to fix the lottery.)</p>
<p>Criticism of the current process is probably well-deserved but it all begins with a presumption that the college admission process is supposed to be democratic and fair, a rule that elite colleges have never had in their charters.</p>