<p>Hyeonjlee -unfortunately, your realization that elite college admissions is NOT a meritocracy is a hard but CRUCIAL lesson to learn. When advising people about college admissions, I always try to emphasize that admissions is absolutely NOT a true meritocracy. The process heavily favors the wealthy and the well connected, or those that are particularly good at kicking a ball or moving an oar. The intellectual merits of an applicant are oftentimes secondary, and give way to other, more all-important hooks (legacy status, sports ability, wealth of the family, etc.). </p>
<p>This being said, I think it’s important to note that this isn’t because schools have some sort of set agenda and actively TRY to make the system this way. Rather, these schools are behaving just as any rational, self-interested actor in this marketplace would. To capture as much funds, talents, and resources as possible, it makes the most sense to make certain risk-averse decisions and value efficiency in the admissions process. Accordingly, its much easier and cost-effective to recruit at fancy private schools, which already do such an outstanding job of packaging applicants in just the way elite colleges like. Heavy, aggressive, and diligent recruiting at good inner-city schools or looking for “diamonds in the rough” in poor, rural areas is simply not as effective an allocation of an office’s resources. </p>
<p>Similarly, with funding and other resources being limited, does it make more sense to admit the smart - but not great private school applicant - whose father just happens to own the construction conglomerate charged with fulfilling a school’s construction vision for 2020, or the hard working and smart son of immigrants whose parents are lab techs? From an institutional perspective, it makes much more sense to accept from the former group.</p>
<p>What interested me about Chicago is that, traditionally, the school did not seem as actively aware of the importance of power and wealth in the creation of a great american university. While Harvard and Princeton were completing impressive fundraising efforts in the early 1990s, Chicago took a heads-in-the-cloud approach. As Harvard etc. actively courted senators’ sons and the offspring of Forbes 500 CEOs, Chicago seemed more interested in searching for intellectual talent, and accepting as many promising students as possible to get as many as it could. </p>
<p>What did this mean? When I went to school at Chicago in the late 90s, there was a conspicuous LACK of wealth and power on such a supposedly renown institution. Most of the students hailed from top public schools (Bronx Science in NYC, Masterman in Philadelphia, etc.), and the parents tended to NOT be all that wealthy or well connected. Many were, in fact, immigrants working as lab techs, adjunct professors at large public universities, teachers, some doctors and lawyers, but generally a great deal of generally middling lower-upper middle class (if you will) wealth. </p>
<p>I contrast this with the situation found at some of Chicago’s peer schools at the time. Through my college years and beyond, I had the chance to become quite connected to a few other top schools, and, in comparison to the Browns or Dartmouths of the world, Chicago contained a conspicuous lack of wealth and power on campus. At a place like Brown, for example, I was astonished by the behind-the-scenes work of wealth and influence on campus. The students mostly came from the most coveted zip codes in the US, and the parents were oftentimes chiefs of surgery, partners at the most influential law firms, and oftentimes the sons and daughters of famous politicians or celebrities.</p>
<p>I don’t think a place like Brown purposely looked to advantage the already advantaged. Rather, doing so was the easiest way to achieve institutional success. It was rational from an institutional perspective.</p>
<p>Similarly, I think in the past few years, Chicago has gone much more heavily in this direction. I’m an active interviewer for U of C, and in the past two years specifically, I’m surprised by the sorts of applicants I’m seeing. Traditionally, I would interview the extremely smart students from the top magnet or science-based high schools. Now, I’m seeing more and more applicants from the well-heeled private schools in the area, and these students are, indeed, more polished and professionally packaged. They’ve received more individualized instruction from over-qualified college counselors, and are generally coming from wealthier backgrounds. </p>
<p>I would think, as Chicago’s popularity has risen for a variety of calculated reasons, that the student body has become significantly wealthier, and, to put it roughly, more well-heeled. Chicago is gradually gaining cache as a “bumper sticker” brand - the school that parents want to show off as bumper stickers on their cars as they drive through the wealthy northern Chicago suburbs or main line in Philadelphia. </p>
<p>Again, this isn’t purposeful - but it just makes the most sense in terms of institutional health for Chicago to go this way. Years down the road, Chicago, like a Yale or Princeton, may then carefully allot a certain percentage of the class - say 10-12% - to be the “unbelievably promising less advantaged kids,” those that have great stories to tell and show incredible promise. This 10%, though, will be lost amidst a sea of remarkable wealth and privilege.</p>
(meaning, a member of the embedded constituency), I applaud anything and everything U Chicago does to increase the fair market value of the diploma