<p>George Bush becoming president proves that he deserved to be admitted to Yale? </p>
<p>Let's not delude ourselves.</p>
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<p>I see. Sorry for not reading you post carefully. It is a shame that he had to get all the negative publicity. But I still think that he deserved to get kicked out.</p>
<p>Of course he deserved to be kicked out. But he's definitely nothing special unfortunately.</p>
<p>I feel really sorry for this person. His life, by his own admision, has been miserable up to this point and with his attitude and personality it doesn't seem like it's gonna get better any time soon.</p>
<p>It was by bad luck that this guy got caught. There are probably many students that lied like that on their applications that currently attend Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>It may be true that being born to a well-connected family may get you preferential treatment with the top schools. However, that is something none of us can do much about.</p>
<p>However, each of us can do something about academic success, intellectual passion, personal discipline and mental development, and through those things we can ALSO get into top schools. The same was not always true, it wasn't that long ago that college itself was solely for the wealthy, and not long at all ago that top colleges were extremely discriminatory just based on your background.</p>
<p>This is the most meritocratic that higher education has ever been, and it's been getting steadily better. Complaining that it's not perfect sounds awfully lot like whining. Akash Maharaj had just as much opportunity as you or I to get into top schools, and pardon me if I don't pardon him for being dishonest at every step of the way along that path.</p>
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<p>IVYs have so much money and yet they can't or don't want to do thorough background checks. Its such a shame really.</p>
<p>"Almost everyone in the nation wants to go to an Ivy League university out east, as shown by the admissions rates."</p>
<p>I don't think so.</p>
<p>^^ I don't think so either--not everyone may want to go to an Ivy explicitly (as in, they don't apply and/or don't even think of applying). At the same time, I wonder how many students would give up the school they attend if offered a spot at an Ivy, for the same price.</p>
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IVYs have so much money and yet they can't or don't want to do thorough background checks. Its such a shame really.
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<p>Agreed. Even the UCs manage to do background checks for 10% of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>I'm just thinking that "everybody" doesn't even want to go to college. There are whole communities of people where graduating high school is a big deal. The percentage of high school aged kids who "want to goto an ivy" is a fairly small and maybe unique part of the population. I'm not sure what that says about the guy in the story. Sorry,I didn't even read it.</p>
<p>That's a good point. I was thinking of only those who plan to pursue higher education, but of course those who choose other routes comprise a significant portion as well (I think something like 1/3 of the graduating class isn't going to college).</p>
<p>this guy is just plain annoying. he has some major mental issues.</p>
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The rules themselves are unfair? These are private universities. They can devise whatever rules they want -- as long as they don't discriminate against certain races, religions, etc.
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<p>Are they really not discriminating against certain races and religions? I would argue that AA, as currently practiced, clearly discriminates against Asians and Jews. But it's somehow fine to discriminate against them, right? </p>
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But they can devise whatever rules they want.
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<p>Right - and back in the old days, the Ivies really discriminated against certain races and religions, for example, the infamous Numerus Clausus of the early 1900's that were specifically designed to discriminate against and reduce the number of Jews in the Ivies. (Seems to me as if the Ivies are always trying to discriminate against the Jews in one way or another). They were also quite discriminatory against minorities: for example, there was a time when Columbia specifically excluded the admission of all African-Americans. </p>
<p>Now, to be fair, the Ivies were hardly the only ones engaged in this sort of behavior, and indeed they were probably more fair than many other schools. For example, I'm sure we all know that many public universities in the South specifically barred the admission of all African-Americans, and in fact, had to be forced open via not only court order, but also via the intervention of Federal marshals. W.E.B. Dubois, for example, could (and did) go to Harvard, but couldn't get into any public university in the South, and in fact, Harvard actually had educated a disproportionate percentage of African-Americans of any non-HBCU prior to the Civil Rights Movement (and hence prior to AA). </p>
<p>But hey, like you said, the Ivies are private universities and can therefore devise whatever rules they like, right? So when Columbia specifically barred all African-Americans from being admitted, they, since they're a private school, they should be allowed to do that, right? Or, even if you want to say that schools should not be allowed to discriminate against certain races (which, like I already said, they do right now through the current practice of AA), then that means if they want to admit only dumb, unqualified legacies, then they should be allowed to do that too, right?</p>
<p>Think about what you're really defending here. In effect, you're baldly defending the legacy admissions system: something that I think even most Ivies would not defend (at least, not openly). But you seem to be. </p>
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Gore even graduated cum laude
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<p>Well, considering that up to 90% of Harvard students used to graduate with at least cum-laude status, I don't think that's saying much. </p>
<p>Critical</a> Mass - Harvard has been in the</p>
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If being elected President and Vice President of the United States of America doesn't prove it, what does?
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<p>I would argue that their 'success', whether in terms of getting admitted to Ivies, or their later political success, was all endogenous to the simple fact that they all happened to have the luck to be born in highly privileged families. Let's be perfectly honest: GWB became Governor of Texas and then President largely through the Bush brand name: even the most fanatic of Bush supporters will freely admit that he was a ne'er-do-well until he was around 40 (at which time he became a Born-Again Christian and quit drinking). Be honest: how many of us regular people could do that and yet still be invited to manage the Texas Rangers baseball team (because his dad was President at the time) and then become elected Governor of Texas, on the road to the White House? </p>
<p>Al Gore is little better. His seat in the House of Representatives, and then later his Senate seat were "coincidentally" his father's old seats in both the House and the Senate, and so he basically won because of the Gore brand name: people remembered his father and so they voted for the son. </p>
<p>The point is this. I don't know about anybody else here, but my father certainly ain't no Senator or a President. The vast majority of people aren't born with those kinds of advantages. We don't have that kind of luck.</p>
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Also, I'm amazed by how society can be so easily cheated by people with the guts, intelligence, and lack of morals to do so.
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Sometimes, people want to attain their goals anyway possible. It's just a matter of, as some people might say, "doing the right thing."
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I hope there aren't too many students at elite universities who think that's acceptable.
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I think if this idea is better preached a lot of the exaggerations that go into college apps and the whole "honest" process will actually be better.
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Even if the system is flawed, the only reason this guy got something he, and many other people wanted, was because he wasn't bound by ethics, the way most people are.
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True, but the fact that people who are fortunate enough to be born into powerful families gain an overwhelming advantage in IVY admissions is wrong doesn't really mean that what the kid did was right. The rules may be unfair in the sense that they unjustly favor certain groups, making many within these groups to gain admittance over other more well qualified applicants. But, by cheating, the same thing results, an unqualified applicant gets in over other more deserving applicants. Its the same logic.
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Just because people cheat all the time doesn't make it right does it?
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<p>I now see the difference between y'all and me, for I see y'all talking about about morality, about right vs. wrong, about 'cheating', and whatnot. In short, it seems to have come down to a question of ethics. You believe that what the guy did was unethical because he lied on his application and therefore broke admissions rules. </p>
<p>But that begs a set of fundamental questions that I don't think have been answered: Were those admissions rules really ethical in the first place? Or, more specifically, who decides whether they are ethical? The adcom? So does that mean that just because an adcom says that something is unethical, that actually makes it unethical? Exactly by what moral authority do they draw upon to do that? Since when did they become arbiters of morality? I think we can all agree that adcoms (and universities in general) have engaged in numerous acts that could be considered morally questionable, so I don't see that they actually have any moral authority to decide what really is ethical and what is not. I agree with a previous poster in that private universities are allowed to make up whatever rules they want, but that doesn't mean that those rules have any moral authority. </p>
<p>Perhaps one could argue that any*real* source of any sort of moral authority stems from the community as a whole, for example, the community of all students, parents, and others who care about higher education. But then that means that the community has to be consulted before any rules are enacted, if those rules are to have any community-backed moral authority. But that's certainly not what the adcoms have done. I certainly don't remember anybody from any university adcom asking me for my opinion about whether preference should be given to legacies, athletes, children of faculty, "developmental cases", or anything else. Instead, adcoms have simply enacted their admissions rules purely by fiat. </p>
<p>The point simply is, adcoms don't have the authority to decide what is ethical. Just because they make a rule doesn't mean that their rules carry any moral weight.</p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. Let's say that Microsoft enacted a rule that says that none of its employees and their family members are not allowed to use Google anymore, not even at home, and heck, if a Microsoft employee happens to be dating a Google employee, they have to break up, just because Microsoft said so, and those who are caught breaking this rule can be fired. I think we can all agree that such a rule would carry no moral authority whatsoever, and we wouldn't accuse anybody of breaking that rule of being 'unethical', because surely we can agree that Microsoft is no authority when it comes to morals and hence has no power to decide what is ethical and what is not. But then why are the rules of university adcoms any different?</p>
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It may be true that being born to a well-connected family may get you preferential treatment with the top schools. However, that is something none of us can do much about.
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<p>I would argue that that's precisely the problem. We can't do anything about it. We can't just "decide" that we are going to be born to a rich and powerful family. In other words, people like Gore and Bush are lucky winners of the genetic lottery and hence receive privileges that they did nothing to earn. </p>
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Complaining that it's not perfect sounds awfully lot like whining. Akash Maharaj had just as much opportunity as you or I to get into top schools
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<p>Maharaj didn't have as much opportunity as people like Bush or Gore did. Or, heck, the opportunity that Gore's children had, with all four "coincidentally" having gone to Harvard. </p>
<p>All I'm saying is that I don't really see that much of a difference between what Maharaj did and what Bush/Gore did. I mean, what really is the difference? It seems to me that the only difference is that the advantage that Bush/Gore enjoyed was "allowed" according to the rules, whereas Maharaj's advantage was not "allowed". But who decided on these rules? </p>
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pardon me if I don't pardon him for being dishonest at every step of the way along that path.
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<p>To invoke Balzac, behind every great fortune lies a great crime. Sure, Maharaj was being shady, but, frankly, so are the adcom rules. Apparently, the difference is that some kinds of shady behavior are acceptable and others aren't.</p>
<p>Sakky, I see your point. For me, I'm not disturbed because his approach was "unethical" or "immoral". Obviously, different people have different standards of "ethics" and "morals". His dishonesty was more than ethics and morals, in this case.</p>
<p>who decides whether they are ethical? The adcom? So does that mean that just because an adcom says that something is unethical, that actually makes it unethical?</p>
<p>No, the adcoms do not decide whether something is unethical and immoral. And they certainly didn't. Why is this incident worthy of being in an article? The reason that this is such a big deal is because it touched our conscience. And that's what determines whether something is unethical or immoral - conscience. </p>
<p>You are right. In a narrower sense, the adcoms do seem to determine what is ethical and what is not. But subtract the whole idea of admissions/adcoms/college. What still remains is the fact that he lied. And there is nothing obscure, I think you would agree, about lying being "unethical"</p>
<p>I certainly don't remember anybody from any university adcom asking me for my opinion about whether preference should be given to legacies, athletes, children of faculty, "developmental cases", or anything else.</p>
<p>I don't think that's a matter of ethics or morals. The school is theirs and so they impose certain policies/rules. For example- you have "moral authority" over your body because you have general authority over it, do you not?</p>
<p>it's not that the adcom makes the ethics, is the adcom makes the rules, and as breaking rules are unethical, he did something unethical. make sense?</p>
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I don't think that's a matter of ethics or morals. The school is theirs and so they impose certain policies/rules. For example- you have "moral authority" over your body because you have general authority over it, do you not?
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it's not that the adcom makes the ethics, is the adcom makes the rules, and as breaking rules are unethical, he did something unethical. make sense?
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<p>I don't think that logic follows. Just because I have general authority over anything, or that I have the power to make rules, doesn't mean that those rules actually have 'moral authority'. </p>
<p>For example, I could enact a rule that says that anybody who comes to my house has to worship me as a God. After all, it's my house, so I can impose any rules I want, right? But that doesn't mean that those rules have any moral authority: for example, if somebody comes into my house and decides not to worship me as a God, that doesn't mean that he is behaving immorally. </p>
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And there is nothing obscure, I think you would agree, about lying being "unethical"
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<p>Well, actually, I can think of numerous examples where it would be ethical, or at least acceptable, to lie. For example, abolitionists that operated the Underground Railroad would "lie" about harboring escaped slaves. Some people in WW2-racked Europe would "lie" to the Nazis about harboring Jews. Heck, there are even numerous instances of 'moral lying' in the Bible, for example, Judges 16:7, 16:11, 16:13 where Samson repeatedly lies to Delilah about the true source of his strength. Unfortunately, in 16:17, Samson finally reveals the truth to Delilah, and then winds up being captured, blinded and enslaved.</p>
<p>I would argue that modern business is built on lies. Honestly, what is the modern practice of marketing, if not just skillful lying, or at least, skillful manipulations of the truth? For example, tobacco firms try to make smoking look as 'cool' and 'sophisticated' as possible. Beer companies try to imply that if you buy their products, all kinds of hot girls in bikinis will appear out of thin air and will all be attracted to you. That's basically 'skillful lying'.</p>
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it's not that the adcom makes the ethics, is the adcom makes the rules, and as breaking rules are unethical, he did something unethical. make sense?
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<p>Uh, surely you don't need me to explore this further, do you? I think we can all think of countless instances where the rules themselves are of questionable morality, and hence it would not be immoral to break those rules.</p>
<p>Lets not forget this Stanford story either. I think this one is just as interesting as The Yale fraud.</p>