Despite Flawless Credentials You Still May Get Rejected at that Elite College – Here’s Why

You consider yourself a top-shelf student.

Over the last four years you have demonstrated an exemplary work ethic, one even your teachers rave about. To challenge yourself, you have taken the most difficult courses your school has to offer.

Even with that demanding schedule you will graduate in June near the top of your class. You have also posted excellent, not perfect, but 700+ SAT scores in all areas.

Just as importantly, you are much more than just some academic nerd. You have been active in extra-curriculars and have even served as team captain of your favorite sport.

You did all these things because of your desire to excel, yes, but you also did them because of a sincere desire to attend a selective college. You have dreamed of earning a diploma from one of America’s most prestigious institutions, one that everyone esteems.

You’ve done so because you know full well that if you graduate from one of those elite, Ivy-covered campuses, you will have extensive advantages in virtually any career of your choosing.

Now those applications are off, your goals and your dreams in the hands of an admission committee, a group of people who have likely never met you or have intimate knowledge of what makes you tick.

Though they do not know you, deep inside you harbor hope that these individuals will be objective, that they will judge you fairly on your record, because if they do, you know in your heart you do have a chance at being accepted.

While you are hoping for fairness, those admissions committees profess to go one step further. They proclaim their objectivity, insisting that decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

It will be an extremely difficult challenge to sift through the many deserving applicants, they say, to whittle it down to the most deserving. But they insist that they will do so. And they claim that they will make that decision irrespective of your ability to pay.

But despite your flawless credentials, it appears that you still may get rejected at that elite college and here’s why.

An Unfair System?

While you harbor hope and those committees profess objectivity, it is important to understand that the system is in fact stacked against with you, especially if you are from a family of limited financial means. While those admissions folks at every one of those elite schools will insist otherwise, there are clear indications that the system is not fully based on merit.

In fact, if you listen to Neal Gabler of the Boston Globe, you will begin to realize that the system is anything but fair. In The College Admissions Scam, Gabler insists that it is not an individual student’s record that matters most. Instead, wealth and affluence are the more important factors when it comes to getting into the most selective schools.

Gabler explains in detail, why, despite your astonishing record of merit, you may not receive an acceptance letter to one of those elite schools, especially if your admittance to these high-priced schools means you will be in need of significant financial aid to attend.

He writes:

“The admissions system of the so-called ‘best’’ schools is rigged against you. If you are a middle-class youth or minority from poor circumstances, you have little chance of getting in to one of those schools. Indeed, the system exists not to provide social mobility but to prevent it and to perpetuate the prevailing social order.”

Some Specifics

Gabler first quotes the work of Daniel Golden, author of The Price of Admission: How America’s Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges — and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates. In his book, Golden spends a great deal of time on legacy admissions, what many writers have come to call ‘affirmative action for the rich and famous.’

Legacy admissions essentially involve the acceptance of students who would not have qualified for admission under the school’s specific entrance criteria if not for some connection to the school. A typical example involves a specific school that has previously been home to other members of a student’s family. Golden notes that in such instances, many less-qualified wealthy students get accepted to those schools where relatives have pledged significant sums of money to the school.

In his work, Golden also notes another group of legacy students who may have an unfair advantage, children of the faculty. Because schools offer free or significantly reduced tuition to the children of faculty, professors at elite colleges often seek to get their children admitted irrespective of their qualifications.

In addition to noting the legacy discussion, Gabler goes on to point out how the concept of early admissions also plays a key role. The early admit process in most cases obligates students to attend that school should they be granted admission. Such a decision favors only those with the means to pay since a student cannot wait to make their decision based on their financial aid package.

Gabler makes several other pertinent points related to athletics, racial diversity and the acceptance of economically disadvantaged students, whether black or white.

No Need for Self-flagellation

Gabler insists that many high-credentialed students who in fact meet the admissions criteria end up being passed over at these elite institutions. He further insists that a rejection letter should not be cause for self-flagellation.

According to Gabler, if you are not white and affluent, that thin envelope of rejection should not come as a surprise. He concludes:

“So here’s the bottom line for all those exceptional middle-class and lower-class high school seniors who will doubt their own worth when the near-inevitable rejection letters arrive: The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in you. The fault lies in the system, and the system isn’t going to change.”

 

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