College was a great time of my life, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons, but I could never forgot that I was paying for the privilege.
Because I’m still paying a decade later.
But I can’t even be mad at William Rick Singer. He may be Public Enemy Number One today, but all he did was seize opportunity. Colleges are business first, education second. Wealthy people often know one more than the other. So when Aunt Becky from Full House throws cash at you, you find a way to get her kid into Harvard.
How? Make some nerd take the SATs. I’m not even kidding. Singer hired Mark Riddell and paid off the test administrator, so Riddell could take one of the student’s tests back to his hotel room and return it with a near-perfect score for a cool 10 grand. What did Riddell do before that? Oh, he was the director of a college entrance exam preparation business. Talk about knowing your lane. He must have went to college. Oh, right, he went to Harvard.
What trips me out even harder is the kids would have known. They were just find getting accepted into a school they know they didn’t deserve or earn.
Meanwhile, a group of Asian Americans students, called the Students for Fair Admissions, have been trying to sue Harvard for discrimination. These kids worked their fingers to the bone to get admitted to a school with a big name, and, hell, probably study something cause that’s all they know, and Harvard stands by their decision to judge students by a personal rating, including traits like "courage" and "likability.”
The problem just might be competition. When 40,000 students every year want the same sheet of paper that considerably less can receive in the mail, there is bound to be some winners and some losers and some cheating too.