Thread by @KevinTPitts

This scandal is really ugly. But it’s interesting how badly people seem to be conflating lots of issues surrounding college admissions in the wake of this scandal. 1/ wapo.st/2J6Stzb?tid=ss…

First of all, if proven, these people committed fraud, full stop. Very bad. But when somebody submits false documents to a lender, we don’t see a bunch of columns arguing that our mortgage lending system needs to be abolished. 2/

Secondly, people seem to like using extreme examples, like Harvard, as the norm. Seriously? There are almost 2,500 four-year colleges and universities in this country, and handful do admissions anywhere near the way Harvard does. 3/

Imagine that 3 lenders in the country will only do home mortgages if they are over $1M and the lenders require 80% down. Not many of us would use their services, but again, I doubt you’d see a slew of op ed pieces arguing that we should abolish all home mortgages. 4/

But that’s what pieces like this are doing. This guy seems to know nothing about college admissions, and seems to have done exactly zero homework, but he’s convinced that the system as a whole is broken. 5/ reason.com/blog/2019/03/1…

So here is the truth. College admissions isn’t perfect. And yes, the system favors the well-resourced. But you might be surprised at how well we protect against all of the things these people would have you believe are commonplace. 6/

You might also be surprised at the steps we’ve taken to make the system fairer and more equitable. 7/

What probably won’t surprise you is that many of the people who are complaining about the status quo are actually doing so because they don’t want an equitable system, and they are concerned that the very wealthy are losing their privilege. 8/

Let me tell you how it works at Illinois, because that’s something I know a thing or two about. 9/

First, we have an admissions “firewall” that prevents and precludes external influence in the process. This protects against any attempt at influence in the process from outside, or inside, the university. 10/

The firewall keeps outside influence from getting in. It also keeps information about applicants from getting out. We take it very seriously, and it works extremely well. 11/

Thanks to our system, I can promise you that application reviewers don’t know if the applicant’s parents are working class or million dollar donors. 12/

I can also promise you that we don't use legacy information at all. Reviewers don’t know if the applicant’s parents/grandparents/brother/sister are alums of Illinois or the University of Mars. (Obscure reference to Alex Karras/Otis Sistrunk) 13/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Sist…

So when people say, “Because of Harvard’s policies, we should blow up the system.” They literally have no idea what they are talking about.

We also have redundancies to protect against fake athletes like we heard about in the recent scandal. 15/ newschannel20.com/news/local/uni…

It is true that we can’t protect against fraud. So if a person bribes an SAT test administrator, we are relying on the criminal justice system for that one. 16/

For all of the things that we do to keep the playing field as level as possible, it’s still tilted toward the wealthy. How? It’s simple. In Illinois, the state pays for every student to take the SAT exam once. 17/

For many low- and moderate-income kids, that’s their one shot. Rich students, on the other hand, have the money to take the SAT (or ACT) exam several times, and use the best score on their application. 18/

Also, wealthy kids usually have access to much more Advanced Placement courses. They also have access to SAT/ACT prep courses. 19/

We try to take these differences into account by undertaking a holistic application process. That means we look at the whole student and all of their achievements, experiences and opportunities. 20/

We have reduced our emphasis on the SAT (or ACT) exam, because high school performance over four years is a much better predictor of future success than is a single test score. 21/

Some schools have gone ‘test optional’ on SAT exams altogether. 22/ wapo.st/2l8C3rr?tid=ss…

When you hear somebody say that colleges should exclusively base admissions on the SAT (or ACT) test, understand that you are talking to somebody who doesn't want to see a truly level playing field. 23/

Thread getting long, time to wrap up. The point here is that many universities are doing it well, and continually trying to do better. Blowing up the whole system for a few felons and a few outliers is just silly. 24/