Reply to Has anyone read "Crazy U" by Andrew Ferguson?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I thought price of Admission by Daniel Goldin was more eye-opening.  And just saw Tina Fey in Admission. They have movies out now about the admissions process at the Ivies. :)[/quote]

Agreed.  All of these Ivy lovers who post on DCUM really do need to read it.  They'll find out just how hopeless their efforts may prove to be.  [/quote]

why are their efforts hopeless?[/quote]

Because some of the Ivies (he doesn't go after all of them, as I recall) and Duke actively recruit the offspring of the rich and famous. Then, legacies and athletes get big boosts in admissions. Goldin argues that legacy and athletic preferences are actually affirmative action for rich white kids, and that these advantages for rich white kids actually outweigh affirmative action for URMs. Goldin does some math to show that if a school has a 10% admissions rate, but half the slots go to legacies and athletes and rich kids, then the chances for your hardworking but unconnected, unwealthy, unathletic kid are much, much less than 10%.

There were some good stories about the suck-up admissions officers at Brown and Duke. For example, Brown's AD visited George Harrison at his mansion in Britain to recruit his kid. Afterwards the Brown AD told his wife that he was surprised the gardener joined the family at dinner - the gardener was George Harrison (this was a few years ago, obviously). There was another story about the kid of a famous writer -[b] I'm blanking on the writer's name - who was "recruited" to Duke or maybe UNC to play baseball, but the college really just wanted dad's money, never fielded the kid once, and eventually the kid transferred out.[/b]It's sometimes hard to tell how much these anecdotes dominate the admissions decisions for everyone, or if they're just anecdotes. In any case, our unconnected, unwealthy, moderately athletic white kid from the DC suburbs got into an Ivy, so it's not hopeless. DH and I, who read Goldin's book in disgust, did try to steer DC away from Brown, despite DC's strong interest in the place.[/quote]

this anecdote was about writer John Grisham and you kinda garbled it. He actually  bought UVA a new baseball stadium for 1 million because their coach gave Grisham's son a baseball scholarship to Uva. Then the kid never got to play, so he left. But UVa. did get a nice new stadium. [/quote]

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