What happens after rich kids bribe their

way into college? I teach them

A professor at an elite US school says an influx of unskilled and entitled students is
monopolizing faculty time: ‘They will eat you alive’
 If you have an experience or story tip on this topic to share with the Guardian,
contact college.admissions.tips@theguardian.com

Anonymous

Mon 25 Mar 2019 10.00 GMTLast modified on Tue 23 Apr

2019 15.10 BST

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Students who can’t get into elite schools based on academic merit don’t change once they are
in class. Photograph: Clerkenwell/Getty Images

If you think corruption in elite US college admissions is bad, what happens once
those students are in the classroom is even worse.

I know, because I teach at an elite American university – one of the oldest and best-
known, which rejects about 90% of applicants each year for the small number of
places it can offer to undergraduates.

College bribery scandal: professors respond to

our anonymous column
Read more

In this setting, where teaching quality is at a premium and students expect faculty to
give them extensive personal attention, the presence of unqualified students admitted
through corrupt practices is an unmitigated disaster for education and research.
While such students have long been present in the form of legacy admits, top sports
recruits and the kids of multimillion-dollar donors, the latest scandal represents a
new tier of Americans elbowing their way into elite universities: unqualified students
from families too poor to fund new buildings, but rich enough to pay six-figure bribes
to coaches and admissions advisers. This increase in the proportion of students who
can’t do the work that elite universities expect of them has – at least to me and my
colleagues – begun to create a palpable strain on the system, threatening the quality
of education and research we are expected to deliver.

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Students who can’t get into elite schools through the front door based on academic
merit don’t change once they’re in class. They can’t do the work, and are generally
uninterested in gaining the skills they need in order to do well. Exhibit A from the
recent admissions corruption scandal is “social media celebrity” Olivia Jade Gianulli,
whose parents bought her a place at the University of Southern California, and
who announced last August to her huge YouTube following that “I don’t know how
much of school I’m going to attend. But I do want the experience of, like, game days,
partying … I don’t really care about school.”

Every unqualified student admitted to an elite university ends up devouring hugely

disproportionate amounts of faculty time and resources that rightfully belong to all
the students in class. By monopolizing faculty time to help compensate for their lack
of necessary academic skills, unqualified students can also derail faculty research that
could benefit everyone, outside the university as well as within it. To save themselves
and their careers, many of my colleagues have decided that it is no longer worth it to
uphold high expectations in the classroom. “Lower your standards,” they advise new
colleagues. “The fight isn’t worth it, and the administration won’t back you up if you
try.”

In comparing stories, we have also found that such students strive to “work the
system”, using university procedures to get the grades they desire, rather than those
they have earned, and if necessary to punish faculty who refuse to accede to those
demands. It is perhaps unsurprising that students whose parents circumvent the
rules to get them into elite universities are often the ones who become adept at
manipulating the university system in a corrupt way.

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The University of Southern California was thrust into the college admissions scandal
after it was revealed Olivia Jade Gianulli’s parents paid for her spot. Photograph:
Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

Even for elite universities that enjoy endowments equivalent to the GDPs of small
countries, there is a ruthless calculus involved in encouraging students – even the
unqualified ones admitted through corrupt means – to regard themselves as
customers who are always right, and faculty as service providers who serve up choice
grades on demand. Students who represent money, whether in the form of their
parents’ donations or athletic prowess that attracts viewers and media coverage, are
simply worth more to universities as long-term sources of revenue than the faculty
themselves. However well-known our names might be, most of us can easily be
replaced from among the army of un- and under-employed PhDs struggling for a
place in a shrinking labor market. We, not the rich students, are expendable.

For untenured faculty members, the pressures created by this setup can be a threat to
their careers: it’s very difficult to teach well, let alone do the research and publishing
necessary to keep your job, when you’re being hounded to provide a remedial
education on top of an already heavy set of official duties.

Even for tenured professors, whose jobs are supposedly secure, becoming known as
someone who won’t “play ball” by giving the sports star or the legacy an easy pass can
mean exclusion from important opportunities and sources of support. So we suck it
up as we recap our lectures for students who couldn’t attend due to golf team
practice, or teach them skills most Americans learn in high school, or create extra
credit assignments to bring up their marks.

This kind of thing has easily added 10-12 hours a week to my workload, and I know
I’m not alone in that respect. As one of my colleagues put it, the unskilled and entitled
students will “eat you alive”. Over the past decades as an instructor, I have seen my
teaching workload increase dramatically despite holding the same number of courses
in the same subjects. What has changed is the proportion of unqualified students in
the classroom.

Elite American universities were never fully meritocratic. But the social benefits they
produced, such as faculty contributions to knowledge and the upward mobility of
first-generation college graduates, lent them legitimacy and purpose. What has been
lost in the admissions corruption scandal far exceeds the handful of silver some
accepted to sell out those ideals.

 The author requested anonymity to protect against administrative

repercussions.
CE: What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college?..

1) Explain in English the following words, you can give a synonym or write a short
sentence /6pts

a) to bribe:

b) at a premium: l.6

c) elbowig their way into elite universities l.11

d) academic skills l.28

e) to lower standards l.31

f) to circumvent the rules l.38

2) Who is the author of this article? What's his job and feelings/ tone? (20 words) /
2pts

3) Give the three 'classical ' ways the rich used to get a place at college for their
children in the past: 3pts

4) Now, what are the new ways of getting into university ? Quote the text 2pts

5) Are the 'rich kids' good students? Answer in your own words (50 words) 6 pts

6) In what ways must teachers work harder because of them? (50 words) 6pts

7) Why is their presence in colleges a threat to the education system? 5 pts