College Admissions for Sale

Anyone with even a passing interest in the undergraduate admissions process should track down this new article$ by Daniel Golden in the Wall Street Journal. Based on his new book, The Price of Admission, the article details how elite colleges like Duke and Brown systematically lowered and subverted their admission standards to recruit the students of parents who were either rich, famous, or both. Here's how things worked at Duke:

Texas entrepreneur Milledge "Mitch" Hart III, co-founder of Electronic Data Systems Corp., didn't know anyone at Duke in 1981. But after his daughter told him it was one of her top two choices, Mr. Hart called a former Duke dean he knew who promised to introduce him to the right person: Joel Fleishman.

Mr. Fleishman wrote a wine column for eight years for Vanity Fair magazine and cultivated Duke donors with vintage selections. "Joel used to give very expensive bottles of wine and put them on his university expense account," recalls former president Keith Brodie, who succeeded Mr. Sanford in 1986 and sought to restrict the practice of development admits. "Because they were millionaires, you had to buy an expensive bottle." Mr. Fleishman, now a professor of law and public policy at Duke, declines to comment.

Mr. Fleishman met the Hart family at the airport and escorted them to the house of the Duke president, where the family stayed for three nights, Mr. Hart recalls. His daughter enrolled at Duke -- followed by three more of his children. In 1986, after Mr. Hart pledged $1 million to a fund-raising campaign led by Mr. Fleishman, Duke established the Hart Leadership Program, which teaches students leadership skills.

I don't know about you, but my recollection of the college admissions process is a little different than that.

Now, one could say that this kind of thing has been going on forever, and one would be correct. The difference is that in the past universities felt no need to apologize for it, because they were perfectly comfortable serving promoting and sustained the privileges of class. Todays' world is very different, and higher education institutions--particularly elite institutions--like to think of themselves as the virtuous apex of the American meritocracy.

But like most truly worthwhile things, that status comes at price--in this case, not selling yourself to the highest bidder. Colleges have been deft at having it both ways for some time now. One wonders how long it can last.