The Indefensible Position

Esquire has a semi-regular feature called "The Indefensible Position" wherein authors try to explain that "car wrecks are good for you," or "Shakespeare was a hack." Continuing in this proud tradition, Flypaper's Liam Julian bravely defends rich Manhattanites who are mad that it's getting harder to buy your kid into Harvard.  Says Liam:

It would be a shame, though, if America’s best colleges were to accept large numbers of pupils who are less academically able than are many to whom they, the colleges, deny entry.

Yes, that would certainly be terrible. Why, if this kind of things keep up, pretty soon elite colleges will be turning down the most academically able students in favor of legacies, recruited athletes, professor's offspring, and the children of powerful politicians, famous celebrities, and rich people who donate large amounts of money to the endowment, while simultaneously enforcing a de facto cap on high-achieving Asian students. Thankfully the perfect meritocracy of the Ivy League admissions process has defenders at the Fordham Institute, so that, quote, "lesser minds" won't sully Harvard Yard. 

Seriously, I have to wonder if Liam even read the article.  Clearly there are lots of unusually smart students enrolled in New York private schools, some of whom deserve to go to Princeton, etc.  At the same time, it's just as obvious that part of what you're paying those schools for is an established pipeline into the Ivies that increases your child's chances of admission beyond what merit brings, and that's certainly the case if you spend 40 grand on a private Ivy League admissions counselor.  Cutting down on this stuff and broadening the admissions pool will bring in more smart students, not less.

Perhaps Liam was too busy quoting reading a Thomas Sowell NRO column that blames the French defeat by Nazi Germany on...wait for it...teachers unions.  You can't make this stuff up.