College Admissions: Another Wave of Scandals
Monday, February 06, 2012
The second wave of college scandals began to hit last week, just after the din of outrage had barely died down from the Penn State sex abuse case and the highly publicized UVM frat survey asking “who would you most like to rape?” It began with allegations that the Yale Daily News had buried a story for months regarding sexual assault allegations against their fairy tale quarterback, Patrick Witt. A few days later, the cameras focused on a bastion of intellectual elitism in upstate New York, Vassar College, where dozens of students celebrating their early decision acceptances were later rejected. And finally, highly competitive Claremont-McKenna College in California admitted that an official had inflated the school’s average SAT scores to boost their rankings in US News & World Report and similar publications. The constant barrage of disgraces has left everyone in the admissions game feeling like a participant in Whac-a Mole, waiting ever vigilantly with a mallet for the next shameful event to surface.
New Haven’s Dark Closet
Until last week, the Yale Daily News was often touted as one of the “gutsiest college newspapers in America”. Their standards were held up as a model for aspiring journalists around the world. So, when the New York Times reported that the Yale paper had known about sexual assault allegations against their quarterback since November, everyone was stunned. Last fall, Patrick Witt made national headlines with his supposedly heart wrenching decision to turn down an interview for a Rhodes Scholarship so that he could lead his team to victory in the final game of his college career against Harvard. Now, it would seem that Witt was withdrawn from Rhodes consideration due to a report that he sexually assaulted a fellow student. Yale will not comment on the incident, citing victim confidentiality rules. The biggest skeletons in this Yale closet may still be lurking, however. Questions have begun to swirl as to whether Yale President, Richard Levin, knew of the charges against Witt when he signed Witt’s endorsement for the Rhodes program, or whether Levin neglected to report the information to Rhodes officials when he did learn of it.
Blunder Extraordinaire in Poughkeepsie
Then, on Friday January 27, one hundred and twenty two Vassar early decision candidates logged onto the admissions portal to find an acceptance letter from the prestigious college. Families began celebrating their child’s first choice, binding acceptances with glee, only to find out the next day that a system test had gone awry. Seventy-six of the previously accepted applicants were then denied admission. It is not the first time this has happened. In fact, Cornell, Berkeley, George Washington and UC San Diego have all made the mistake of sending acceptances to rejected students in the past, leaving families wondering what sort of quality control is in place at universities to ensure the accurate recording and dissemination of information. And in the end, what do these errors and the handling of them teach students heading out into the work force? That there are no repercussions for injuring customers when a flawed system is in place?
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The month ended, finally, with a confession by Claremont McKenna College that a senior admissions professional had inflated SAT scores for six years. According to the press release, this resulted in an average 10-20 point increase to EACH section of the SAT, propelling Claremont McKenna into the #9 position in US News & World Report’s ranking of top liberal arts colleges in the country. The college has hired an outside law firm to do a full investigation and assess what steps should now be taken to rectify the situation.
From Connecticut to California, these scandals capture the attention of the media as well as college-bound students and their families. They demonstrate that even the most prestigious colleges in America are not flawless. Like the rest of society, universities are made up of individuals who choose to protect those who should not be protected. Colleges contain flawed computer systems without adequate quality controls, and they house officials who succumb to greed in the competitive game of rankings. And at the end of the day, we are all left asking if we should not expect more from these institutions of higher learning that are entrusted with educating our children.
Cristiana Quinn, M.Ed. is the founder of College Admission Advisors, LLC which provides strategic college counseling, SAT prep and athletic recruiting services www.collegeadvisorsonline.com.
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