Cheat Bribe Lie Your Way Into School or Buy a T Shirt

The college admissions scheme revealed Tuesday is the largest of its kind ever prosecuted, federal prosecutors said, and features 50 defendants across six states, millions of dollars in illegally funneled funds and a handful of the country’s most selective universities. But at its core, the alleged scheme is remarkably simple — and brazen. Cheat on standardized tests. Bribe the people who decide which students get admitted. All the while pretending that money was for charity. This story got me thinking. Last summer, I meet a high school senior named Samantha who was working as hostess in a restaurant that I frequent when I can get out. She noticed I was wearing a Boston College tee shirt. “Hey! did you go to BC?” “No, my daughter graduated from BC,” I told her. Samantha went on to say that BC was her top choice and that she really hoped to get in. I told her that Jennifer enjoyed her time in Boston and I really hoped that she would get to go there. We exchanged emails and I left the restaurant being caught up in her excitement. I received an email from Samantha telling me that she didn’t get in. She was crushed and her disappointment was heart wrenching. She also told me that she was accepted to other schools, but BC was where she wanted to go. I told her that she shouldn’t fret because her BC rejection letter came in a thin envelope. I reminded her, as best I could, that she will survive, maybe even prosper. It seems incredibly hard to get into colleges these days. You wouldn’t think so, given what they charge. You can run an airport on their room and board bills. Yet last year places like Princeton and Brown had nearly 20 percent increases in applicants from the year before. The University of Chicago jumped 42 percent. You’d think they were giving away diplomas, instead of asking for your house, your keys and your first-born. But even worse than the financial burden is the implied standards that this process is setting for kids like Samantha. Today, excellence isn’t enough. Gandhi would be put on a waiting list. When I was applying to college, I needed good grades, a decent test score, and one Jesuit willing to forget the time I pulled a fire alarm and write my recommendation. I was done with the application process in 15 minutes. Today, you need to cure cancer. Preferably before your junior year. And today’s application itself? Some universities use the “common app,” which permits millions of kids to stuff their credentials into the same essay question. But let’s talk about today’s application questions. They ask you to write about an experience that changed or influenced you. And instead of writing what really comes to mind (a first kiss after football practice; buying your first beer at a bar on 7th Ave before a high school dance; the time a wall collapsed on Luis Franco in history class at Xavier), kid’s today feel compelled to write about saving manatees from extinction off the Gulf Coast. Even if you never did save manatees. Because you heard about some kid who actually did save manatees, and he also carried 100 pairs of pajamas to victims of Hurricane Katrina, and he also plays jazz bass (upright) and in his spare time finished a sequel to “Catcher in the Rye.” Oh, and he scored 36 on his ACT. I guess I want to say to all the Samantha’s of the world – relax. Because here’s the thing. When you get older, you realize college doesn’t make you, you make college. Many an Ivy Leaguer is now lying on a couch, and many a community college grad is running a profitable company. Remember Matt Damon’s character in “Good Will Hunting” who taunts a Harvard student by saying in 50 years he’ll realize he “dropped a hundred and fifty grand on a (bleeping) education you coulda got for a dollar fifty in late charges at the public library”? So believe in yourself. You can springboard from any decent school. Open those mailboxes. And if choice No. 1 doesn’t come through, just remember, even Michael Jordan watched two players picked ahead of him in the NBA draft. And, like me, you can always wear whatever college tee shirt you want to……I love my BC one and I’m saving up for a Stanford Rugby Shirt this fall.