I have Thoughts.... on College Admissions

I have been vaguely following the University Admissions scandal with some smugness.

I got rejected by Stanford, Harvard, and MIT, but I got into Berkeley and Davis (my backup school, which is rather elite today and is no-one's "backup").

I got into Berkeley "fair and square". I never so much as cheated on a school exam. I got high marks on my SATs the old-fashioned way--by studying for it and doing the prep work in the books. I honestly told the admissions folks that I was Chinese (one of the ethnicities selected against); I didn't pretend to be 1/16 Native American and claim that heritage. I did volunteer work and extracurricular activities, but only those that I enjoyed and found rewarding. I didn't do any just to look good on paper. I wrote all of my own essays, and I was a good writer and proud of it.

But on further reflection, I have to admit that I was privileged in my own way. I had my sister, who was dedicated to my academic success and began coaching me in SAT vocabulary words since I was in the eighth grade! She explained to me the algorithm that the UC system uses to score applicants, and mapped out for me a precise plan of the classes I should take, and the grades I needed to earn in each class, as well as the SAT score that I needed to get, in order to have a high confidence of getting accepted. This was what we ordinary, ethical people considered "gaming the system". It wasn't bribes; it was playing with numbers! But every one of those numbers had to be earned. I actually took those classes, and I actually earned those grades and scores, "fair and square".

But without my sister, I very likely would not have done it, and I realize that in my own way, I was tremendously blessed, not just in having her but in having the household atmosphere we had. We were financially poor, but we were not socially poor. Our mother worked regular hours and came home at the same time every day. We had dinner together every night, and we grew up with "cooking a nutritious dunner and eating it at a table with your family" as a normal that, apparently, is not so normal any more. Having a mother who referred to "when you girls go to college", not "if you girls go to college", who was sober and reliable and present, was far more than most "poor" kids have. All of this tremendous social capital made me grow up knowing that one day I wouldn't be "poor". I never strove to be wealthy, but I just had in my veins and in my whole mindset that the only reasonable trajectory for a poor kid pointed upwards. Anything else was simply not an option.

Those super-wealthy kids might have won the birth lottery, but so did I, friends. So did I.

Thanks, mom and sister!