10.07 The college application scandal: What you should do now

Are you shocked—truly shocked—that raising money plays a part in running the United States’ private universities? Have you considered that the yearly operating budget of Harvard University is about five billion dollars? Did you think that tuition alone—expensive as it is—covers this cost?If you are genuinely in the dark about this, I recommend you do a search for “Harvard Z-List.” It’s not pretty, and I dislike pointing it out, but there it is.

Athena Advises

What is the difference between an institution favoring major donors—often donors who have regularly contributed for many years—and the current scandal? Why is the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation suddenly prosecuting a college admissions scandal?Consider the charges that have been filed against various alleged perpetrators of the scheme: 

• racketeering conspiracy
• money laundering conspiracy
• conspiracy to defraud the United States
• obstruction of justice

These are criminal conspiracy charges. That’s a different order of business from donating even very large amounts of money to your alma mater, in the hope that this will strengthen your child’s case as a legacy applicant.I must confess that I finally started to chuckle at the sheer ludicrousness of photoshopping a candidate’s head onto the body of an athlete, in an attempt to document the applicant’s nonexistent athletic prowess.But it’s not so funny, really, to think that coaches at distinguished universities went along with this. Even if their aim was to raise funds for their sports programs, rather than take it themselves, it is horrible.A recent opinion piece in the New York Times lumped these offenses together with paying for SAT test prep, claiming that test prep provides an unfair advantage to those who cannot pay for private tutoring.To this I say: www.khanacademy.org. Now stop wasting time arguing about the ins and outs of this case, and how the manifest unfairness on display here excuses you from even trying. Khan Academy offers free tutoring, and not only for the SAT.The ball is in your court.Dr. Marlena CorcoranFounder and CEOAuthor of Year by Year to College, on amazon.com, amazon.de and many national amazon sites