Excellent post, Lori! I couldn't agree more with every point you made.

What do you think of the allegation that Jared Kushner's father paid $2.5 million to get his son into Harvard? Is this legal? Ethical? Do other colleges do the same thing?

For decades now I have donated regularly to my alma mater. I'm suddenly having second thoughts. Gifts may be indistinguishable from bribes. The more I give, the worse I'll look.

Completely agree with an overriding point of your article, that what is most important is finding a good fit for our students, and having a fair, equitable admissions system. I do, however, take issue with one minor mention in your article regarding a school who had a single rogue coach implicated. Just as it's not right to assume all college counselors are bad due to one unethical bad apple, It doesn't seem right to condemn an entire university or university system based on the allegation that one unethical coach acted secretly on their own. It's a universities' duty to provide administrative oversight, but at this point there's no information indicating this instance of bribery was something that could have reasonably been unearthed by the school. And, on a related issue, while it's ridiculous that a Stanford student initiated a class action lawsuit to sue all the schools involved in the scandal because she feels the value of her degree is now diminished, it will truly negatively impact the hundreds of thousands of students who got admitted to these schools legitimately if reporters and others writing about this issue condemn all the schools mentioned without evidence that this is a widespread situation across all of them. While many private and public universities have a different set of standards for athletes, and giving extra consideration to legacies and large donors is an established admissions policy in most private schools (or even perhaps in all of them, I'm not sure about this), legacy and donation history do not figure into the UC system admission policies.

Bill McGlashan was my classmate and sometime teammate for three or four years here in Palo Alto at Terman and Gunn (I think�" and or his sister, T�" was) and Fremont Hills.
I have not seen him for years last time just happen to sit behind him on a Jet Blue.
In 2016 while we were traveling for an art installation in Seattle I noticed in the New York Times a fairly lengthy article about Bill and his work in the hedge fund world.
I was more surprised that he got into Princeton than this. Or at the very least he changed a lot between eighth grade and adulthood. Actually his family meaning his father were profiled in about 1980 either here or the town crier or maybe the Times Tribune. They lived in Israel for a year. The father quit high tech to be a cofounder of beyond war here. Bill Junior was quoted in the paper saying he was never serious about school until we lived in Israel for a year.
I circulated a picture of me, Ross elder intern, Greg Logan and I from the seventh grade C team flag football at Terman we happen to be posed adjacent in the group photo which had more than 30 boys

Bill McGlashan was my classmate and sometime teammate for three or four years here in Palo Alto at Terman and Gunn (I think�" and or his sister, T�" was) and Fremont Hills.
I have not seen him for years last time just happen to sit behind him on a Jet Blue.
In 2016 while we were traveling for an art installation in Seattle I noticed in the New York Times a fairly lengthy article about Bill and his work in the hedge fund world.
I was more surprised that he got into Princeton than this. Or at the very least he changed a lot between eighth grade and adulthood. Actually his family meaning his father were profiled in about 1980 either here or the town crier or maybe the Times Tribune. They lived in Israel for a year. The father quit high tech to be a cofounder of beyond war here. Bill Junior was quoted in the paper saying he was never serious about school until we lived in Israel for a year.
I circulated a picture of me, Ross elder intern, Greg Logan and I from the seventh grade C team flag football at Terman we happen to be posed adjacent in the group photo which had more than 30 boys

But overall he is innocent until proven guilty can probably hire the lawyer is which would beat the government lawyers and this does Stanford a service so that they can claim that this is a purification and everyone else it gets in will get in on pure merit.
Our kicker, what is likely the best kicker in school history, for Gunn, and later at Wesleyan so we will all get a chuckle out of the reports that Mcglashen discussed with his confederate photo shopping his sons face and the body of a kicker to cheat onto the football team. There's always advertising.
I'm quite certain there are numerous Palo Alto who remember the McGlashans.

On the general topic, and I approach this from many directions it's overrated where you spend years. I think the path you chart and your improvisational abilities between 25 and 30 determine the rest of your time more significantly than fresh out of high school.
The most successful member of our class arguably went to Chico State. Our valedictorian went to Harvard but killed him self it at age 20.
Or, as Thomas Berry, dream of the earth, said in response to a question, at beyond war: there is no model for the individual. Maybe it was Wendell Berry.

Excellent article! I agree that a few unethical employees who collaborated w/ SINGER at each of these universities, should not besmirch these schools reputation. The employees already have been fired, or will be fired, when the evidence is proven. The schools will have more oversight regarding their admissions policies & will due more due diligence. Coaches will not be able to submit a list of "athletes" to be admittted. I think there will be more oversight at several steps along the way. Most students get admittted deservingly & Admissions Offices shouldn't be looked upon as
corrupt. There are differences bet. admissions policies at some private colleges verus public ones.The private ones aren't getting government funding, so they have more leeway to makee their own rules. I went to a private college in Paris, & to Univer. of CA., a public one. Both have strict admissions standards & no one was admitted due to donated funds or due to their wealth. I much preferred the private college due to smaller classes. University of CA. is my alma mater, & it's an ethical institution overall. The few bad apples will be gone at all of these schools.