
What happens after rich kids bribe their way into college? I teach them - pakitan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/what-happens-after-rich-kids-bribe-their-way-into-college-i-teach-them
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sevensor
Entitled and demanding behavior from deeply incompetent undergraduates is also
increasingly common at big state universities. We might be tempted to blame a
corrupt admissions process for that as well, but it's so widespread that it
seems more like a cultural shift. I suppose it could be both -- admissions
offices unable or unwilling to resist cultural changes, with the result that
academic preparedness is no longer valued in the admissions process.

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LogicX
Universities are a business: They want to serve as many customers as possible.
To deny someone admission due to poor academics is to deprive the university
of revenue.

Similarly if a student were to be an unsatisfied customer (due to low grades),
and take their business elsewhere (take a semester off, then transfer
elsewhere), it would also deprive the university of revenue.

Far too many students don't come anymore for specific classes, teachers, or
degrees. They want the experience, to check a box for their parents and future
employers.

Having taught at a univerisity, I experienced much of this first-hand,
including the experience of having students grade teachers, and their
dissatisfaction with their grades influencing whether a university asked an
adjunct professor to return the following semester. Grade inflation is real.

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pakitan
> To deny someone admission due to poor academics is to deprive the university
> of revenue.

I understand and agree this would be the case for low ranked universities but
the article supposedly refers to an Ivy League uni or at least something
close. Don't these universities have fixed admission numbers along with the
ability to pick from the best and brightest? They don't have to fight for
students, students have to fight to get into the uni. In this case it just
doesn't make sense to lower the bar.

