Tag: college

WWDFS: The college scandal hits close to home

Posted on by Suki

My husband and I are both graduates of Stanford University, though the university we went to bears little resemblance to today’s Stanford. I was in one of the last classes admitted under “Dean Fred”—the amazing Fred Hargadon who knew that although test scores are nice, a truly great student body is made up of diverse, passionate people who are….a little bit weird.

Today’s New York Times featured Stanford student Yusi Zhao, whose parents paid $6.5 million to get her into Stanford,.

You know how you read stories and they’re just stories, and then you read a story and something really hits home?

This did it for me:

  • Zhao is in the Stanford class that my son would have been in.
  • My son got higher test scores than she did. (They published hers; his are a state secret!)
  • My son did nothing in high school that was aimed at impressing Stanford. He did cool, amazing things that were an expression of who he is. She engineered her way in with precision.
  • My son did not bribe anyone; my son was not admitted. She paid, and was admitted. Her parents protest that they thought they were donating, but even in that case, WWDFS? (What Would Dean Fred Say?)

Wherefore art thou, Dean Fred?

I realize that there are other reasons that my son isn’t at Stanford. There were legions of kids with great scores who applied and didn’t get in. But it really makes me wonder: Which kid’s place did this young woman take? How many brilliant kids is Stanford rejecting to make room for kids whose parents will build them a new building?

And it makes me wonder even more:

  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why would anyone want to go there?
  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why would anyone want to teach there?
  • If Stanford is full of kids like this, why should any decent kid apply?

If it wasn’t glaringly apparent already, it is now: Elite universities are no longer places where intelligent and creative people should want to be, whether as students, parents, or faculty. They are all about making money for themselves.

Certainly, there were dull rich kids at Stanford when I was there. There were kids who were there just to please their pushy parents. There were the kids of celebrities, who may well have paid to get in.

But for the most part, the student population was made of kids who had something just a little bit unusual on top of their test scores. A common conversation that Dean Fred students would have was, “So, why do you think you got in?”

I heard lots of reasons, from “I started a successful company when I was 14” to “I was homeless and a teacher took me in after seeing some drawings I made.”*

These days, it seems, the answer to that question would be obvious:

“Why am I at Stanford? Oh, well, my parents paid to get me in.”

What Would Dean Fred Say?

Um… Go to Cal?

Loving and loss

Posted on by Suki

I had a dream:

My family was in Paris. We were on our way to see a friend, who’d rented an apartment there on Forest Ave. (As it goes in dreams, all the street names were borrowed from Palo Alto!) My family and I were going there, but somehow we got separated and I was alone. Everyone around me was a tourist; no one knew anything. I tried to use my Google, but it kept sending me around in circles. “I know,” I thought. “I’ll call Abe!” I tried to use my phone, but it wouldn’t work.

“Oh, no,” I lamented, “I’ve lost my Abe!”

I woke up.

My favorite lil’ guy photo.

Not surprisingly, this dream happened in the early morning hours on the day that we were taking our firstborn to college. It’s a happy day, but it’s also the saddest: we’ve finished the job, and our son is leaving our house.

True: I know all the things you’re thinking. He’ll be back soon enough. He’s not going far away. This is just a natural part of life.

All true. But it’s also the official break with his childhood. It’s the official start of his adult life. It’s the very real experience of not having anyone to call on to take the garbage out.

My husband and I would jokingly call him “the man upstairs” in the last year. His bedroom was upstairs, and if we needed anything done, we’d text “the man upstairs” to get it done. It was great to have another adult in the house, but it was also clear that it was time for him to strike out on his own.

This is the sweet-n-sour taste of a job well done. When we send our kids off into the world, we feel good about it. We know that they will do the best they have with what they’ve got to start with (same as we did). We know that we’ve given all we could possibly give.

But we also know it’s an end. They’re going off to their own lives. The cycle starts again, and we think, misty-eyed, about our own college experiences.

And then they’re gone.

And we’ve lost. But we’ve also won.

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