Mad Marchness

On my first day at Princeton, I was asked to sign a copy of the university honor code.  This is an agreement, made with complete solemnity, that (a) as a student I will not cheat or violate the school's ethical educational protocol, and (b) that I will report anyone who does.  So I submitted my document, crossed out the second part, and signed it.  Of course I was called in and questioned, and I explained my thinking-- that if everyone 'oathed' to be honest, how could there be anything to report?

The point being-- there is a sort of assumption that the code will inevitably be broken, but to acknowledge this seemed a denial of the version of academic innocence that presumably qualified us for entrance in the first place.  The Deans-that-were thought I was being rebellious and argumentative; on the contrary, I was being honest and clear.  In the end they allowed me to sign off on the first clause, and delete the second-- an exception, in good faith, because they could see I was clearly committed to an education process.  In retrospect, they had to allow me my innocent belief that the academic world was built on a solid ethical contract and that we were there to learn.  Why would I think otherwise?

Granted, my first week of class I was terrified that my fellow students would realize I was under qualified.  Sure, I was a good student-- mostly because I loved to read-- but I'd come from a public school; my parents had never attended college, and my Mom's reading list consisted of Ladies' magazines and local newspaper stories.  She was certainly not stupid, but she used to read the spines of my library books as though they were in another language.  My roommates were from Boarding Schools... they'd had sophisticated specialized classes and some had had tutors.  I was naive and thought this some British system of advanced one-on-one teaching.

I survived... actually graduated with highest honors and won some awards and scholarships.  Yes, my Mom put the Ivy League stickers on her car and 'wore' my alma mater with some pride.  Both parents never forgave my foregoing the Harvard Law scholarship and depriving them of bragging rights.  But my life was my own;  the career choices that horrified them suited me.  Most of all I am uber-grateful to Princeton not for the guaranteed access to a certain society, but for the opportunity of learning.  I am intellectually rich and gained a sense of context... this is the world, this was the world... I know how to ask questions and where to go for answers.  I have an appetite for information, for art-- to understand, to look, to listen, to have an opinion.  I paid very little, other than work-study assignments.  Is this not education?

For many years, maybe as a kind of payback, I've interviewed prospective freshmen for Princeton.  It is volunteer work and my students are nearly all from the outer boroughs, so I do not overlap with neighbors and acquaintances.  I've watched the boroughs become more and more gentrified over the past decades.  My students in the 90's had rarely been to Manhattan; now some of them are world travelers-- but most are low and middle class people, and many are recent immigrants.  Their parents have not been to college, and they all need financial aid.  Some of them work-- even full time, at places like Wendy's, after school and weekends.  One of them this year cared for a blind father.   They are eager and timid but all of them seem to have this faith in themselves-- this belief.  They are satisfied with their performance-- even proud.  It touches me-- their young ambition, their dreams.

Once in a while I am assigned a privileged student-- from a city private school who has been prepped for the interview-- who is well traveled and has an iPhone.  They often come in winter without a coat--- they are driven to the meeting and have a bit of swagger.  They reel off their accomplishments and social service hours with professionalism, their global sophistication and their intentions.  Often they are legacy children; many generations have attended before them and they are nearly certain they will be accepted. They have had lessons and gone to specialty camps.  One of them last year had his own sailboat and competed in some junior version of the America's cup.

I have grappled many times with the admissions committee-- how can you compare these prepped and college-ready kids to the boy I interviewed in January from Kashmir-- who had sat in a public library in Queens day after day trying to absorb the new language, looking at Chemistry texts with familiar formulae?  Or the homeless girl who apologized for not having a shower... who slept in an abandoned basement, borrowed pens from her teachers, wrote in discarded notebooks and was reading Murakami?  They assure me these children will get every equal opportunity, and our assessments are being studied so they can properly 'read' the potential of unusual students and 'weight' achievement accordingly.  I believe them.  I believe when they tell me they can spot a professionally written essay in the first sentence.  They are good at what they do.

My own son has a great brain-- the city prep schools fought over him... but as a teenager, he lost interest in school.  I tried-- and let him fail, while we watched much less gifted kids achieve comparable scores and competitive grades with many thousands of tutoring hours.  I will admit he made some decent pocket money writing papers for his classmates in middle school.  It was a kind of job and at least he was doing someone's homework, if not his own.  I never ratted-- but along these lines, I've noticed wealthy families feel they are delinquent if they do not spend large sums on outside SAT tutoring and college advising services.  None of these are indicated on the applications.  Is this fair?  Not really.  My son has complained to me recently that many of his most successful friends have start-ups funded by their affluent families.  I can only agree.  Is this fair?  Maybe.  This is life.  Really beautiful girls are more readily acknowledged...  tall men are generally better equipped for basketball teams.

We live in a world fueled by money.  Our presidents have cheated.  Our star athletes have cheated.  Art dealers and museum curators cheat and lie.  Singers lip-synch; recording artists use machines and auto-tune.  They put their names on music written by others-- they steal and adapt things written by lesser known artists.  Not so many are punished; success seems often to whitewash the spotlight.  I suppose what bothers us most about the recent college entrance scandals is the villainous parent scenario.  It scars the institution of the American family, not that it hasn't been exposed as an often dysfunctional body with a perfect face.  It shows both a level of personal sacrifice, and a complete disconnect with the 10 Commandments of parenting.

Am I surprised?  Maybe at the particular scheme, but not at the modus operandi or the intention.  In fact it goes far deeper than this, which seemed almost innocent compared to the scandalous manipulations of our political and religious leaders.   And we have known for years about NCAA schemes.  I used to be warned never to buy even a coffee for one of my interviewees in the event he or she is an athlete and this could be construed as bribery.  So this, I thought, is where they get the money they use to pay off.  On the brink of the basketball tournament, the amount of media attention paid to these two actresses is a little suspect.  Especially one who stood for a kind of American innocence.  If these were just non-celebrity wealthy people would the news give them this much time?  Another instance of inequitable receipts.

In the end, the parents seem less guilty to me than those who received the money and offered the schemes in the first place-- who prey on the insecurities and vicarious ambition of the monied.   As do the overpaid college advisors who claim to offer access to the front of the line, who enable and pad applications.  Whatever happened to the level playing field?  Failure as a learning tool?  As a reality check?  Every brilliant athlete loses games, fouls out.  In the end we can't stand in for our children or hire stuntmen to take their pain.  Surrogate parents only go so far, and surrogate students do no service whatsoever but for themselves.  We might do better addressing the students, without their family-crutches... without their tutors and coaches and advisors.  In their unadulterated innocence, as it exists today, if we can peel back the digital masks and uncover some human shine.