How VIPs Get In

By Nathan Thornburgh

Growing numbers of kids may be discovering that they no longer need Harvard, but according to Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Golden, the Ivies still feel a need for certain kinds of kids. Golden won a Pulitzer Prize in 2004 for his articles on the admissions advantage elite schools give to the children of alumni (known as legacies) and to the sons and daughters of big donors and celebrities. His book on that practice, The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates, will be published in September. He spoke with TIME's Nathan Thornburgh about the myth of college meritocracy.

HOW MUCH EASIER IS IT TO GET INTO A TOP SCHOOL IF YOU HAVE THESE SPECIAL PREFERENCES?

If the parent pledges enough money or is a big enough celebrity or powerful enough alumnus, the break can amount to 300 SAT points out of 1600, which is as much or more than a typical affirmative-action preference would be. About a third of the kids at the typical elite university would probably not be there if not for those preferences.

WHAT'S SO WRONG WITH A PRIVATE SCHOOL'S GIVING THE KIDS OF ALUMNI A LEG UP?

You have to remember that college admissions is a zero-sum game. For every kid who's admitted, there's another kid who doesn't get the space. There's a cost there. It hurts the quality of intellectual discussion in the classroom, the vitality of the university. These universities are nonprofits whose mission should be to identify the best and brightest students. Their mission shouldn't be to perpetuate aristocracy in America.

THE TOP SCHOOLS INSIST THAT THEY ARE EXPANDING THEIR OUTREACH. ARE THEY ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM?

Colleges do a lot of marketing to ensure that they bring in a huge number of applications, only to turn down most of them to make room for rich kids. It's true that many top colleges have announced expanded financial-aid opportunities for low-income kids. But none of these elite private colleges have announced any diminution of the preferences they have for wealthy kids or legacies, and they're not willing to give up their preferences for athletes in elite sports like squash, sailing, polo and crew. The losers here are the middle-class kids. All they bring is brilliance, hard work and achievement. Apparently that's not enough.

WHO HAS BEEN USING THIS IVY-LEAGUE BACK DOOR?

Lots of people. Take the example of Harrison Frist, the oldest son of [Senate majority leader] Bill Frist. His father is a Princeton alumnus and a very powerful politician. The family has given $25 million for Princeton's Frist Campus Center. Harrison wasn't in the Cum Laude Society, which is the top 20% of students at his prep school, St. Albans, but my research indicated that Princeton considered Harrison a very high priority for admission. [A Princeton spokesman says Frist was accepted on his own merit.]

HOW DID HE DO WHEN HE GOT TO PRINCETON?

He joined an eating club that is kind of notorious for rambunctiousness and was eventually arrested for drunk driving. He graduated this year but without academic honors. Now Harrison's youngest brother was just admitted to Princeton. He's entering in the fall. And he wasn't in the Cum Laude Society at St. Albans either. [The Frist family declined to comment.]

AND YET BILL FRIST OPPOSES AFFIRMATIVE ACTION.

I think it suggests that he's glad to take advantage of one type of affirmative action for his own family while opposing it for people of a different race or of lesser means.

YOU WENT TO HARVARD AS AN UNDERGRAD. WERE YOU A LEGACY?

No. My dad went to City College of New York, and my mom went to Skidmore. In fact, my parents were both immigrants, exemplars of the kind of meritocracy that I believe in.

YOU'VE GOT A SON IN HIGH SCHOOL. WILL HIS LEGACY STATUS HELP HIM GET INTO HARVARD?

No, he's not applying to Harvard. Given this book and how colleges feel about me, I'm thinking of sending him to college in Canada.