0:15

Pushkin from

0:19

Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background,

0:21

the show where we explored the stories behind

0:24

the stories in the news. I'm

0:31

Noah Felton. Welcome to the first episode

0:33

of our show. Before we kick off

0:35

the season, I wanted to share a little bit about

0:38

myself. I teach constitutional law

0:40

at Harvard and I write a column for Bloomberg

0:42

Opinion. I really wanted

0:44

to do this show because I love going

0:46

to the deepest part of any subject to

0:48

try to figure out what's really happening underneath

0:51

the news stories that we read about every day. It's

0:54

not always easy, and it does take time,

0:56

but it's also very satisfying.

0:59

I hope the conversation we're going to have now and

1:02

the ones that we'll have in the future will give

1:04

you the same sense of satisfaction. I

1:06

want these to be useful to you to help you

1:09

figure out something really new that gives you

1:11

a different perspective on the issues

1:13

and the debates that are out there, whether

1:15

it's politics, criminal justice reform,

1:18

or even some of the really sensational stories in

1:20

the news, like our first topic, the

1:22

college admissions scandal. After dozens

1:24

of wealthy parents were indicted for bribing

1:27

college admissions officials to get their kids

1:29

into highly competitive universities. I

1:31

could not stop thinking about the story.

1:34

First, as someone who lives and breathes

1:37

academia myself, I was amazed

1:40

that such an elaborate scheme could exist

1:42

and be as successful as it was, given

1:45

how heavily structured and bureaucratic

1:47

college admissions usually is. Yet

1:50

someone was able to corrupt the system

1:52

systematically. I also wondered

1:54

about the officials who are responsible for sorting

1:57

through the thousands of applications and

1:59

making judgment calls about each candidate

2:01

at elite schools. How do they make

2:03

sense of the scandal and its fallout? More

2:06

importantly, when you're dealing with that many people

2:09

trying to get into your school, what is the

2:11

best approach to make sure that those who deserve

2:13

a spot actually get one. Today,

2:16

we're extremely fortunate to have with us

2:19

Asha Rangapa. Asha

2:21

has been the Dean of Admissions at the Yale Law

2:23

School, not only one of the finest law schools in the

2:25

country, maybe the finest law school,

2:27

but maybe not by coincidence, the one that

2:30

Asha happened to have gone to and that I happened

2:32

to have gone to. She teaches at the Jackson

2:34

Institute for Global Affairs at Yale. She's

2:36

been a lawyer, a Fulbright scholar, and

2:38

most unusually an FBI special

2:41

agent. I'm pretty sure that makes Asha

2:43

the only person in the world who's both been

2:45

the dean of admissions at a major university

2:47

and also simultaneously someone who investigates

2:50

crimes. Asha, thank you so much

2:52

for joining us. Thank you for having me Asha.

2:55

I want to start with the background to

2:57

this scandal that everyone's

2:59

been talking about, run roughly

3:01

by a ringleader called William Singer,

3:04

who helped people both cheat on the SACT

3:07

tests and also, at

3:11

a more profound level of cheating, enabled

3:13

students to appear to be varc athletes when

3:15

they weren't, and did this in connection

3:17

with various admissions officers.

3:20

And I want to start by asking you about

3:22

the testing side of this

3:25

case. How did

3:28

Singer pull off cheating

3:32

in this highly regulated area

3:34

of testing. Well,

3:37

it appeared that he had effectively

3:39

bribed proctors who administer

3:42

the SAT and then

3:45

also arranged with parents

3:47

to I think in some

3:49

cases, if not all, be able to get certain

3:52

accommodations to be able to take

3:54

the test alone

3:57

in a room, after which

3:59

the proctor would then correct

4:02

the exam and put in the

4:04

right answer. I mean, it's very astonishing.

4:07

So as a result, today, when an admissions

4:09

officer college or a law school is looking

4:11

at an application, typically there

4:14

won't be any notation of whether the person had

4:16

extra time at all. And maybe that's good from

4:18

the standpoint of fairness from the standpoint

4:20

of people who are genuinely disabled, but

4:22

it might not be good from the standpoint of people who are

4:24

able to gain the system and gain extra

4:26

time. That's right, you

4:29

know, And I think that this is

4:31

just a side again that I know sort

4:33

of secondhand because it's it's administered

4:36

through these testing services. But

4:39

you know, I think it's probably

4:42

fairly rare to be able to gain the system,

4:44

just because I think typically these testing

4:46

services are reluctant we begin

4:48

with, I mean, grants these accommodations. I

4:51

would have thought exactly the same thing Asha

4:53

until I read about this scandal.

4:55

I Mean, one of the fascinating things about the scandal is

4:58

that the person who ran it seemed

5:00

to think the easiest part he actually outsourced this part

5:02

to the parents. You know, he held their hands, he held the

5:04

kids hands, he wrote applications. But when he came to getting

5:06

the accommodations, he just said, go to your

5:08

doctor and get an accommodation. And

5:11

it seems like all of these people whose kids then cheated

5:13

on the SAT or the ACT did get

5:15

accommodation. So it may be the depending on the doctor.

5:18

It's not that hard. And it sounds as

5:20

though, I mean, I'm not an expert on this at all, but it sounds

5:22

as though the testing services accepted

5:24

a doctor's note, which why shouldn't they, right,

5:28

Yeah, you know, you keep what's interesting

5:30

here is that you

5:32

know, each at each stage of evaluation,

5:35

you're really defer. You're you're relying

5:37

on the

5:39

integrity of the process

5:41

that is providing you with the documentation.

5:44

So the admissions dean is

5:46

going to rely on the test and that the test

5:48

was administered fairly and under you

5:51

know, circumstances that are relatively equal

5:53

to all the people taking them.

5:55

The testing services are relying on the

5:58

fact that when they get doctor's notes, that they

6:00

are doing that objectively and under

6:02

the you know, ethical obligations

6:05

of their profession to only provide

6:07

diagnoses for people who are actually

6:10

who warrant them. And so we just see

6:12

this breakdown at every stage

6:15

here in the scandal that

6:17

really allows for a corruption

6:20

of really kind of this entire

6:23

framework that everything stands

6:26

on, and it is I think, again,

6:28

relatively few people. But it then, as

6:30

you note, Noah, just really calls into question,

6:32

like, how what can we trust

6:34

here? You know, Asha, when

6:36

you were describing that everyone trusts

6:39

in everyone in the process, and then when

6:41

people start systematically lying, the thing begins to

6:43

fall apart. I was immediately reminded of the mortgage

6:45

backed securities crisis. Yeah,

6:47

where everyone thought to themselves, well,

6:49

the person who gathers the information on the mortgage application

6:52

must be telling the truth, and then

6:54

the person who then bought them mortgage backed

6:56

security said well, we're collecting mortgages, they're

6:58

all full of true information. And then when they all

7:01

were false, we were suddenly all underwater.

7:03

Is this that kind of a crisis in

7:06

your view for admissions generally?

7:08

Is system that capable of being corrupted

7:10

by the rich? I don't think

7:13

so, Noah. Again.

7:16

I mean, we'll see how many people come out of these indictments,

7:18

but right now it's about fifty people

7:21

relatively speaking. When we are looking

7:23

at the number of college applicants,

7:26

I think that this

7:28

one entity which

7:31

was you know, spread out among many different schools.

7:34

I don't think could corrupt the entire system.

7:37

But as I learned in the FBI, and

7:39

as we were told, often perception

7:41

is reality. So it actually doesn't

7:43

really matter if it is corrupted.

7:46

In fact, it's whether people

7:48

believe that the system is

7:51

fair and that they can get a fair shake. You

7:54

know this is true. You and I are both lawyers. This is true

7:56

the justice system. It doesn't matter if

7:59

you know it's only one judge that

8:01

goes off the rails or does something on ethical

8:04

when that becomes publicized. That is how

8:06

people view the administration of justice

8:09

generally, and I think that that is

8:11

as big of a problem perception

8:14

in terms of legitimacy as as

8:16

what is happening. In fact, I think

8:18

what you just said, Ash is kind of profound,

8:21

and it speaks to your genuinely

8:23

unique perspective on this. You might be

8:25

the only person in the world who's both been an FBI

8:27

agent and also investigating crimes

8:30

and also an admissions officer. So

8:32

you know, had you been that the FBI, this would have been your case. I

8:34

suppose the question I want to ask you

8:36

is when the FBI officers

8:39

agents and the prosecutors who put this case

8:41

together, federal prosecutors and the FBI

8:43

put this case together, they must have known

8:46

that by bringing Singer to justice

8:49

and also indicting some celebrities,

8:51

let's let's not pretend that's irrelevant, some

8:54

celebrity parents here, that

8:56

this would be a national story at page

8:59

one story, and they must have known that it

9:01

would effectively cast some doubt

9:03

on the legitimacy of the admissions process, even if

9:05

it just involves, you know, fifty odd

9:07

people to begin with. Should that

9:09

or would that? I guess in the first question is would that have been

9:12

a consideration for the FBI agents

9:14

and the prosecutors working on this case, or would they have just

9:16

said, who cares what the consequences are, We're

9:18

going to go after a bad actor. Yeah,

9:22

I don't think the perception of the system

9:25

would have been a consideration. I

9:27

think because the counter veiling,

9:30

you know, consideration is

9:33

to also send a signal to

9:35

the people who are engaging in this behavior

9:38

that we will follow the money, and

9:40

we will follow it to Beverly Hills, we will

9:42

follow it to the hedge funds of New York,

9:45

and we will find you. And

9:47

what's really interesting here, Noah, is

9:49

that in this indictment, you

9:52

know, these prosecutors charge this

9:54

as a rico conspiracy. This is a racketeering

9:57

conspiracy, which is harder

9:59

to prove than a regular

10:01

conspiracy. A statute designed to go

10:03

against the mafia. It's it's

10:06

a statute designed to go against the mafia, and

10:08

interestingly, it's a statue that was

10:10

designed to go after the

10:12

top of the food chain, the godfather, the

10:14

don And what's really interesting

10:17

is that in this case they used the

10:19

godfather, the guy at the top, to

10:21

basically flip and catch the

10:23

parents at the bottom. Well

10:25

do you think he was the guy at the top, Singer? I mean, he's

10:28

certainly the person who put the plan together. He's

10:30

the thread that holds the case together. But

10:32

on the other hand, it wasn't his money at a fundamental

10:34

level. I mean, was he out there seducing the parents or

10:36

were they showing up and asking him to get

10:38

their kids into school. I

10:41

think it was a little of both. So you're

10:43

right, it wasn't his money, and I think that that's why

10:46

they inverted the pyramid here to go after the

10:48

people who were really trying to abuse

10:51

their wealth and privilege. But what

10:53

he was doing was running and we can talk

10:55

about this because I did see legal

10:58

versions of this that I had to address when

11:00

I was at Yale Law School. He was

11:02

essentially running and admissions consulting

11:04

service. And this is you know these

11:06

services out there. They say, look,

11:09

I'm going to help your kid. I'll advise them on what to

11:11

do, I'll look over their essays, i will

11:13

give them all kinds of assistance to get into the best

11:15

schools possible. And so I think

11:17

you had many people coming

11:20

and paying

11:22

lots of money for these services. And then along

11:24

the way, kind of like a conman does,

11:27

he starts testing the waters and says, you

11:29

know, here's

11:32

you know, if you really want

11:34

a guaranteed option, there's

11:37

this for this amount of money, the side door option,

11:39

whether it was the athletes or the SAT

11:42

scores, and would

11:44

test the waters, and I think for people who

11:46

were intrigued by it, he would then follow

11:49

through. So it does seem like some part of

11:51

his business was doing kind of quote

11:53

unquote legitimate and again I have issues

11:56

with that admissions consulting, and

11:58

then he would lead kind of the more unethical

12:01

people down the path to

12:04

outright bribery and front wow.

12:07

So when you're sitting as an admissions director

12:10

and you see an application, could you tell whether

12:13

there was a consultant in the background coaching

12:15

or were the good ones so good at

12:17

their job that they could hide their

12:20

efforts to improve an application? No,

12:23

you can't tell. I mean, listen, you're you're

12:25

looking at these You're evaluating people

12:27

on paper. And unless you are

12:30

an admissions office that has

12:32

the bandwidth to do things like individual

12:35

interviews, and most admissions offices

12:37

don't. For the volume of applications

12:40

they receive, you are really, again,

12:43

trusting that this person is providing

12:46

you with an accurate reflection

12:48

of their own work, just as you

12:50

do as a professor. You know, you want

12:52

them to providing their own candidacy.

12:55

And I have to tell you know, we don't have much in the way of

12:57

testing either. You know, I occasionally get a student

12:59

paper and think, huh, I'm suspicious. I think

13:01

this might be a plagiarized paper. There's a there's a software

13:03

package, believe it or not, that we can run the papers

13:06

through to see if maybe they're plagiarized.

13:08

And it's pretty good, but it's not perfect.

13:10

And it's all we've got, you know, otherwise, unless

13:12

I happen to know a source that the person

13:15

is quoting from. You know, I've got no way of

13:17

knowing. So you're you're right, A lot of education does rest

13:19

on trust. Go ahead, A sorry, yeah no. And

13:21

so you know, for

13:23

me, when I first started as the den of

13:25

admissions at Yale Law School, that was in two

13:28

thousand and five, two

13:30

thousand and six, the

13:32

admissions landscape had changed so

13:35

much from when I applied. I mean, I had no clue what

13:37

I was doing when I applied to college. By the way, would

13:39

you would you tell us that story? You talk about that in your I know

13:41

you're CNN contributor and you wrote a terrific article for

13:43

CNN about the scandal where you reflected on your own

13:45

experiences. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, you know, I

13:48

grew up in southern Virginia,

13:50

and Virginia is a state that has

13:52

fabulous schools, so most people, you know,

13:54

go to school in state, and I went to a

13:57

pretty average public school. You know,

13:59

this was just not a place where people went to Ivy League

14:01

schools. And I got

14:03

a brochure for Princeton from Princeton

14:05

in the mail and was like, oh, this looks

14:08

like a really pretty campus. I want to apply.

14:10

And you know, my parents are

14:12

immigrants from India. They had no idea

14:14

how all of this works. I

14:17

used to study book to study for the l set.

14:19

I'd more or less walked in cold to take it.

14:21

And I just mailed in my sorry

14:24

the set. And you

14:26

know, I mailed in my application into this black hole

14:28

and just figured somebody was going to look at

14:30

it. And you know, I was

14:33

pleasantly surprised to hear back maybe

14:37

there were these services, consulting services

14:39

and guide, you know, people who helped

14:42

you back then. But I definitely didn't

14:44

have any access to those. And

14:46

does that mean that an admissions officer looked at your application,

14:49

looked at where you'd gone to school, looked at your parents,

14:51

knew what their occupations were, and said, this

14:53

is just a very smart candidate who didn't

14:56

get all the prep and so

14:58

we're gonna build that into our assessment

15:00

of the application. In other words, isn't

15:02

there some complicated process whereby admissions

15:05

officers try to figure out they read

15:07

between the lines. This is separate from question

15:09

of trust. They try to figure out whether a very

15:11

well packaged candidate has self packaged

15:13

or been packaged by a consultant.

15:15

Isn't that part of the what a good admissions officer

15:18

actually does. Yes, absolutely, there

15:20

is some skepticism in the job, and I think

15:22

this is where things like letters of recommendation

15:24

really make a difference. You

15:26

know, there was a local

15:29

lawyer who ran our you know, mood

15:31

court program at my high school who wrote me a

15:33

recommendation. He actually got a note back from

15:35

the dean of admissions, who he's met,

15:37

a great letter. Yeah, he said, this was really

15:40

helpful. And so, I mean, they just took a chance on me.

15:43

And so when I became dean of admissions and suddenly

15:45

saw, wow, you can pay five, ten,

15:47

fifteen, forty thousand dollars

15:49

to get people to help you not

15:52

only apply to college, but to graduate school

15:54

and law school in medical school, I

15:56

was I was not pleased

15:59

because for me, as a decision maker,

16:01

I need to be able to do

16:04

exactly what you just said, be able to assess

16:07

each person on their own merits, taken

16:09

to account all of the different factors

16:11

that went into their

16:13

application, including their

16:15

background, and you

16:18

know, knowledge of the process.

16:20

So I actually added two questions

16:22

to the Yale Law School application as

16:24

a result of learning about this, I

16:28

first added a question asking

16:31

the applicant to disclose whether or not

16:33

they received any assistance in preparing their

16:35

application. Terrific question, and they

16:37

just you know, and it's open ended. It says, if yes,

16:39

just please explain. And the

16:41

other was whether they were

16:44

able to take a test preparation course, which

16:47

I think is more common now. I

16:49

don't know how you felt, you know, where you

16:51

were in high school. I mean, they

16:53

were super expensive at the time. I know, I

16:55

didn't believe that they were that common

16:58

back in then. No, I went to a private

17:00

Jewish high school where, believe me, they were everyone

17:02

was obsessed with college admissions. They started talking about

17:04

it with us literally when we were twelve,

17:07

and nobody took a a prep course

17:09

for the SAT. That would have been considered very,

17:12

very strange and you would have had to have been very rich to

17:14

do that, and that just wasn't in people's consciousness.

17:16

But now I recognize that it's it's ubiquitous.

17:19

Yeah, it's ubiquitous, and so on that

17:21

side, it is almost the flip, like I kind of want to know if people

17:23

didn't because sometimes

17:26

it could be a result of,

17:29

you know, lack of access so why

17:31

don't. I mean, I think that's fascinating what you did, and

17:33

I think it's great. One question that I

17:35

have is why don't colleges take

17:37

it a step further? Why don't they say to students,

17:41

listen, we need you to promise us

17:43

as part of your application that

17:46

you haven't been advised by a consultant,

17:48

and then if you

17:50

lie, we'll kick you out

17:53

if we find out about that. I mean, if

17:55

it's really unfair, and it seems like it really is

17:57

unfair that richer kids have

18:00

the opportunity to be counseled on

18:02

their production of their application, and

18:05

you know, if we know that that breaks the basic

18:08

idea of fairness. And if it's really

18:10

hard for admissions officers to tell whether

18:12

someone has been properly packaged in that

18:15

way or not, why not just why

18:17

not just ban it? I mean, I understand that the test prep

18:19

industry is harder to get around because you know,

18:21

what if you sat at home and you know, did

18:23

practice tests, and is that really so different? Or

18:25

what if you did an online course that might be hard to test

18:28

but to distinguish, but the actual

18:30

consultancy, why not just ban it? I

18:33

agree with you, Noah, I mean, but I have to

18:36

tell you I got a lot of pushback

18:38

when I included those questions on the law

18:40

schoo application. From

18:42

whom who pushed back on you? Well,

18:44

I think some

18:46

of Frankly, some of my colleagues from other colleges

18:50

were surprised. Um.

18:52

I think because they thought that, you know, they

18:54

were like, what if it dissuades people

18:57

from applying us?

18:59

What did you tell them when I asked you that you said, I don't care at Sale

19:01

Law School. I am pretty much. I

19:04

mean, look, I think that

19:06

you know, I have deep affection for

19:08

Yale School. I think it's a very special place,

19:10

and I think it's it's worth knowing

19:13

who people are authentically. But what

19:15

about what about all the other colleges and institutions,

19:17

I mean who some of them are competing for applicants.

19:19

So is it your sense that one reason more colleges don't

19:22

do this is that they actually want the

19:24

rich candidates whose parents buy

19:26

them packaging, and so they wouldn't want to discourage those

19:28

people from applying. I mean, if that's true, it's

19:30

important for us to understand that that's true. Yes,

19:33

And I think it's because it's not just they

19:35

want them because they are rich, but because

19:38

you know these are Look,

19:40

I think that these are coming from

19:42

places, you know, the top private schools

19:45

like they are. This is standard

19:47

practice at the top,

19:49

you know private schools and

19:53

people where where they are literally being

19:55

groomed from ninth grade. But can we be I mean,

19:57

can we be a little more brutal on these institutions

19:59

that we both love and care a lot about. I mean,

20:02

in fact, having some rich applicants

20:04

is important for the colleges, not only because most

20:06

colleges and universities can't afford to

20:08

give financial aid to everybody, so they need some people

20:10

who pay the full rack rate, but

20:13

also because colleges and universities and

20:15

you know they pay my salary to so I'm not I'm

20:17

not claiming to be in any way example from this, they

20:19

live on donations, and rich parents are

20:22

more likely to be able to make meaningful donations.

20:24

So isn't there, in fact, just

20:26

a systematic preference at a broad level,

20:28

not for every individual applicant to be rich,

20:31

but for some rich people to go to the colleges.

20:34

I think that's possible. I would say, probably

20:36

more for the former reason you

20:38

mentioned than for the latter. The idea that

20:40

they need some people to pay full freight. So

20:43

probably apart from the richest, richest

20:45

universities that have tremendous endowments,

20:50

with colleges and universities that might be running

20:52

on a tuition driven model, do

20:55

they do need people who can pay to

20:58

come. They don't. They can't afford to give the kind of financial

21:00

aid on the donor front. I

21:03

honestly feel like, and again I mean,

21:05

I'm looking at this from a graduate school, so

21:07

you know, I don't know how it works at the college

21:10

university level. I think

21:12

that there can be a trade off. Right

21:15

in my experience having talked

21:17

to people that I've admitted and who have graduated

21:19

and gone on to do amazing things, it's

21:22

the people who are more the most grateful

21:25

for the opportunity to

21:27

be at a place, and particularly when

21:29

they go on to become incredibly successful

21:31

and have that gratitude and

21:34

affection for the school that become I think

21:36

the biggest supporters

21:38

and donors and patrons of those

21:41

institutions. So I think,

21:43

as I mean, that's definitely true, there are

21:45

we definitely know, incredibly generous

21:47

alums who feel that, you know, the institution made

21:49

them and are very loyal. But we also know people who

21:52

make big donations to institutions

21:54

because generation after generation of

21:57

family members attended the school. And that's surely

21:59

part of it. I mean at my own university at Harvard,

22:02

where as part of a lawsuit by

22:04

Asian Americans alleging

22:06

discrimination in the admissions process, a lot

22:08

of deep tales at the admissions process we're disclosed

22:10

in open court. We learned about a

22:13

VIP list, which was a special

22:15

list under the control of the

22:17

deans of admissions that was

22:19

not for athletes. And we're going to come to athletes

22:21

shortly, not for underprivileged

22:25

kids, you know, but rather for

22:27

the children of the very influential and in

22:29

many cases very rich, and they were

22:31

put on a special list and they had a huge advantage

22:34

in admissions. I mean, that certainly

22:36

exists at the university levels as

22:38

we now we now know and

22:41

presumably if that can be justified, and I don't think

22:43

it can, but if it could be, it would be on the idea that

22:45

you know, you need you need people and make donations.

22:48

Yeah, that if their institutional model

22:51

is built on, you

22:53

know, some degree

22:55

of reliance and continuity with

22:59

with those people, for sure. Um,

23:02

so yeah, I mean so to Again, to go back

23:04

to this whole idea, they don't want to make those people.

23:07

I think I don't think they want to alienate those people because

23:09

they are probably the most likely to

23:12

use the kind of services that are going

23:14

to package you know,

23:16

their children in the best way possible,

23:19

and especially if they are people

23:21

who are familiar with this world and

23:24

know what you

23:26

know, what what these colleges are

23:28

sensibly looking for. Again, very

23:31

different from the clueless applicant from

23:33

you know, Arkansas, who doesn't know a single

23:36

person who has ever gone to an Ivy

23:38

League school. You

23:40

know, they're able to polish up their applications

23:42

in a way. And to go back to why the colleges

23:45

don't, I think that they're It

23:47

would ruffle the feathers, or it would it would,

23:50

you know, rattle the system as it

23:52

exists. I think I

23:54

don't think it would be fatal, but I think it would be

23:56

a huge change. Speaking

23:59

of rattling the system, to

24:01

me, the sort of profound philosophical

24:03

issue that underlies this whole debate is

24:05

merit. You know, is merit

24:08

a real thing? Is it a thing that

24:10

we can actually measure? Because

24:12

we like to talk about it as though it were.

24:14

You know, who are we admitting the students who are meritorious,

24:17

who fit the criteria that we're looking for,

24:19

and who produce diversity in a

24:21

in a class taken as a whole. And

24:24

if that's real, then

24:26

we're talking about problems that the margin. You

24:28

know, people who who cheated the system by pretending

24:31

to have merit that they didn't have, And

24:33

we could try to fix that by prosecuting those

24:35

people. Are doing a better job of sussing

24:37

out who are the people who are overstating their their

24:40

abilities and you know, maybe remembering

24:42

that if you take a prep prep course, your

24:44

test scores will be different. Those are all fixes

24:47

assuming we believe in the underlying idea

24:49

of merit. But the hard question is

24:52

is merit real? Is it for

24:54

real? And I guess I want to ask you, as someone who's

24:56

been deep down inside the process, do

24:59

you believe in it? Do you believe that there is a thing called

25:01

merit that you and other admissions

25:04

officers can find? Wow?

25:08

That is a really hard quest. Shit.

25:10

Um, I think at

25:13

its core, yes, but

25:15

I think it really requires a few

25:17

different things. Um. Number

25:20

one, it really requires

25:22

I think a human, thoughtful

25:26

review of each person's

25:29

application. I

25:31

think it also means acknowledging

25:34

that everyone has their own subjective

25:36

idea of what constitutes merit. So

25:38

when you concentrate the decision

25:40

making power into one person

25:43

or three people, or whatever it is

25:46

you are going to, I think get

25:49

consciously or unconsciously just a particularly

25:52

a certain kind of bias towards

25:55

what is meritorious, but somewhat at odds

25:57

should just to interrupt for a second with the with

26:00

the whole idea that, yeah, exactly. I mean if

26:02

merritt, if you and I and another person

26:05

you know, all sit at a desk and we're

26:07

given us three files and we each reach

26:09

a different conclusion on merit, then

26:11

that doesn't feel like merit. That seems like getting

26:13

struck by lightning, or you know, good good luck,

26:16

or a value that is open for debate,

26:18

Like if we were all asked who's attractive, we'd

26:20

all have a different view of perhaps of who is attractive.

26:22

But merit is supposed to be something that can be measured.

26:25

We have tests which are supposed to be the same test for everybody.

26:29

Yeah, but I think that that I might

26:31

disagree with that. You know, I

26:33

think that you're right that we have come to

26:35

understand merit as being numbers.

26:38

And this is why people get obsessed with

26:40

the essay to or else heat and GPAs

26:43

and all of this stuff, because that feels

26:45

good to us, right, Like that's something measurable. And

26:48

if the test is administered fairly, and you know, these

26:50

people have taken classes like you have, you can

26:52

be reduced to a number, which then

26:54

tells everybody, compared to

26:57

others, how meritorious

26:59

you are. And I believe some of these reverse

27:02

discrimination lawsuits are kind of based on this

27:04

idea. They idea is that the numbers

27:06

don't lie. That's the numbers don't lie. Um,

27:09

of course we know in real life isn't always true, but at least

27:11

if they work right, they're not supposed to lie. But I

27:13

think, you know, to go back to what we were saying earlier

27:16

about the taking the chances

27:18

and looking at the context. I mean, you

27:21

know, do you look

27:23

at someone who worked

27:25

their way through college?

27:29

Um, do you do you evaluate that

27:31

uh in in a different way,

27:34

or you know, do you take that into account differently

27:36

than from someone who really was

27:39

able to take you know, is

27:41

a very accomplished musician and was lived

27:43

in New York City and was able

27:45

to, you know, take classes at Juilliard

27:48

UM and end up in you know, a symphony

27:51

orchestra or something. UM. Those

27:54

are the difficult questions that you come to

27:56

UM because it's

27:59

impossible to find a

28:01

way to you know, you

28:03

you have to become. There is a subjectivity

28:06

to evaluating those UM because

28:08

they're just not as to apples. So

28:11

your example of the Juilliard trained musician

28:14

raises the other grand issue

28:17

that is in play in this college admission scandal,

28:19

and that is athletics, elite athletics,

28:21

which in its way is not unlike training

28:24

at Juilliard, many long hours

28:26

of intense training the best coaches

28:29

or teachers and emerging as

28:31

a as a leading competitive member

28:34

of your of your chosen extracurricular activity

28:36

at sometimes at the national level. And

28:38

as we know, one of the things that that singer did

28:40

that's most scandalous is he recruited

28:43

admissions officers or

28:45

senior administrators at universities

28:48

including USC including

28:50

Stanford, including Whisper. Whisper

28:53

because you work there and I went there Yale, and

28:56

he corrupted them or they agreed

28:59

to be corrupted, and

29:01

they marked students as elite

29:04

athletes deserving of recruiting even

29:06

though the students in some cases had never even played

29:08

the board. So

29:10

that raises right away

29:12

the problem of whether sports

29:15

should matter at all in college

29:17

admissions. And I know that, at least

29:19

based on my own experience, is a law student can't

29:21

be that my basketball talents were any factor

29:25

to my admission. And based on the

29:27

other people players and I played with, some of them were very good, but that doesn't

29:29

seem like why they got in. So I understand this is not as much an

29:31

issue in law school, but at the college level,

29:34

should elite sports be treated as a

29:36

separate category of admissions?

29:40

You know, I have to be honest now, I just don't

29:42

know enough about this. And again

29:45

I think that this gets into

29:48

things like the economic

29:50

model on which a lot of some institutions are

29:52

based. College sports

29:55

is I think, a moneymaker at many

29:57

places, and

29:59

you know it could it

30:02

also fosters some of that alumni

30:07

you know, connection and attachment to

30:09

those institutions, which can then you know, funnel,

30:12

which then bolsters their development

30:14

base for donors and stuff. So I think

30:16

it's really woven into,

30:19

um, you

30:21

know, the entire system that

30:23

some of these universities are built on

30:26

and I should it be. I mean,

30:28

I think certainly I have a great overview

30:30

of it, and I think you're absolutely right. Yeah. I mean again,

30:32

I think this comes to you know, these

30:34

are the things that we believe our

30:36

meritorious. I mean, our culture believes,

30:39

like no one really has ever questioned

30:41

that the way that they have questions, say affirmative action,

30:44

um, you know, and I think there's been some questions

30:46

on the other side of say legacy

30:48

status and stuff. But like you know, the

30:51

idea that uh, you

30:54

know, athletic recruitment is a part

30:56

of college um and and

30:58

can really give you um

31:00

advantage has I think has always been linked

31:03

to an idea that

31:05

that developing that excellence

31:07

in a sport is is

31:10

actually noteworthy. And so I tend

31:12

to agree with you that that it is noteworthy and that it

31:14

is worthy. Although it's worth noting that

31:16

the Oxford and Cambridge model from

31:18

the UK is that they

31:20

give zero weight to athletics

31:23

at all, and they actually still have some

31:26

elite athletes who managed to get in, but that they

31:28

don't wait at all. But admittedly that's a different country

31:30

and in a different system. But what I was going to say, sorry,

31:32

go ahead, Well, you are a road scholar, right,

31:34

I was, And the roads also

31:36

places, or at least it used to.

31:39

It absolutely does, and luckily for me, not

31:42

everybody had to be had to be an athlete. There was, you

31:44

know, there there was Corey Booker there to

31:46

uh, you know, an actual an

31:49

actual division one tight end, a legitimate,

31:51

legitimate player to even out the people who who

31:53

are more bookworms. But but you

31:55

know, I think that it's

31:58

reasonable to weigh athletic prowess

32:00

as one element in admission. But

32:02

what the Singer scandal shows

32:05

is that at a lot of colleges,

32:07

including the best colleges in the country,

32:11

you could get admitted on a totally different

32:13

track. If you were an athlete, your

32:15

application did not You didn't even

32:17

get admitted at the same time, on the same day

32:19

as everybody else. There was an earlier

32:21

admissions deadline, and there was a completely

32:23

parallel process where coaches

32:26

were given by admissions offices, which

32:28

means by administrations a certain number

32:30

of guaranteed slots. And that's

32:33

what they managed to exploit.

32:35

In fact, I think you know, one interesting question

32:37

is why did people with a million bucks to get their kids into college

32:39

not just make a million dollar donation to the college or their

32:41

choice. And I think the answer is no college

32:44

would guarantee them admissions, even

32:46

for a million dollars. But by going

32:49

through this quote unt illegal side

32:51

door, they were guaranteed admissions

32:53

because the coaches had admission

32:56

slots that they owned. Yeah,

32:58

I mean, do you think we could agree that that is maybe

33:00

a bad idea. I mean,

33:02

it's definitely raises the question of

33:04

oversight. Like so, you

33:07

know, presumably these coaches were

33:09

given these slots because

33:12

they alone have the expertise

33:14

to assess whether someone is

33:18

the best baseball player in the country, something

33:21

that maybe the admissions

33:23

team would not be able to assess. And so

33:26

if that is the basis on which

33:28

you're going to give like a significant advantage,

33:30

then you have to have somebody in that position

33:33

who can evaluate that. Just like if

33:35

if let's use music as an example,

33:37

that were the other if that were instead

33:40

of sport, what were you were doing, you would have to have somebody

33:42

who understands, you

33:44

know, musical proficiency and technical

33:47

ability to evaluate that. No,

33:49

I know, and you know, it's sort of interesting. We haven't

33:51

really gotten a clear sense of this, but some

33:54

of the coaches seem to

33:56

have taken the money

33:59

in exchange for giving away slots to

34:01

use for their programs. So in

34:03

some cases they seem to have been given money themselves,

34:06

the old fashioned form of corruption, I bribe you to

34:08

give me one of your slots. But some of them seem

34:10

to have taken a lot of the money in the form of

34:12

donations to their program. So in

34:14

a sense they were saying they probably were doing just what you're

34:16

saying. Oh, they were trying to particular their best team, but

34:18

they thought to themselves, well, I also need equipment,

34:21

right, and I also need support from

34:23

my team, So I'm going to take half a million dollars

34:25

as a donation to my program and

34:28

use that this year in lieu of a particular

34:30

slot. So the cash was also in that sense

34:32

of benefit. Some of them may really have been

34:34

doing exactly what you said, trying to put together the best

34:36

team they could, but they just weighed the cash

34:39

more heavily than their particular candidate.

34:42

Yeah, and I guess this gets too. I

34:44

mean, why, maybe

34:47

you know this better than me. I don't know that we've gone

34:49

to institutions where sports are the moneymaker

34:51

for the school, but I mean, you

34:54

know this is again, this is kind of all

34:56

the incentives that are built up. And

34:59

I want to also just throw in here before we

35:01

run out of time, that US News is another

35:04

thing. I mean, we can ignore

35:06

how incentives play a role in how

35:09

people value certain things, and then

35:11

that kind of permeates the whole system. So

35:13

with US News, for example, colleges,

35:17

okay, hugely important to the life, which is most

35:20

colleges and universities in the United States, and um,

35:22

you know, most people don't realize that. I

35:25

mean, the US News formula is fairly

35:28

arbitrary. They can choose to wait things at

35:30

certain things highly or not. And what they

35:32

wait very highly are l sets in

35:34

GPA. Now, as we've just noted,

35:36

maybe that makes sense. Maybe those are the

35:38

only objective criteria of merit and they

35:41

should be weighted. But what what then

35:43

happens is that it

35:45

becomes a frenzy to

35:47

get the highest l SAT score to do, you

35:49

know, to make sure that that it disincentivises

35:53

students actually from taking harder classes

35:55

because they don't want to get a lower

35:57

grade UM. And

35:59

it also drives great in it drives great inflation,

36:02

UM. And it also makes

36:05

it so that many colleges and universities

36:08

can take into account kind of the full

36:11

picture and take the risks

36:13

on people that are incredibly compelling,

36:15

and maybe they don't feel like the test

36:18

score is truly predictive of what

36:20

this person is capable of, but it could

36:22

impact their overall average, which would then

36:24

drop them two points, you know, two slots and

36:26

the rankings, and then that makes them lose money. And

36:29

I mean, all of these domino effects

36:31

that happen, and I think that that also is

36:34

sort of driving it in a way. We'd

36:36

have to dissect it more on the athletic side.

36:38

But when it becomes the moneymaker or

36:41

the you know, reflection

36:44

of that school's value, that's

36:48

when you start having perverse incentives and people

36:51

start being able to exploit. I

36:53

mean, you're really you're really uncovering here a

36:56

whole cycle, Yeah, where the colleges

36:58

and universities want to score high on the

37:00

US News ranking so they can get the best

37:02

students, so that they can score

37:05

high on the US News ranking. The students

37:07

want to do well so that they can go to the niest

37:09

US News and ranked colleges so they can get jobs,

37:12

so they can make money, so they can donate it back to

37:14

the colleges so that they can whole start the whole

37:16

process all all over again.

37:18

And I guess the question is, does this whole

37:20

complicated process that is very characteristic

37:22

of the United States is it working?

37:25

Is it ultimately serving the

37:27

interests of the society,

37:29

which is what it's supposed to do? And

37:32

you know, what is your what is your bottom line answer

37:34

on that deep question. I think that you

37:37

know this scandal, um, and

37:39

I I can talk about law school for

37:41

sure. I think that we have started

37:44

to move into an area where

37:46

it is not serving the

37:48

population. And you know, just

37:51

tuition alone, the

37:53

fact that you know, law school graduates

37:55

are graduating with the

37:58

debt that's equivalent of a mortgage

38:02

where even the highest size, yes,

38:04

and even the highest paying law

38:06

firm jobs can't sustain

38:09

necessarily these uh, these

38:11

debts, um, you

38:14

know. And I think that this has long term implications

38:16

for for these schools. Uh.

38:18

You know. They they make it so that students

38:21

might be less likely to give back. They

38:23

might say, hey, I paid you know, two hundred

38:25

thousand dollars to go there. I don't owe you any

38:27

money anymore, um,

38:30

or to to go into profess you know, go down

38:32

paths that that aren't suited to them. I mean,

38:34

you know you're there, Noah, you see how all?

38:39

Yeah? Um, and so you

38:41

know, the question is who

38:43

needs to take the lead to

38:46

sit down and say this

38:49

is not working and here

38:51

are the things that are really

38:53

driving this off the rails, and we are

38:55

going to change it. Um.

38:59

I frankly think that that belongs to

39:01

the elite schools themselves. Um,

39:04

it's the people. It's the ones at the top that

39:06

I think can afford to, for example,

39:09

drop out of the rankings and just say we're not doing we're not playing

39:11

anymore. Out of the game.

39:13

Yeah, we're out of the game. I mean, you know, if Harvard

39:15

did that and they dropped, I don't think the students would stop.

39:18

I don't think students would have stop applying to Harvard.

39:20

I really don't. Um. You

39:22

know, at some point somebody has

39:24

to call the bluff. And um.

39:27

You know, same thing with with tuitions

39:30

and uh,

39:32

you know all of these other incentives that are

39:35

you know, we have there are some schools that are now dropping

39:37

um stardized

39:40

tests. Yes, yeah, you know, so I think we're

39:42

starting to see some movement

39:44

in that direction. Um.

39:47

And you know, anything like that I mean, think about it. If if if schools

39:49

drop standardized tests there, the

39:51

US news is going to have to find another way

39:54

that's true. And then the great challenge will

39:56

be when the tests are dropped, have we made things

39:59

fairer right? Or have we made it

40:01

harder for for kids like

40:03

you who had great scores and

40:06

who use those scores as a signal to their colleges

40:08

and say, hey, I'm really smart, you know, and admit

40:10

me, yes, exactly, And I think that's the trade

40:12

off. Trade Offs are the name

40:15

of the game. And this very very, very complicated.

40:17

I feel like we've no answers in this conversation

40:20

except well, I think you're I think you're right. But I

40:22

think this is the stage of life where we

40:24

should be asking the deep questions and we should

40:26

be using a scandal like this as a way to say, does

40:29

merit work? You know? Do these rankings

40:31

help us? And asking those questions

40:33

can be the first age to

40:36

trying to solve the problem as you as you were just suggesting,

40:38

and that was going to require some experimentation. Yeah,

40:41

I'm incredibly grateful to you for your super

40:43

honest and deep answers

40:45

and explanations. Josh, I thank you so so much,

40:47

Matt. Thank you. This was a great conversation and

40:50

I appreciate you having me on. I

40:58

live my whole life surrounded by the idea

41:00

of merit. I teach students. They

41:02

seem great. I have colleagues, they

41:04

seem great. So it's natural to assume

41:07

that we're surrounded by the best people the

41:09

heart is working the ones who deserve to be there

41:11

the most. The thing about this

41:14

college admission scandal is it makes you stop

41:16

and ask is merit

41:18

for real? Just the fact

41:20

that people seem good doesn't mean that there aren't

41:22

other people out there who are as good, or maybe

41:25

actually better, And

41:27

the playing field that we imagine existing

41:29

to choose the people who are most meritorious

41:32

probably isn't fair in the first place. It's

41:34

not just a question of how rich people cheated

41:36

to get their kids into fancy schools. It's

41:39

the question, at the more basic level

41:41

of why the system overall favors

41:44

people who are well off over

41:46

people who start with less means and might

41:48

actually be more talented. Maybe

41:51

the system just doesn't produce

41:53

the merit that we imagine that it does. On

41:56

top of that, I have the strong feeling

41:59

that we have not heard the last of this case.

42:03

Are these all the people that the FBI has

42:05

on tape, cheating and lying

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and scheming to get their kids into Nancy schools?

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I seriously doubt it. Deep

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Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries.

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Our producer is Lydia Gane Coott, with engineering

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by Jason Gambrell and Jason Roskowski.

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Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our

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theme music is composed by Luis GERA

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special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm

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Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and Mia Lobel.

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I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter

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at Noah R Feldman. This is

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Deep Background