Memo from NYC

The following are my incredibly deep & brilliant thoughts on this whole college admissions scandal which is ballooning from a news story into a dialogue on socioeconomic inequities:

Basically, trying to get a kid into college is like trying to get laid, you have one of two options: 1)  do it honestly by being, as they said on Seinfeld, "sponge worthy" i.e. woo the person, work hard to prove your physical and emotional attractiveness by fitting your l'object d'amour's idea of a good partner and hope you efforts are rewarded; or 2) demonstrate your power, your status, your strength, your awesomeness by buying him or her expensive gifts, taking them to fancy restaurants, sending bouquets and candy to their homes or places of business, introducing them to your big shot friends and co-workers, you know, showing what a "Mr Big" (or, to be PC, "Mrs Big") you are, and, again, hoping your efforts are rewarded. 

The analogy to college admissions: 1) your kid gets in on their merit i.e. test scores, grades, recommendations, extracurriculars, essays, the whole merit-worthy package but the competition is fierce and admission is not guaranteed; or 2) you donate massive sums of money to the school over the course of years, making the school's decision to admit your kid a smart, logical, and relatively easy business decision.

What you don't do, in either case, is engage in a quid-pro-quo, a blatant "this-for-that" transaction. You don't directly buy your admission into either a college or another person's body. Society has deemed that illegal -- "getting in" via merit is legal and "getting in" via status is too, but putting an exact amount on it, turning it into just another things to buy, is not. 

Perhaps this shouldn't be illegal or perhaps we should try to have 100% merit based "admissions" and status-driven "admissions" should be outlawed too -- but human beings are flawed and therefore our systems are too.