There was a time when getting into college wasn’t a slam dunk. Even your local state university still had standards, still requested a prospective student to show that he really was interested in learning. Of course, in those days having a university degree meant something, but with the loss of standards has come the loss of value of a degree, of course.

The top schools are a different matter entirely, those schools still offer value for their degree. Naturally, everyone with a remote chance applies to those schools…they can’t take everyone. Parents do what they can to tilt the odds in favor of their kids (hi Admissions Scandal!). The most popular way of improving the chance of acceptance is going to a posh private school. Such schools charge dearly for that advantage, and while they might improve the odds, they can’t guarantee success.

A kid actually went through such a school, and got rejected by all the “main” universities. Tough break, right? Well, it should be, but she decided to fight back:

She was rejected by 13 colleges and blames her elite DC prep school. She wants the Supreme Court to hear her case

I respect she got her feelings hurt, but I just don’t see how on the face of it she has a case. If she somehow wins, I don’t like the implications, either. But let’s get a summary of why she feels she was wronged:

…private Sidwell Friends School — the elite school attended by a who’s who of Beltway families, including presidential daughters Sasha and Malia Obama and Chelsea Clinton as well as former Vice President Joe Biden’s granddaughter Maisy — breached a settlement with the family after it allegedly discriminated against Adetu, an African-American, in the grades she received while in high school and then in materials Sidwell submitted as she applied to colleges.

Ah, yes, the cry of RACISM, that usually works well. I’ve mentioned before how children of certain politicians seem to be unusually lucky when it comes to getting accepted. Yeah, we all know it isn’t luck, but that’s what the likes of CNN would call it if they covered this phenomenon at all.

Still, just because you go the same school as the elite doesn’t guarantee you’ll get all the benefits of having the last name of an elite family. Anything else?

“…was the only student in her graduating class of 126 students who did not receive unconditional acceptance from any educational institution to which she applied,” according to the Supreme Court petition.

Hmm, by the qualification of “unconditional acceptance” I think it’s fair to believe she was accepted, at least conditionally. The article doesn’t clarify what exactly the conditions were (this is CNN, and giving the whole story would cut into the narrative of RACISM, of course).

It’s just so bizarre to take this issue to The Supreme Court, and likely won’t hear it, much less rule in the kid’s favor. It’s clear her parents have more money than sense in even paying lawyers to try this case. It is interesting to note how “the other half” lives here, though.

Her elite high school has 126 graduates in a given year. My graduating class was close to a thousand, and I suspect many of my readers endured something similar in their public education. I wonder what the racial diversity of her private school was? I imagine with so many elite scions going there, the school gets a pass from such considerations…otherwise we might see The Supreme Court petitioned regarding admission to this private school, and I doubt the elites would stand for that.

I can’t but suspect the elite schools rejected her for a reason, however:

…she and her parents filed a claim with the DC Office of Human Rights, alleging discrimination and retaliation largely related to her math classes. The complaint specifically accused a math teacher of allegedly using “biased, improper scoring” to grade Adetu’s tests…

So, before crying RACISM at the elite schools, she cried RACISM at the private school as well. You generally want to avoid people with a track record of litigiousness, and our currently hypercharged environment doesn’t make things any better. I’m sure the top schools didn’t accept her in hopes of avoiding being called RACIST when she came to campus and had any sort of problem whatsoever. Too bad rejection is also RACIST (but only because everything is RACIST now).

Now, she did win when she sued her private school–scoring some $50,000 (perhaps 2 years’ tuition at the school, after legal fees), and claims that the school retaliated, somehow influencing her applications to the Ivy League schools. She might have a case, but the fact remains: when you sue your school, the next school you apply to might well take that into consideration.

While some have called the student here entitled…I’m putting the blame on the parents for paying for this level of litigation. The student involved just went to another (“lesser”) university and graduated…having her name associated with ever louder cries of RACISM isn’t doing her any favors–employers are even more terrified than the big schools of being in the crosshairs, of course. Even if they win another $50,000 (and it’s no clear who they’d win it from), employers will think long and hard before offering her a paycheck…it won’t take too many years of unemployability before that settlement won’t be worth it.

Not only would a win be terrible for her, it would devastate private schools, which now would be clearly vulnerable to cries of RACISM just for rejecting students who felt that was the cause. Yikes.

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