Michaela: What’s up everybody, welcome back to this week’s podcast of “Yo is this Classism?” This is one of your hosts, Michaela Ambos a first year exercise science major from Anna, Ohio.
Molly: Another day, another podcast episode! My name is Molly Barr I’m majoring in marketing and am from the suburbs of Cleveland.
Claire: Hi guys my name is Claire D’Elia! My major is biological engineering and I am from Ramsey, New Jersey.
Claire: Today we are going to discuss the documentary Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal and ponder over the question “Yo is this classism?” We will dive into the different situations in which classism is present throughout the documentary. In order to thoroughly analyze each example, we will compare them to trends in the real world and ask if class plays a role in things like access to college preparation, the prestige of colleges, graduation rates, and court sentencing.
Molly: The documentary explains the most extreme college admissions scandal that was released publicly when investigations started in March of 2019. The scandal occurred because over 50 wealthy Americans, including celebrities Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, paid a man named Rick Singer in order to take the “side door” for their children to get into prestigious universities. While each accused person’s story varies based on differing universities, sports, and the amounts of money paid they were all publicly exposed after the FBI received a tip about a large amount of money paid to the head coach of Yale’s women’s soccer team, Rudy Meredith. After being questioned by the FBI, Meredith ended up exposing Singer’s name which ultimately led to Singer working with the FBI to expose everyone else involved. All of these events occurred because of extreme cheating on the college admissions system. These families were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their children into colleges like University of Southern California, Georgetown, Yale, Stanford and other so called “prestigious” universities. By posing the students as athletes or having someone else take their standardized tests, Singer was able to make connections and create what he called a “side door” of getting into college.
Michaela: The term “side door” was Singer’s method, in which parents paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars to create fake athletic scholarships for possible students through his connections with university coaches and staff. The “side door” was a way to “guarantee” admission for possible students rather than the “back door”, which would cost parents millions of dollars in donations to universities without the guarantee of their children getting in. The possible students would be listed as walk ons for teams like rowing, water polo, soccer, and many others. They would receive a scholarship for their alleged athletic talents guaranteeing admission to their college. As a walk on to a team, the student would never have to show up to a practice or game meaning they received a scholarship and admission to any college the parent or student wanted to attend. Now that we have given some background information about the Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal, what are your guys thoughts and opinions on how classism is prevalent throughout the documentary?
Claire: First of all, after watching this documentary my heart goes out to the hardworking kids who were denied a spot at their dream university. Privileged children of wealthy Americans were undeservingly given the spot over them. These kids played by all the rules and were refused an opportunity only because of their financial situation, which is wrong.
Molly: I completely agree. I think that this is where class comes into it. It is obvious that every single person involved in this scandal was wealthy. They could easily pay for SAT or ACT prep, private high school education, and even donate to the universities they wanted their children to attend. However, not everyone can do that. People who live and go to school in impoverished areas have a significant disadvantage when it comes to taking the standardized tests, applying to colleges and the =n getting into these colleges as well. This is because they don’t have access to what more affluent families do. This also is in direct correlation with graduation rates. In an analysis conducted by the National Center for Educational Statistics College Navigator, a very strong correlation between graduation rates and SAT scores for the state flagship universities was found. It was clear that those who possess lower test scores, have a lower graduation rate and vice versa. This connects to class through the differing graduation rates between affluent and impoverished children. Do you have any more information on this, Michaela?
Michaela: In addition to what Molly was saying, within the United States Sarah Butrymowicz, a data analyst, found that graduation rates are “ 60.9 percent of high schoolers in cities graduated, compared to 75.3 percent of suburbs. In towns and rural districts in the middle, graduating 71.7 percent and 75 percent of students.” By having lower graduation rates in cities, this creates inequality and classism for those students.
Claire: I can relate this topic to my personal experience. I grew up in a middle class, suburban area in Northern New Jersey where all the graduation rates at each high school are above 90% and usually close to 100%. If you drive 30 minutes south, you will reach a less affluent area of New Jersey where the graduation rates are much lower. The government favors the higher class by providing better schooling districts with better teachers and more resources to allow their students to succeed. This has devastating effects as the children in the lower class areas have a smaller chance of graduating and moving on to a higher education like college. As a result, they cannot move up and stay in their lower class neighborhood where their future children will have the same fate. It is an endless cycle thus resources and different education styles provided to students attending inner-city school must decrease or eliminate the education classism throughout the country.
Molly: Another prominent pattern in the documentary is the idea of prestige in colleges. The documentary indicates that prestige in a college is an allusion. Colleges make people believe in it, and it gets ranked as one of the best colleges in the nation. How they get people to believe in it, that their college is prestigious is to bring in people of high class who will bring in donations and wealth. Daniel Golden, who is the author of The Price of Admission which is about how high class families navigate the college process to get their students in to higher education, states “My view on the admissions process is all sorts of different preferences with some students getting in on pure merit but many other getting in through the preferences that skew rich and white” (14 min 25 seconds).
Michaela: As just stated, part of the admissions process has to do with being wealthy and of higher class, but this idea was mainly created by colleges and universities. More people think that a college or university is prestigious, the more likely that students are going to want to apply there. The higher number of applications sent to a university means that more students will be declined, lowering the acceptance rate making them more prestigious. The allusion of prestige targets the higher class making the general population believe that to get into a prestigious college you will need to have access to wealth. This contributes to the “othering” currently affecting those students in lower social classes. It is implying that an individual could not possibly get into a prestigious college without identifying that social class differentiates them from the higher class. My intention of the previous sentence is to not take away from the intelligence of those in the lower class or say that social class is the only way a student is able to attend a prestigious college, but bring light to the fact that social class plays a big role is college admissions. The admission of a student should only depend on them, which could be their academics, extracurriculars, passion, or personal statement. The student must be able to identify themselves based on their identity rather than a social class.
Molly: Now, a word from our sponsor!
Michaela: This podcast episode is sponsored by EdTrust. EdTrust is a nonprofit organization that works to close opportunity gaps that affect students of color and students from low-income families. Edtrust works with students, educators, and policymakers to change and better the education system. They analyze data from the local level to the national level to evaluate opportunity gaps and the actions that need to be taken to close them. EdTrust supports efforts to expand excellence and equality in education from preschool through high school and college, increasing the college access and completion for historically underserved students in the lower class. If you would like to learn more about EdTrust, donate to their cause, or receive help from them go to edtrust.org. Thank you Edtrust for sponsoring this episode of “Yo is this classism” and your continuous efforts to close the opportunity gaps created by social class.
Molly: The final portion of the documentary focuses on the sentences that those who were accused received. It is a given that everyone involved could afford high, well-respected lawyers and therefore already had a head start when going into court. The most time in prison that one of them received was 7 months, the rest receiving just 3 weeks, 2 months or anything in between. Some even pleaded not guilty and received no time. Clearly, wealth was a huge factor in this case and continues to be a factor in many other cases. For example, the OJ Simpson case in which OJ, a wealthy celebrity and retired football player, was found not guilty of killing his wife, Nicole Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, after a long and highly publicized case. People speculated the impact of his fame on the case and how it benefited OJ and the end result. Many believed, had it been someone not in the spotlight, the ultimate verdict would have varied.
Claire: This is a great point Molly. It does seem plausible that OJ’s fame had a hand in the final verdict of his case. This leads to the question, is the criminal justice system within the United States treating everyone equally, regardless of his or her race or class? The United States government preaches that no one is above the law, but is this true for people of higher social class? Clearly classism is present in the criminal justice system as those with wealth are more likely to be ruled innocent or receive lesser sentences than less affluent people who have committed the same felonies. This idea relates to a concept we learned this semester, the Master Slave Dialect. The Master has a power over the slaves that they cannot escape. In this specific situation, the slaves are the lower class and the Master is the criminal justice system. The criminal justice system uses its power to give more lenient punishments to the wealthy when breaking the law than others, such as in the OJ Simpson case.
Molly: Thank you Claire! Well, that is it for today guys. Thank you so much for joining us on “Yo is this classism?” Please rate our podcast below and share it with all your friends! See you next week.
Michaela: Bye guys thanks for listening!
Claire: Thank you and goodbye!
Works Cited:
Butrymowicz, Sarah. Struggling Cities and Excelling Suburbs: A Repeated Pattern around the Country.
30 Mar. 2020, https://hechingerreport.org/struggling-cities-and-excelling-suburbs-a-repeated-pattern-around-the-country/. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Operation Varsity Blues. Directed by Chris Smith, Netflix, 2021, Netflix.
https://www.netflix.com/title/81130691.
Pinizzotto, Russell F. “SAT/ACT Scores: Predictors of Higher Education Outcomes.” HigherEdJobs, 13
Apr. 2020, www.higheredjobs.com/Articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=2203.
Trust, Ed. The Education Trust, 28 Jan. 2019, edtrust.org/.