The Green Carpet

Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton . Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. Summary:   The Chosen recounts a history of anti-Semitism and show how the Big Three—Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—constantly tweaked the admissions criteria to reduce the admission of Jews. Realizing that the definition of merit based solely on academic criteria was leading to unwanted students, the Big Three redefines merit, making highly subjective qualities such as “character” and “personality” central to the criteria. Karabel’s overarching theme is that admissions policy inevitably reflects the values and cultural ideals of the dominant group and that those decisions are inconsistent with the public interest. Inspired by Michael Young’s The Rise of the Meritocracy , Karabel believes that ideology of merit has its dark side as it ultimately deflects attention from real issues of inequality onto the unachievable social mobility. Author: Jer...

Sandel, Michael J.  Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?  Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020.   About the book The book discusses how the almost sacred principle of meritocracy is exacerbating inequality by reinforcing upper-class privilege. The hubris that meritocracy generates among the winners have led to a mistaken impression that winners have made it on their own while imposing harsh judgment on those left behind, who have no one to blame but themselves. The book also explores possible alternatives to meritocracy and discuss whether they could contribute to making a just society.   Author Michael J. Sandel is a political philosopher at Harvard University. His legendary course ‘Justice’ was the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. His books touch upon the most vexing moral and civic questions of our time which include his bestsellers “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral...

Research Question: Recent series of college-admissions scandals have exposed the false meritocracy of the American Dream. In fact, the emphasis on one’s merit has produced unfair admissions competitions in which students from less privileged backgrounds are highly disadvantaged. Why has admission to elite universities become such a fierce competition? Is the meritocratic system itself the biggest obstacle to creating a fair society? Can a fair meritocracy ever exist? Academic Sources: Liu, Amy. “Unraveling the Myth of Meritocracy Within the Context of US Higher Education.”  Higher Education , vol. 62, no. 4, Springer, 2011, pp. 383–97, doi:10.1007/s10734-010-9394-7. Mads Meier Jæger. “Equal Access but Unequal Outcomes: Cultural Capital and Educational Choice in a Meritocratic Society.”  Social Forces , vol. 87, no. 4, University of North Carolina Press, 2009, pp. 1943–71, doi:10.1353/sof.0.0192 Nahai, Rebekah N. “Is Meritocracy Fair? A Qualitative Case Study of Admissions at t...

Where I currently stand: My topic idea has changed after I narrowed my ideas. I initially wanted to research on the "value of earning a college degree," but I thought this topic was quite broad and I found myself more interested in the "inherited meritocracy" discussed in Paying for the Party . I am curious how is it that the elites are still enjoying privileges in a society where their advantages are deemed problematic and meritocracy is despised. I would like to devote my research into the admissions process of elite colleges and examine how meritocracy plays a pivotal role in the college admissions game. Furthermore, I would like to explore how competitive college rankings has led Ivy League schools to promote diversity and examine what kinds of diversity are actually valued and how they are achieved in the admissions process. I have named my blog after InGram Pinn’s illustration of the “Green Carpet” which symbolizes bribery in college admissions. Though my rese...