Blog #10: Abstract and Works Cited

Abstract

This research paper explores how meritocracy, a system in which people believe advancements should be based on one’s talents and merits rather than family and wealth, influence the current college admissions system. To understand how merit-based admissions consolidate class privilege and legitimize inequality, this paper examines different types of admissions policies that exclusively benefit the elite class and exclude the underserved class. This paper sheds light on the elites who are trapped in a never-ending struggle to sustain the meritocratic image of success and the underprivileged class who are forced to internalize their failures. 

Works Cited

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Burd, Stephen. “The Out-Of-State Student Arms Race: How Public Universities Use Merit Aid to Recruit Nonresident Students,” New America Foundation, 2015. 

Burd, Stephen. “Undermining Pell: How Colleges Compete for Wealthy Students and Leave the Low-Income Behind,” New America Foundation, 2013.

Carnevale, Anthony P., et al. The Merit Myth: How Our Colleges Favor the Rich and Divide America. The New Press, 2020.

Deresiewicz, William. Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. Free Press, 2015.

DeBoer, Fredrik. The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice. Macmillan Audio, 2020.

Golden, Daniel. The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges—and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates. Crown Publishers New York, 2006

Hawkins, David. “OPERATION VARSITY BLUES: Where We Are Now.” Journal of College Admission, no. 244, National Association of College Admissions Counselors, 2019. 

Ho, Karen.  “Biographies of Hegemony.” The New Humanities Reader, edited by Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer, 6th edition, Cengage Learning, 2019, pp. 160 – 181.

Karabel, Jerome. The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.

Kuppens, Toon, et al. “Educationism and the Irony of Meritocracy: Negative Attitudes of Higher Educated People Towards the Less Educated.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 76, Elsevier Inc, 2018, pp. 429–47.

Markovits, Daniel. The Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, and Devours the Elite. Penguin Books, 2020.

Sandel, Michael J. Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?. Penguin Books, 2020.

Soares, Joseph A. The Power of Privilege: Yale and America’s Elite Colleges. Stanford University Press, 2007. 

Soares, Joseph A. SAT Wars: The Case for Test-Optional College Admissions. Teachers College Press, 2012.