Uber rich parents are paying a consultant as much as $40,000 to get their kids into an elite school.
Michele Hernandez, who was a Dartmouth admissions person before becoming a gun for hire, literally schools rich kids on how to beat the college admissions system. She’ll help draft essays, suggest after-school activities and dry teary eyes. She even begins working with some Ivy League wannabe’s as early as the eighth grade.
Excuse me, but this is the stuff that could lead to class warfare. Affirmative action notwithstanding, affluent Americans already enough advantages without further tipping the scales. We have 30 million or more Americans living below the poverty line and yet a person like Hernandez can earn $1 million helping privileged kids become even more so. What’s wrong with that picture?
I’m not sure if this travesty reflects more poorly on the parents who shell out the big bucks for the college admissions coach, the elite schools who turn a blind eye to such skullduggery or Ms. Hernandez herself. Regardless, I’d give all three a big, fat ‘F.’
These are the same kids who will be categorically incapable of handling any problem or getting over any bump in their “perfectly” paved roads. It continues to amaze me how many parents actually cripple their children by always taking care of things for them. And most of these over-helpful parents are folks who are “self-made” and didn’t have help achieving success. They think that by giving their kids “advantages” they will do well, rather than seeing that they were successful because of their own inner drive and need to succeed to thrive. Too many kids think the world owes them, because that is how they were raised. Sad.