Inequality in Academia- The Role of Admissions Policies in Reinforcing Social Stratification
Part One: Article Summary
The article “White privilege and the college admission scandal” explains the reasons for the increase in students from wealthy homes in Ivy League colleges, such as Harvard. According to the author, learners applying for admission to prestigious higher education institutions often have the option to use the legal way, which is also termed as “the front door.” Under this mechanism, the student applicant is accepted into a famous higher education school because they have the required grades or can excellently play for the facility’s athletics club. Many learners who are admitted into Ivy League colleges for fulfilling the above criteria are often from low-income backgrounds. Still, they constitute a small share of the overall applicants accepted in their quota. Here, the author emphasizes that education inequality disfavors the underprivileged, as it denies them the opportunity to improve the quality of their lives if they were allowed to attend Ivy League institutions. Hire our assignment writing services in case your assignment is devastating you.
The author then highlights how children from wealthy families are accorded the privilege of being welcomed into the mentioned institutions without experiencing the hurdles their peers from low-income homes have to go through. Many individuals who are from well-endowed homes use illegal means, such as donating huge sums of money to Ivy League institutions so that their children can be received without having met the necessary qualifications. Further, some parents who belong to the top 1% of wealthy income earners in the United States pay bribes in millions of dollars for their children to gain easy admission into the higher education institutes above (Camera, 2019). The author concludes that this imbalance in the education sector creates dissatisfaction amongst the underprivileged Americans who believe they can achieve great conquests but are limited by the bias advanced by administrators of Ivy League colleges.
Part Two: Article Analysis
Academic institutions in the United States admit students illegally even when they have not met the required criteria, a malpractice that significantly hurts underprivileged learners. In many Ivy League schools, wealthy children are prioritized because their parents can afford to bribe administrators or donate huge amounts of money to charitable causes. Sadly, only the elite in the United States engage in the ethical misconduct above, implying that this is a learned behavior, as advanced by the social learning theory (de Carvalho & Ossorio, 2021). According to this model, people learn to be deviant by imitating other persons who execute crimes and experience minimal to no consequences (Mcleod, 2016). Human beings are social beings, and they easily copy aspects, such as rationalization, drives, attitudes, and drives towards committing illegal activities from other individuals in their environment.
The social learning theory is applicable in the above scenario. The elite use illegal “backdoor” channels to ensure their children are accepted into Ivy League colleges at the expense of deserving students from low-income backgrounds. Current research shows that some colleges, such as Princeton and Harvard, admit privileged students at a 33% higher rate than the 6% prevalence embodied by learners from low-income homes. The above study also reveals that students from high-income backgrounds have continued to enjoy the privilege of being admitted to Ivy League institutions from one generation to another (Neklason, 2019). This report proves that bribing is a learned behavior amongst the wealthy that was modeled by their ancestors and is still acted by their progeny, thus ascertaining that the social learning theory of deviant behavior is confirmed.
References
Camera, L. (2019, March 13). White Privilege and the College Admissions Scandal. U.S. News. https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-03-13/white-privilege-and-the-college-admissions-scandal
de Carvalho, J., & Ossorio, D. F. (2021). A Comprehensive Analysis of Social Learning Theory Linked to Criminal and Deviant Behavior. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 11(2), 11-21. http://www.aijcrnet.com/journals/Vol_11_No_2_June_2021/2.pdf
Mcleod, S. (2016, February 5). Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. Study Guides for Psychology Students – Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/bandura.html
Neklason, A. (2019, March 18). Elite college admissions were built to protect privilege. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/03/history-privilege-elite-college-admissions/585088/
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Question 
Summary: Summarize the above article. Describe the connection between higher education and deviance in the situations portrayed in the article.
Inequality in Academia- The Role of Admissions Policies in Reinforcing Social Stratification
Analysis: Explain how the academic institution admission policy favors certain segments of society through the front door and back door entry and supports or reinstates the stereotypes of the higher-income white elite. Apply at least one theory of deviance to explain the situation further.