The Privilege of Education

Nov. 2, 2006 — -- Jian Li was the perfect student. Incredibly, he got a perfect score on his SATs.

He should also be a perfect example of how second-generation immigrants can transform their lives when they work hard in the land of meritocracy and opportunity.

But he doesn't see it that way.

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"I was completely naive," said Li, now age 19.

He applied to Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford, among other places and didn't get into any of those colleges.

Yet, he soon became aware that other high school students with lower SAT scores had sailed past him.

"There are lots of preferences given to academically unqualified individuals." he said. "For example, George Bush. I doubt he had the academic qualifications that would have gotten him into an elite university [Yale], but because of who his father was, he had the advantage over other applicants with better academic records."

So why was Li shut out from some of the most prestigious colleges in the country?

For eight years, Keith Brodie was the president of Duke University in North Carolina and ultimately, in charge of admissions.

He still teaches part time, within the university's department of psychiatry. According to Brodie, sifting through applicants is an arduous process.

"You look at the last several years, they've seen over 15,000 applications a year [at Duke]," he said.

"You end up discarding about 5,000 as coming from folk you just wouldn't think could graduate. But that leaves you with 10,000 people, and you end up offering about 3,000, of those 10,000, admission. And so the question is how do you pick those 3,000 from that 10,000? And that's where it gets tricky," he said.

Tricky is one way of describing Duke's admissions, but Brodie also says it involves a carefully defined process. Applications are divided into three basic categories.

There's the ordinary hardworking 18-year-old who hopes that exceptional SAT scores will get them in -- students like Li.