College Board, like cheating celebrity parents, supports a school racket | Opinion
From reading the headlines of Hollywood bribes to paging through the receipts of my AP purchases, I knew that somehow, whether or not I passed my history exam, I was already at a loss.
As I took my AP US history test in May, I could tell something was fishy. I was being quizzed on the horizontal integration of the Rockefeller business model while forking over $90 to fill in bubbles for three wasted hours of my young life. It smelled something of history repeating itself — though I couldn’t quite grasp what the history was exactly, if not for my understanding of monopolies as per the Period 7 AP US history curriculum.
My “AP student pack” was laid out on the desk in front of me, providing instructions for correct and incorrect markings of the multiple choice sections: Please pencil in each bubble fully and completely, erase any stray marks, use only #2 lead, and select only one letter answer for each question. It was all straight and narrow, just the kind of outline you’d expect from an organization that invented the business of testing, ranking, and grading (or, in most cases, degrading) students on their promise as prospective college applicants.
If the College Board is all about following the rules, then the Loughlins, one famous family at the center of this year’s high-profile college-admissions bribery scheme, are about breaking them. Full House star Lori Loughlin was just one of dozens of parents, coaches, and school officials indicted in the “Operation Varsity Blues” scam in March, accused of bribing and cheating their children’s way into college, spending as much as $6 million. Sentencing for defendants who pleaded guilty started last week, when an ex-Stanford sailing coach received a one-day prison sentence and a $10,000 fine. Meanwhile, Loughlin pleaded not guilty and is awaiting a court date expected for October.
While the Loughlins themselves may not have taken the College Board’s AP US history exam, nor the SAT — the pay-for-play scheme they participated in arguably has more in common with the College Board than meets the eye.
The similarities are undeniable; from reading the headlines of Hollywood bribes to paging through the receipts of my AP purchases, I knew that somehow, whether or not I passed my history exam, I was already at a loss. Per the advice of my teachers, I’d taken the SAT once, the SAT with essay once, and two College Board AP tests, and paid for the additional question-and-answer service (for the pleasure of analyzing how “symmetrical” isn’t quite the synonym of “congruous”) for an $18 fee. The total came to $338, all contributing to the College Board’s already weighty $840,6722,990 gain in 2014 alone.
For context, I make $10 an hour shoveling horse poop at my local riding stable.
Now, if my calculations are correct here (and, College Board, I’ll be expecting a question-and-answer segment shortly so you can check my math), this all adds up to a whole ton of horse poop.
The least I can say is this: If there’s one goal of the college preparatory process — to prepare students for the real world, then the College Board is doing just that. If there’s anything the Loughlin-College Board scheme has taught me and my peers, it’s how to work under a time constraint, how to bubble-in answers, how to follow directions obediently, how to heed the advice of my testing proctor. In other words, it’s how to please “the man," and I don’t just mean the frowning teacher pacing the testing aisles with a stopwatch. It’s that $338 dollars is a small price to pay for a higher education, and that I should be grateful it’s not half a million dollars and 40 years jail time.
Now, as I enter the real world, I’ve learned my lesson: I know to put my head down, submit to authority, and pay my dues — just like any proud College Board alum.
Of course, maybe it’s naive of me to think that the College Board — and, similarly, the whole admissions process — would be fundamentally fair. I’m just a girl, after all, and if there is one thing I gathered from the completion of my AP US history test, upon kindly submitting my neatly bubbled sheet, it’s that I’m dependent on the College Board’s regulations. I know I’m just a student (one who hopes that this essay won’t have me blacklisted), and that when I get my AP scores back this July, it’s up to the College Board whether I meet its criteria for collegiate excellence.
Hopefully I’ll be pardoned for venturing so far outside my bubble here.
Ironically enough, the College Board taught me that maybe you don’t really need to go to college to understand how the world works. I have learned (with help from the Loughlins, of course) that even if you’re a good little worker bee, even if you bubble in your answers and erase any stray marks, there will always be someone, something, looming over you, ready to steal your money, your sanity, or maybe even your spot at USC.
Laura Bernert is a rising senior at Central Bucks High School South.