The college admissions boondoggle

Parents lie, cheat and bribe colleges. A better idea -- chill out

The news stories sound ludicrous. Wealthy parents paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their child into a “prestige” college, like UCLA or Stanford.

There was the whole “Varsity Blues” scandal last year, which ensnared Hollywood actors and financiers, who bribed schools to accept their children. They even pretended to put them on varsity sports teams.

We’ve got another one here. Richard Blum, husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein and University of California Regent, has been writing personal letters recommending admission to Cal for the kids of friends. And, in another case, according to The Chronicle, a Regent wrote UC Chancellor Carol Christ, reminding her that one of his clients donated $1 million to the university for consideration of admission.

Who, you may be asking, are these people?

Clearly, there are two answers. On one level they are the financial elite. People who can write a check for $1 million on the spot. That’s a level of wealth few of us can picture.

And, with that money, comes a breathtaking level of entitlement. As these cases show, the attitude is, we’ve got the money, so we make things happen. Fair or not. That’s how the world works — for them.

But there’s more to this than abuse of wealth and power. These people spent an enormous amount of time and effort to get their child into the “right” school. They cheated. They broke the law. And even if they are well off, a million dollars is a lot of money.

Is this really that important? Is it really that big a deal?

And if you are asking those questions, I assume that you haven’t been through the college application process.

I’d say, next to the day he was born, getting into a college was the most stressful time of my son’s childhood.

Luckily, I was a grounded dad. I was determined not to put too much pressure on my kids. I wanted to give them room to become who they wanted to be.

And then we started applying for college and I lost my ever-loving mind.

I have a clear memory of talking on the phone in a hotel lobby, while on vacation in Mexico, to a swim coach at a small college in the northwest, asking about the chances my son might gain admission as a member of the team. (He did swim in high school by the way, I wasn’t making that up.)

Part of the problem is, not only are you going through this for the first time, all the other parents around you are yelling “Fire!” and “Run for your lives!” People freak out.

Grade points are compared. Sure you take the SAT test. But how many times?

I became the helicopter parent I used to mock. I made subtle remarks about how important it was to get that GPA up. (Which was pretty rich from me, a B’s and C’s student.) We maximized extra-curricular activities.

We bought college guides and subscriptions to on-line college reviews. Like nearly everyone else we knew, we hired a college consultant, who prepared charts and lists. We got real about which schools we could get in, and which were out of reach.

And then we took the trip. We loaded everyone in the car and went to visit potential colleges. In our case it was the Pacific northwest, but friends of ours headed east to the Arizona schools or to Southern California.

We took guided walking tours of the campus. We walked into the library at every school for some reason. We checked out the pools.

And we told my son that it was his decision. He could choose a school and we we find a way to make it happen.

And he made a terrible choice.

It was a small, liberal arts school in Oregon. The entire campus was about as large as a decent-sized city park. There were fewer students than in his Bay Area high school. The little town was small, dated and provincial.

We went along with his call, but I thought he was making a big mistake.

I was an idiot.

The school was perfect. It was small, but the admissions office made a point to stock the student body with outgoing, confident types — often former student council members, like my son.

Classes were tiny, maybe 12 people. I remember we went to see him at one point and were going to go to lunch before he had class. Suddenly he realized he’d gotten the dates wrong and had done the wrong day’s reading. He had to cancel lunch, he said, he had to get through the assignment.

“Can’t you just sit in the back and lay low for a day?” I said.

He looked like he wondered how clueless I could be. There is no back of the room in a class of ten.

He killed the grades, getting a GPA we only dreamed about in high school. He talked of meeting one-on-one with professors and discussing future plans.

As for swimming . . . he went to a couple of practices and then said, “That’s about enough of that,” and quit. By then, even I had calmed down enough to see the wisdom in that.

When he graduated, those contacts with the professors helped pave the way for a job in Washington, D.C. Frankly, he’s turned out to be the great guy we always knew him to be.

So I don’t think going to a “name” school would have improved his chances. If anything, sitting in those big, crowded classes might have been worse.

Now, reading those news stories, I think about how much angst the process caused. How much time we wasted, fretting and working ourselves into a tizzy.

And it just makes me want to offer two words of advice to parents: chill out. We kid our son because he always uses a catch phrase, “It’ll all work out.”

It will. Or maybe it won’t — at least the way you expected. Maybe you won’t have a great experience. But I’m pretty sure it won’t be because your kid didn’t get into the “right” school.

It’s a process designed to make you crazy. And if you’re not careful, it will. Once we let go of the drama and started listening to our kids, like going to a small college without a big name, things went much better.

And it saved us $1 million.

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The “regular” baseball season just ended. It was strange.

Last Sunday was the end of baseball’s “regular” season, even though it barely lasted as long as some co-ed softball leagues. Sixty games is not a remote substitute for a 162-game season.

It is true that baseball had the hardest time shoehorning in a schedule. The NBA was nearly finished with its 82-game season when the virus shut everything down, and now are finishing up the playoffs in the Orlando bubble.

The NFL basically just cancelled the preseason and charged into the regular schedule as if nothing had happened. Granted they are taking some precautions, but the news today that the Tennessee Titans have at least eight COVID-19 cases, reminds you that football is a sport where a virus can spread quickly.

Baseball had a little of everything. There were positive virus tests and a schedule that had teams playing opponents who are geographically nearby.

And then there were the stadiums with cardboard cutout fans and the piped-in fan noise. As I wrote in my Sunday column in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, it created a chance to try lots of new and off-the-wall ideas, some of which may stick around.

Having tried the universal DH for this tryout, it should end the debate once and for all. Enough with the romance of watching the pitcher fail to make contact at the plate. If you want to see a batter foul off two bunt attempt and then strike out swinging, go to YouTube.

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Kyle Smug-ahan makes a statement. He’s not wrong.

Kyle Shanahan has been hinting around about this ever since the year started. After Sunday’s routine win over the hapless Giants, he came right out and said it.

“We kinda expected this,” he said, channeling the old Shan, the cocky guy who used to put off some NFL types.

But he’s right. As mentioned in the Monday 49ers blog post Shanahan has been touting the 49ers’ depth. And it seems pretty clear that what he’s pointing to is that some teams get a single, elite player, like Arizona’s Kyler Murray or Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, and ride his talent to success.

But other organizations, like New England or Seattle, who build a culture that works, and wins, even when the pieces on the chess board are replaced. Those are organizations that surprise everyone when they pick up some undrafted free agents and get good play from them.

Kind of like when the 49ers sign Kendrick Bourne, Raheem Mostert or . . . yes, Nick Mullens.

Shanahan, I think, is saying that now into the third year, the 49ers are becoming a winning franchise, not just a winning team. This year, with all the injuries, will be a good test of that.

Oh, and for those of you who want to replace Jimmy Garoppolo with Mullens. Garopollo has a better arm. That’s just a fact. Unless Jimmy G. screws up — repeatedly — he’s the guy.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Suggestions and compliments welcome. Criticism not so much. Twitter: @cwnevius