Pleasure to meet you.
I’m Matt.
And I possibly ruined your life
by rejecting your college application.
You probably have a lot of questions.
— Oh. Just one, actually.
What object here
can I use to hit you with?
Look, I get it.
Not getting into
your dream
college is sort of like sending
a massive, heartfelt
love letter to your celebrity crush,
only to receive a year long
restraining order in response.
It can be a humiliating
and frustrating experience.
But if you give me a chance,
I'd like to explain why
I rejected your application.
Universities love to give the impression
that the review of your application
is some exact science.
The reality is anything but that.
There's a ton of interesting psychology
behind admissions review
similar to judicial leniency
in the criminal justice system.
— Oh, you mean like how judges
are more likely
to be lenient immediately
after lunch and least lenient just before?
Oh, and also,
how if Judge Judy
and Judge Dredd had a baby.
All crime would be stopped.
— Exactly.
To the first part.
It's the same with college.
The reviewers mood, internal biases
and all sorts of arbitrary
and unknowable factors come into play.
It's a human
and thus imperfect process
almost entirely outside of your control.
A former admissions officer
at an elite Northeastern College
admitted that he once failed
all the applicants
from the city of Buffalo
because he'd recently gotten food poisoning
at a restaurant there.
He admitted
he'd be more critical of applicants
if his favorite football team
had recently suffered a loss.
Even if we're not being petty.
I honestly can't say I'm able to give you
more than a few minutes of my time.
I averaged 10 to 12 applications an hour.
These are quick reads,
not intended for analysis
or feedback like an AP English paper.
— 5 minutes to determine my entire future?
Ah, I shoulda gotten more creative
with that application.
Everyone said just send it in on regular paper.
Don't folded into an erotic origami
diorama showing Judge Judy
and Judge Dredd doing it.
I knew I should have gone with my instinct.
— Yeah, about that.
A lot of applicants send whole loads
of completely irrelevant stuff
that we never have time to read.
Like the guy
who sent in every certificate
he'd ever received since kindergarten.
There was literally a certificate
for good finger painting in there.
He was applying for a master's degree.
Another student
detailed the contents of his grandmother’s
poop in his application.
He included it as proof that his grandma
was sick in the hope
of getting special dispensation
for bad high school grades.
We just passed it around the office,
after washing our hands.
— So what are colleges
looking for in applications?
Because I actually already included
several diagrams of my grandpa's poop
in that stack, and they are detailed
and graphic.
— Please no.
What we really want to see is authenticity.
But even then, remember, we're a school.
And not your therapist,
though we probably charge
similar hourly rates.
Sometimes students write about things
they have never told anyone else.
Living with hoarders
suffering sexual abuse
from a family member.
Suicide attempts,
watching their father shoot themselves,
cheating on their significant other,
drug use,
being attracted to a teacher,
you name it.
They're probably just searching
for an outlet for their pent up emotions,
and I genuinely empathize with that.
But none of that will make me more
or less likely
to reject your application,
with one possible exception.
I swear to God, though,
if you mentioned Judge Judy
and Judge Dredd doing it
and/or your grandpa's s***,
I'm calling security.
If you're, say, a kid
struggling with depression
because your small town is dying
and there are no jobs around.
Or if you're a trans man transitioning
at an all girls private school
and you're still performing
at a high level
academically and socially.
A person like that
sounds like someone
who might actually have the strength,
the fortitude,
the indomitable, superhuman willpower
to actually show up to an 8 A.M. class.
— A.M.?
Would you be willing to reconsider
that 8 a.m. time slot for my good friend ...
Abraham Lincoln and the Washington Twins?
— Again.
Let me stop you right there.
You can't buy your way
into a top university. Let me clarify.
You can’t buy your way into a top university
by bribing me.
You're going to have to talk
to someone higher up
and buy the school a new building
for that kind of quid pro quo.
Yet people still waste their time
by throwing cash and camels at me.
— Camels?
— Like camels, camels?
Yeah!
A colleague of mine was incredibly
once offered ten white camels
if this one guy's son was let in.
— Man, I've never been to a camel meat barbecue.
— We declined. Most of the time, though,
I just deal with parents asking
if my decision would change
if they made a school donation,
it wouldn't.
Although one time
a guy whose daughter was rejected
just straight up asked
how much he should pay me to get her in.
To his credit,
at least he didn't
try to prostitute his kid to me.
Once I received a call from a high level
professional calling
on behalf of a family friend's
daughter, in addition to ensuring me
she's intelligent and a great student,
he spent a considerable amount of time
talking about
how attractive and beautiful she is.
That's as far as the conversation went.
But the implication was super clear
and super uncomfortable.
Yeah, fine.
You don't look anything
like Judge Judy or Judge Dredd anyway.
Oh, and just one more
thing before you leave.
Your college application did not get rejected
because a person of color
or woman stole your spot.
That is simply not a thing.
— But... — In 2008, Abigail Fisher
applied to the University of Texas
but was rejected due to
and I'm slightly paraphrasing her here,
being whiter than a camel
in her subsequent lawsuit
against the school
Fisher alleged
that she was denied entry to UT
because of their affirmative action policy,
which dictates that the school
must admit
a certain number of minority candidates,
even if they're less qualified
than the white students.
Fisher eventually
took her case to the Supreme Court,
where she lost
probably because her
description of affirmative action
is total camel s***.
All right,
so what exactly is
affirmative action, then?
Affirmative action
is a broadly defined policy
of making good
faith efforts to attract applications
from qualified minorities and women
in its most basic form.
It can mean simply
letting people in minority
neighborhoods know that the school exists
and that they can get scholarships
to attend it. That's it.
There haven't been college
minority quotas since the late seventies,
thanks to the Regents of University
of California v Baki case.
And you can't award admission
points based on race
thanks to the 2003 case of Gratz v Bollinger.
You also definitely can't admit
under-qualified applicants
above their more qualified white peers
thanks to the 1996
case of Hopwood v State.
Unfortunately, if you suck, you'll
almost certainly lose out to a candidate
who does not suck
regardless of race, gender
or camel having.
— Okay,
well now you're just being prejudiced
against Americans who suck.
And I'll have you know that I come
from a long line of Americans who suck.
In fact,
we immigrated from some sucky
island like, like 300 years ago.
Okay? And I didn't choose this.
Okay? You know, I just.
Just because I suck
it doesn't mean I shouldn't
get to go to whatever college
I want and for free and,
and, you know, suck while in college to.