Go Fiting Illini!

The above may be how a number of less-qualified applicants who made it into the University of Illinois would have spelled the phrase.

Were these stellar athletes, admitted because they could run very fast while holding a football and shedding defensive tackles, or drive the lane with strength and skill? Nope. How about the children of the very wealthy, who were admitted on or about the same day that the university endowment got a good shot in the arm from Mom and Dad or the new lab building was suddenly going to cost a lot less? Perish the thought, I tell you. This is a university!

The students in this cohort, although ranking in the 76th percentile of their high school classes while the average Illini ranked 88th in his or hers, made it in the Chicago way: They knew somebody who knew somebody.

The irritation displayed by Illinois legislators is kind of silly in at least one respect. Talk with an admissions officer at a college sometime. The idea that college admissions is a matter of pure merit will wither fast, unless your admissions person still works for the college and thinks you're recording the conversation. Test scores and academic standing may play the largest part in whether you get in or not, but there are a bunch of other factors. This book by Jacques Steinberg is one of a bunch that detail that process. Illinois, having within its state the unique patronage system known as "clout" within the old Chicago Democratic machine, simply has another X factor to feed into the mix. If the so-called "clout list" disappears today, there are still dozens of other non-merit-based criteria that will let Student A through the gates even though his scores aren't quite as high as Student B's.

And for me as a Northwestern alum, the whole thing is kind of a chuckle. All of this fuss and feathers and hard work in order to be an Illini? It's sort of like using your influence and position to make yourself the bullpen catcher: You may ride the bus and wear the uni, but you ain't on the team. And the U of I university motto "Learning and Labor" is still code for "I park Wildcat cars."