The Z-List: Harvard’s Can’t Fail Track For Moneyed Morons
Neal Brennan’s interview with Simon Rich offers a revealing glimpse into the American ruling class, where letting their obtuse, opulent offspring fail simply isn’t an option.
Simon Rich: “They had these sort of easier classes that were designed to allow children of affluence to continue at Harvard.”
SR: “They have something called the Z-list.”
SR: “So the Z-list is—”
Neal Brennan: “Donor kids?”
SR: “Yeah. To get on the Z-list I mean I think you need to donate like particle accelerators. Ambassadorships. Pardons.”
SR: “The Z-list is like, you have a student who is so academically inept that no tutor, no study drug, no recommendation from a senator, can can mask the fact that this is a person does not belong here. This is a dumb person.”
SR: “They concoct a fake volunteer project that lasts a year that is the front cover to justify their admission.”
SR: “I don’t know who it’s designed to trick. I think it might be designed to trick the child themselves.”
SR: “The smartest people at Harvard are often the poorest people.”
So there’s your glimpse into America’s ruling class, where moneyed morons can’t be allowed to fail.
If a Harvard grad was born rich and has a well-known last name, what are the odds they’re actually a Z-lister?
What are the odds that Yale and the other Ivies have their own version of the Z-list? I’d say pretty good.
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17 Responses to “The Z-List: Harvard’s Can’t Fail Track For Moneyed Morons”
It makes me wonder if David Hogg was a Z-Lister. His SAT was too low to ger into a good school before he became a poster boy for gun control, then a year later he was attending Harvard.
William Buckley once said “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Imagine what that says about those that faculty educates.
So I’ve read about “legacy” admissions. That absolutely goes way back, to at least the end of the 19th Century. Can we take it that the “z-listers” are the “most legacy” of the legacy kids?
Trump has a lot to do on his first day back in the office, but maybe sometime during the second week you should go to bed federal government from hiring anyone from an Ivy League school. That’s after sacking pretty much everyone in the DOJ and DHS.
Recruitment should be extended to state and private universities, after all, the federal government should look like America, right?
[…] Lying & Unknown Unknowns BattleSwarm: WhistlinDiesel Torture Tests A Cybertruck To Destruction, The Z-List – Harvard’s Can’t Fail Track For Moneyed Morons, and EU Tries To Suppress Trump Interview Behind The Black: SpaceX launches an additional 21 […]
Brown University had that experiment back in the 1970s where they just… didn’t bother with the GPA. If you got into Brown, you got out of Brown with a B.A. I suppose you could get an education if you wanted one; some of the scholarship kids might have had to work at it. But the people paying for tuition were paying for their kids to get a diploma and to get out of the mansion for four years.
From what I have heard it’s hard to get into Harvard, unless you are a z-lister, but almost impossible to fail out. (My great-great-grandfather attended Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School – basically studied engineering – during the Civil War.)
There were “Z-listers” (legacies, mostly) at University of Illinois back in the late 60s. Particularly if you couldn’t get a real draft deferment.
Some very rich kids were pretty smart, but a lot of them were dumb, or goof-offs, or lazy, or otherwise learning-impaired.
Poor kids had to be smart to get in. (This was before there were courses and tutors and such for ACT/SAT tests, although there was plenty of cheating.)
David Hogg, who scored 1270 on the SAT, definitely did not fit the normal profile of the Harvard student. His parents are not rich- father a former FBI agent and his mother a schoolteacher- so Harvard could not anticipate any big donations from David Hogg or his family.
Harvard admits only about 5% of its applicants. The Ivies like to admit students who have achieved very highly in something in addition to being bright: a state track and field champion, a concert pianist, etc. David Hogg’s prominence in anti-gun activism is probably why Harvard admitted him.
Harvard could admit by a lottery and still have a good freshman class.
Is David Hogg a doofus compared to the “average” Harvard student? Yes, ndeed.
This is basically a modification of the Ivy League’s long time business model. Admit full (very large) tuition students who would proceed through 4 years of “gentleman’s Cs”. Utilize some portion of the voluminous income to recruit brilliant, if not wealthy, students on full-ride scholarships. Cull them mercilessly to maintain the appearance of top-tier scholarship. Use the resulting reputation to market to the scions of the wealthy.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
How is it that the Justice Department went after all those rich LA and Beveryly Hills moms for bribing school admissions officers at other colleges to let their idiot progeny in and yet this is somehow legal bribery?
It makes me wonder if David Hogg was a Z-Lister. His SAT was too low to ger into a good school before he became a poster boy for gun control, then a year later he was attending Harvard.
William Buckley once said “I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Imagine what that says about those that faculty educates.
Do remember that a fool and his money are soon parted.
So I’ve read about “legacy” admissions. That absolutely goes way back, to at least the end of the 19th Century. Can we take it that the “z-listers” are the “most legacy” of the legacy kids?
Trump has a lot to do on his first day back in the office, but maybe sometime during the second week you should go to bed federal government from hiring anyone from an Ivy League school. That’s after sacking pretty much everyone in the DOJ and DHS.
Recruitment should be extended to state and private universities, after all, the federal government should look like America, right?
[…] Lying & Unknown Unknowns BattleSwarm: WhistlinDiesel Torture Tests A Cybertruck To Destruction, The Z-List – Harvard’s Can’t Fail Track For Moneyed Morons, and EU Tries To Suppress Trump Interview Behind The Black: SpaceX launches an additional 21 […]
[…] Harvard’s Can’t Fail Track For Moneyed Morons. “The Z-list is like, you have a student who is so academically inept that no tutor, no study […]
That Hogg kid is most certainly a z-lister. He’s barely literate, a total moron.
Brown University had that experiment back in the 1970s where they just… didn’t bother with the GPA. If you got into Brown, you got out of Brown with a B.A. I suppose you could get an education if you wanted one; some of the scholarship kids might have had to work at it. But the people paying for tuition were paying for their kids to get a diploma and to get out of the mansion for four years.
Oh, David Hogg is DEFINITELY a Z-lister. He’s going to have a sweet, privileged life for his embrace of and zealotry for an approved crusade.
The Jared Kushner name drop as a Z-lister was an interesting tell.
From what I have heard it’s hard to get into Harvard, unless you are a z-lister, but almost impossible to fail out. (My great-great-grandfather attended Harvard’s Lawrence Scientific School – basically studied engineering – during the Civil War.)
There were “Z-listers” (legacies, mostly) at University of Illinois back in the late 60s. Particularly if you couldn’t get a real draft deferment.
Some very rich kids were pretty smart, but a lot of them were dumb, or goof-offs, or lazy, or otherwise learning-impaired.
Poor kids had to be smart to get in. (This was before there were courses and tutors and such for ACT/SAT tests, although there was plenty of cheating.)
David Hogg, who scored 1270 on the SAT, definitely did not fit the normal profile of the Harvard student. His parents are not rich- father a former FBI agent and his mother a schoolteacher- so Harvard could not anticipate any big donations from David Hogg or his family.
Harvard admits only about 5% of its applicants. The Ivies like to admit students who have achieved very highly in something in addition to being bright: a state track and field champion, a concert pianist, etc. David Hogg’s prominence in anti-gun activism is probably why Harvard admitted him.
Harvard could admit by a lottery and still have a good freshman class.
Is David Hogg a doofus compared to the “average” Harvard student? Yes, ndeed.
This is basically a modification of the Ivy League’s long time business model. Admit full (very large) tuition students who would proceed through 4 years of “gentleman’s Cs”. Utilize some portion of the voluminous income to recruit brilliant, if not wealthy, students on full-ride scholarships. Cull them mercilessly to maintain the appearance of top-tier scholarship. Use the resulting reputation to market to the scions of the wealthy.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
>> Do remember that a fool and his money are soon parted.
…soon partying…
How is it that the Justice Department went after all those rich LA and Beveryly Hills moms for bribing school admissions officers at other colleges to let their idiot progeny in and yet this is somehow legal bribery?