Letters to the Editor: When getting into UCLA did not require a $100,000 bribe
To the editor: It blows my mind to compare getting into UCLA now — with low acceptance rates and admission scandals — with my experience in 1944.
My father never went to school past the second grade in Australia, and my mother only attended to 10th grade in Los Angeles. They were not pushing me to go to college.
When I was a senior at Fairfax High, the girls’ vice principal called me into her office and noted that I was not planning to attend college, and she said I should as my grades were in the top 10% of my very large class. So, I applied to UCLA, was accepted, paid the $29 student body fee and started attending classes.
Now, you report about parents who allegedly paid a $100,000 bribe to get their child into UCLA. What in the world has changed so much?
Barbara Hardesty, Los Angeles
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