Dissecting a Scandal

For this week’s assignment, I read “The New Yorker” piece titled “The Unseen Student Victims of the “Varsity Blues” College-Admissions Scandal.”

The lead of the story is essentially the entire first paragraph, which establishes a scene of senior athletes at Sage Hill School being celebrated for being selected to play their sport at the college level. This extended scene works well because it allows the reader to become familiar with the main characters of the story — Grant Janavs and Adam Langevin.

The nut graf of the piece seems to come several paragraphs down when the writer explains how the initial story told is a part of the larger Operation Varsity Blues scandal. Adam is suggested to have missed out on an opportunity to play tennis at the Division 1 level because students like Grant had parents who bribed his way into college.

The primary literary element of this story is the focus placed upon Adam and Grant. Both are developed to be well-fleshed out characters with physical and personality descriptions. The story begins with them and follows them to the present day. However, another literary element worth noting is the scene creation that occurs throughout the piece. Rooms and physical spaces — such as in the opening scene — are described in vivid detail.

The writers are not overly involved in this piece, but they do appear when they mention their attempts at making contact with some of the other characters within the story.

This piece made use both of stats related to the financial aspect of the scandal as well as the numbers associated with the admissions process. These statistics were helpful in understanding the financial scope of the scandal as well proving a more comprehensive look into how college sports teams make recruitment decisions.

The kicker in this piece were the final quotes from Adam. They worked quite well, as it demonstrated his growth as an individual and his ability to move on from what must have been an incredibly disappointing situation.

--

--