They could choose easier courses/major (however that is defined for the particular student and school) where they can pass all of the courses. It is not like a well connected plutocrat kid needs anything more than C grades and graduation to inherit a job at the parents’ company.
Higher Education Fraud…
Massive Scandal Alleged in College Admissions
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/12/dozens-indicted-alleged-massive-case-admissions-fraud
“The institutions involved include Georgetown, Stanford, Wake Forest and Yale Universities and the University of Southern California.”
The advantage of being wealthy is unbelievable. My daughter used the free ACT study sessions at our local Community Center. Shining this light makes the entire process and many opinions on higher education laughable.
If kids are found to have known about the cheating, I expect that they will be expelled/retroactively rescinded. If so, we will likely hear about it, because the student newspapers at these colleges may start keeping track of these classmates and note any dorm move-outs or failure to re-appear after break. If there are expulsions, it wouldn’t surprise me if I hear from some of the families. I’ve worked with lots of kids who were caught cheating, though it’s mostly academic cheating, not admissions cheating. (Of course, I won’t be able to say whether I’m working with any of them.)
“Even if the kids did know, why would they care? Considering their parents are willing to do this in the first place, they obviously weren’t raised to care about cheating to get into college.”
There is evidence that some of the kids knew. But having immoral parents is not evidence of immorality. The world is filled with humans who are the opposite of their parents – for good and for ill.
50 Charged in Largest College Admissions Scam Ever…
https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-03-12/50-charged-in-largest-college-admissions-scam-ever
“In one instance, actress Felicity Huffman, star of the television show “Desperate Housewives,” paid $15,000 for her daughter’s answers on the SAT to be corrected after she took the exam.”
“Make no mistake, this is not a case when parents were acting in the best interest of their children,” said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office. “This is a case in which they flaunted their wealth and set their children up with the best education money could buy – literally. Their actions were, without a doubt, insidious, selfish and shameful.”
this has got more of the juicy details.
i have a hunch the rowing coach at UCLA may be one of the culprits
@ucbalumnus i don’t agree that you can just take an “easy” major and get a c. There are people who flunked out of college with “easy” major and they took the SAT themselves. Is it that far fetched to think that the cheating continue in college, though?
One of the things that’s especially interesting/disturbing is that being an athletic recruit even in a non major sport is apparently a better hook than paying $500,000 directly as a donation to the university.
A very famous golfer has a freshman at a local ivy.
There’s some local chat that a lot of calls to help move the needle were made in the admissions process. Even if not true, it’s what people think. Does it matter?
Probably not a hill of beans in the long run.
Once you’ve earned your degree, no one really cares about your original preference.
And it is generally harder to get in than to flunk out at elite schools. They really want you to make it.
I would be shocked if many of the students involved in this case didn’t succeed once they were in the elite school.
Once again proving the point about how do many rejected students were qualified and would have done well at school x.
Just try to get your student to really believe this fact after a rejection letter.
Yikes! It’s crazy to learn that the location of this dude’s office is literally 15 minutes from where I live!
“Is it that far fetched to think that the cheating continue in college, though?”
It’s not far fetched, but I also would not assume that it happened. The coursework at selective schools, or even super-elites, is often much like coursework elsewhere. A student with the skills and motivation to succeed honestly at Whoville State can probably succeed honestly at Stanford, though maybe not with the same GPA.
Goes beyond the examples in the indictment. UPenn basketball coach admitted taking bribes for admissions in current trial: https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/03/penn-athletics-jerome-allen-philip-esformes-trial-update-bribery-basketball-morris
A very sad commentary on the ethics and greed of these rich parents. They could have donated a million (or more) toward financial aid for deserving kids, which they obviously have, and done something good and gotten their kids in. Instead, they commit a crime? It’s disgusting.
Holistic and fair? These colleges are anything but fair. There is a reason they fight tooth and nail against transparency and use holistic cover to rob merit candidates.
The whole ACT/SAT thing has always been somewhat of a racket. Lower and middle-class kids/parents cant even afford these extravagant prep courses that without a doubt put all these kids are a disadvantage when it comes to college admissions. For many, you can say goodbye to even generous merit schools such as Alabama, Mizzou, USC, et etc…which are not even in the elite category but very much score driven. I honestly think the majority of the middle class gets screwed in every way. You do not make enough and you make too much to even qualify for need-based
aid. Then you have to have a certain score in order to get into the merit category as some schools. Even smart kids with 26 to 29 ACT scores are barely getting any merit. I know CC is full of super high stat kids, but we all know that the majority do not play here.
The Daily Mail story says that some kids were actively assisted during tests (as opposed to others where the answers were changed afterwards). They knew.
Many are in disbelief that these parents couldn’t be happy with their kids going to “average” schools. I think it was probably more kid driven - “I want to go to Yale no matter what”. These kids have a dream school and their parents pay to make it happen, because this is what they do.
My dad is devastated - he is good friends with the UT tennis coach. Says he thought he was the nicest guy. https://www.hookem.com/story/texas-tennis-coach-michael-center-among-coaches-indicted-sweeping-college-admissions-scheme/?fbclid=IwAR3rji4v_s9nq6YEmZERnt3ZKHHuEZh2IUUOeogA5rMngYFfw8ov6-klg0A
If this is true, it has to be my favorite part of this (sad) story…
@conmama, I bet Felicity is gagging on those words about now!!