Seems like a good chunk of this thread has turned into a debate over extra time for testing and how it gives kids who don’t have any real disability an unfair advantage. However, with this scam, the extra time itself was immaterial. They just needed the accommodation because it allowed the kids to take the test alone in a room with Singer’s corrupt proctor so that exam could be subsequently corrected without anyone noticing. The extra time itself was immaterial.
“We want some people to make excellent decisions based on facts in a certain amount of time, the faster the better. We want a surgeon to figure out quickly why we are dying on the operating table, but not necessarily speed through the surgery and make a mistake or nick an artery.”
Bad analogy,because surgeons usually pride themselves in their abilities to complete surgeries quickly. Because the longer the patient is lying there cut open on the table the greater the risk of adverse complications.
Or, they may not have seen them. One doesn’t have to list a HS to register for SAT/ACT. Indeed, back when ‘xiggi’ was the go-to guy for testing, he used to routinely recommend NOT listing a HS code on the test registration form.
@raclut Not familiar with medical school process too well but for law schools and mba programs…this goes on all the time.
The point of a class action is that one or two representatives stand in for the whole class. In this case, the class might be everyone who applied to these schools over the past decade while the scam was in place. Thats a LOT of application fees.
It’s the students/families who are gaining extra time, and some of those are gaining it fraudulently. Not up to the school to determine whether Sally/Johnny deserves extra time on SAT/ACT… It’s not up to the schools to claim a licensed psychologist’s written evaluation is bogus.
@bluebayou ^But the school typically does submit the request to the high stakes testing sites (though not always) and has to document the veracity of the request.
TheBigChef - good point.
Gourmetmom - so true. And it isn’t a “rich” thing. Some people are just cheaters and/or scammers. When I see the lengths some criminals will go to to scam people and how clever they can be, I’m amazed. I also find myself wondering what they could accomplish if they used their “skills” for good.
As for an analogy to places where quick response time/processing speed/executive function is needed, the emergency room is a good one.
understand jym, but again, no school will NOT submit a request to CB when a family presents an outside written evaluation from a licensed health care practitioner. It’s up to CB/ACT do determine whether the student qualified for accommodations such as extra time.
Think about it: why would a school reject the parent’s request? What is the value to the school to do so?
The judge should know better than this. There are multiple parties being sued, by multiple plaintiffs, and there are potentially hundreds of thousands of plantiffs over the admissions years in question. If similar claims are made relating to the same situation, and a class action is not granted, some victims (plaintiffs) may never get relief. Worse, the small claims courts would become unnecessarily clogged for years
“Is there a chance of adcoms feverishly reevaluating their RD decisions?”
I think it is almost certain that the Ivies, Stanford, and the others that don’t announce RD results until the end of this month are, as we speak, feverishly reviewing every app in the Accepted pile looking to weed out any that have even the faintest whiff of fraud or corruption.
My daughter applied to USC last year and although having stellar grades, accolades and test scores was denied. It was her dream school and she was crushed. Nevertheless, I encouraged her to move forward and she was accepted and is now attending UCLA. Never dawned on me that some parents were paying $500K for admissions! W T F
@jym626 An ER doc might need to be quick at certain tasks, but I doubt the EMTs ever wheeled in an unconscious man screaming, “Doc, for gods sake, solve this differential equation before time runs out!”
The ACT isn’t testing the reflexes necessary to work in the ER and honestly, since those skills would not be evaluated until late in medical school, college doesn’t need them either. The only place speed might be needed would be on the math team.
I don’t know of one school where the coach gets to make the admission decision. The coaches give admissions a list of who they want as recruits, but the admission decision is still up to the admissions office. Even at my daughter’s school that admits 50% of applicants, one of the recruits for her team was not admitted. That girl (and her sister) went to another school in the conference with less rigorous academic standards. She’s a really good player, just didn’t have the stats to get admitted.
The schools have decided they have about 200 admissions spots for athletes. In this scandal, most of the schools involved gave 3-5 spots per year to these faux athletes. At most schools, it’s not between an unqualified athlete and a super overqualified math genius, but to take the qualified athlete over the equally qualified math geek. In the majority of cased, the athlete is just as qualified as the non-athlete, but the athlete gets the nod. The elite schools have 10 qualified applicants for every single seat at the school, so out of the 10, the athlete gets picked. At Julliard, the musician gets picked. At an art school, the artist gets picked even if there are other applicants with better scores and grades.
There are schools that treat sports as little more than a high school gym class. If that’s the experience you want (or your kids want) go to one of those schools. Harvard, Yale, Duke and Stanford aren’t those schools and no one is going to make those schools give up sports. Go to Cal Tech or Grinnell instead of Georgia Tech or Amherst if you want little or no sports. Even U of Chicago is trying to bring back sports at a more competitive level. Schools recognize the need to offer competitive sports to attract the students and the alum $$$ they want. Schools are a business and they need to keep the customers happy.
Add up all those application fees, and the class action lawyer’s cut is much more than a modest payout.
On the other hand, if the court decision is that only a fraction of application fees are to be refunded based on the percentage of admission seats lost to the scandal and not available for fair competition by the applicants, even the class action lawyer’s cut may not be as big as hoped for.
I love what you wrote @twoinanddone . Sports are like fraternities and sororities. If you don’t like em, go to a school that has no Greeks. They’re out there. Same with sports.
My impression of these parents is that the most important thing to their own sense of self-worth is their social status in the eyes of their VIP circle. The point of sending their kids to a high-status university is not to improve the learning, job opportunities, or happiness of the children in any meaningful sense. It is just to add a status symbol as an end in itself. They want to be admired and hopefully envied by their VIP friends at dinner parties.
“We have all been brainstorming various solutions to the problem of extra time. I wonder if any of these are being floated by the people that matter…the colleges and the testing companies? Has anyone seen any articles referencing any potential fixes?”
Here’s a few things (some of which already exist) that would make a big difference in leveling the playing field for standardized testing and also deter cheating:
- Require kids to submit all their test scores, not just the single best one. Penn, Gtown and a few others already do this. Really decreases the incentive/advantage for the rich kids to take the test time and again and again. Also would be a pretty good way to flag scores that made very suspiciously big jumps.
- Related, stop the idiocy of super-scoring. Some colleges currently abstain from this dumb practice. Just tell kids "send us all your scores and then we'll look at all your scores."
- Come up with a test that isn't premised on intense time pressure. If everyone has plenty of time, then few kids will need or be incented to seek accommodations for garden variety ADD, slow processing, etc. You could still have accommodations for more serious situations (kids who are blind) that aren't susceptible to fake-ery or overly aggressive diagnosing.
Done!!
Penn low allows score choice https://admissions.upenn.edu/admissions-and-financial-aid/what-penn-looks-for/testing