@Leigh22 but what about the ones who got into Stanford then decided they didn’t want to attend?
I don’t think we can lump all the kids into one homogenous type. Some knew and were fine with it, others didn’t know but wouldn’t care, and I’m sure some didn’t know and now feel terrible that their parents had to bribe their way in.
MaineLonghorn - sorry your dad is so upset. It’s sad when someone we think we know does something that is not just illegal, but so disappointing. Greed is a horrible thing.
I hope every one of these applicants is prosecuted and has their diplomas rescinded if they already graduated. Maybe if they started putting the applicants in jail, parents wouldn’t do it so eagerly.
Don’t these kids have to sign up for academic qualification through the NCAA?
If they are great at a sport, surely there are newspaper clips on the web?
My nephew was applying to Div 1&2 schools for a sport and I had no problem finding his stats and clips.
From a local news report.
“Former Georgetown tennis coach Gordie Ernst, an Ivy League legend and coach of the Obama children, was paid 2.7 mm through 2018 to help 12 students get into Georgetown.
Payments were mailed, including to his home on Cape Cod.
He would forward emails sent from the students highlighting their athletic accomplishments to admissions. The emails were outlined by singer and written by the students. Most did not even play the sport. “
@“Cardinal Fang” I am sorry but many of these kids knew and are culpable. Imho.
He was men and women’s head coach. He used three spots last year on children of singers clients. All three.
I thought it was very difficult to get extra time on the SAT or ACT? My son has a slow processing speed compared to his IQ. He understand the material and can do it, but can’t finish tests at school lots of times, and got nowhere close to finishing the PSAT this year. His psychologist told me she would not be able to get him extra time on the ACT/SAT without more of a disability. So, what did the Macy’s do to get a doctor to declare their daughter had a LD that should qualify her for extra time???
@got2laugh So true. These accommodations are a joke. I would say 30% of my kid’s HS class have some sort of accommodation. This has to either stop or I like the idea of the asterisk. Not all these kids are deserving,
I As you said, CC is full of high stat kids, but the majority never even heard of this wonderful place. But this whole story is really making me sick. So many kids work so hard only to get denied by certain schools. Yet many do not even play by the rules. Crazy!
SJ2727 - I’m not saying that all of these kids knew. I’m sure many had no clue. I’m just saying that these parents were going to get their kids in these schools, regardless of the rules, because in their minds the rules don’t apply.
The Yale soccer coach resigned last fall. He coached Yale for 24 years and had a lot of success over the years. The bribes/fraud apparently began in 2015. My guess is that his assistants must have know something was amiss when precious recruiting slots were going to players that they never heard of and who never showed up on the team, but they were afraid to challenge the long time coach.
An asterisk would never fly - too much stigma. But ‘time’ should be removed as a factor in these exams. Give every kid plenty of time to complete the exam. Some will finish early, some won’t. You either know the material or you don’t. It should not be about how fast you can complete it.
But this is a topic for a different thread.
Just have to ask…how would the proctors correct the answers? Would they go through each question on the answe sheet and the test booklet? It’s not like they have an answer key. They don’t. How would those proctors know their answer choices were correct!
I’ve proctored tests…and I’m quite sure I would not have been able to change answers to the right ones…
I probably wouldn’t have known they were wrong…
I was just reading the indictment. The guy had a pet psychiatrist who specialized in writing up justifications for extra time. Once the extra time had been awarded, the parents manufactured an event that conflicted with the testing time at their local center, but would just ‘happen’ to be in town at one of the two centers Singer controlled. Then the kids would take the tests and the proctor would correct the answers. In a couple of cases, Singer had his proctor fill in the test for the student who never even bothered to show up. He guaranteed high 30s for the ACT and 1400+ for the SAT.
@CountingDown: I think that is up to the coach to know those registrations, not admissions. My kid interviewed for her sport at several colleges(one of which is listed), had video online that the coaches could view. The coach at any school would have seen video on any kid they were serious about. They also would have seen them at events, bc college coaches go to tournaments. My kid went to several big tournaments out of state and had coaches come see her play. So IMO, the coach would have to know if sly stuff was going on.
In our case, my kid decided not to play in college, and did not have any coach advocating for her in any applications.
It’s naive to think these kids knew nothing, unless they’re even dumber than we all know now. It’s also an indictment of our current system of college admission. Opacity provides the breeding ground for corruption.
The ironic thing is this is EXACTLY something that “Lynette” - Felicity Huffman’s character on Desperate Housewives - would have done to get her terrible twin boys into college!
Oh LYNETTE… 
In the case of Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia said, on her video blog that she really did not care about the “school” part of college just experiencing the parties and games. Olivia said she was going to ask the dean at the school about missing some school for some modeling job. Sounds like this was more Lori and her husband’s wanting their daughter in a particular school than their daughter.
@tif1972 wrote "I thought it was very difficult to get extra time on the SAT or ACT? My son has a slow processing speed compared to his IQ. He understand the material and can do it, but can’t finish tests at school lots of times, and got nowhere close to finishing the PSAT this year. His psychologist told me she would not be able to get him extra time on the ACT/SAT without more of a disability. So, what did the Macy’s do to get a doctor to declare their daughter had a LD that should qualify her for extra time??? "
Remember when families with members in wheel chairs used to be able to cut the lines at Disney? Then word got around and rent-a-gimp business’ sprang up, providing folks in wheel chairs for a fee to people who wanted to cut the line at Disney. Same thing with extra time. Those who need it have trouble getting it. Those with money who want to game the system have no problem.
“As many as one in four students at some elite U.S. colleges are now classified as disabled,”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200
Would bet a significant portion of those “bend-the-rules” kids only have the accommodations because mommy and daddy bought exemptions the kids weren’t entitled to.
“Give every kid plenty of time to complete the exam. Some will finish early, some won’t. You either know the material or you don’t. It should not be about how fast you can complete it.”
According to my son (who scored a 36C), the hardest part of the ACT is the time constraint - you have to work fast or you’re in trouble. He said time is not as much of a factor on the SAT. I suspect that if you eliminated time constraints, you would see a noticeable rise in ACT scores.
NCAA minimum academic standards are not that high. Some conferences and colleges may have their own higher minimum academic standards for athlete admits.
@got2laugh – so true. I had a co-worker going through college app/admissions process years ago and he told me point blank…you’re screwed if you’re middle class. And now here I am working on college app/admissions process for my S20 and D20 and totally get it. You make too much to qualify for any financial aid and too little to pay full price. The only aid I’ll get is the fact that I’ll have 2 in college during entire undergraduate time. Even then, it’s minimal.
I know folks who paid upwards of $2-$3K for private ACT prep. My D20 would very much benefit from private one-on-one ACT prep…but not at $3K…I’d rather keep the $3K to save towards her tuition.