You can’t sue over a theoretical spot so you have to sue over a real spot as a group.
If there is no harm done, then it becomes difficult to prevent cheating. It may seem like a victimless crime but over the years, the loss of the ability to get in based on merit is a real loss to thousands.
Which of them would have actually gotten in is immaterial. One of them would have.
And to add… My family is almost certainly not among the thousands harmed in this small way. We are public school born and bred, and nearly everyone in my family started at, or at least used to some extent, community college. I still think it’s repugnant for people to cheat private schools like this.
@PurpleTitan - I just don’t see USC as “blatantly” gaming their ranking. If they were, they would have started an ED program when all the top schools got involved. Are schools aware of their ranking? I’m sure most are aware. Some more than others. I’m not even saying USC isn’t more interested in their rank than other schools.
For a while now, USC’s percentage of Pell Grant recipients has been one of the highest of the top 30 as well. I believe this is the first year some ranking institutions have added that to the mix. I’m sure that helped USC this year. Is that going to be a criticism as well? USC was doing this well before it was factored into the rankings.
“But in the end we have to be happy for the kids who go there. Or anywhere. They are neighbors and fellow citizens. Wish them well.”
Were this level of humility, graciousness and unfettered goodwill the mainstay of responses to the news of another’s happiness and success in their endeavors.
^^But then you could argue that the test optional schools are being unfair to those who took the tests and scored well., or all the other things considered in the holistic approach weren’t available to you/kids.
@PurpleTitan. Sure, and that is consistent with my post, Give bright kids a better chance to succeed and they will, whatever their socioeconomic background or race. (You left that part out when quoting me)
“The Ivy League schools retain their athletic teams (even when zero students show up at sailing meets to bask in their supposed glory) because alumni from those sports would go berserk if the teams were cut. That’s it. That’s the whole reason.”
Welp, that explains why the sports the Ivies participate in are very much the pursuits of upper-class Americans of 100 years ago, then.
Though that still isn’t a reason for Ivy ad coms to allow coaches so much power over admissions (outside of the marquee sports like football, basketball, hockey). Why wouldn’t the entire league agree to only allow coaches to tip rather than handing them admission slots? Do even the alumni care if Yale field hockey is mediocre so long as they are competitive with Harvard?
Put like that, the justification for sports at Yale sounds pretty silly. But are sports the problem, or is it linking sports to admissions? If Yale took away the athlete admissions loophole, Yale students could still participate in sports, athletics could still be “part of the educational mission.” The teams could still learn to work together, self-discipline, etc. And imagine the “glory” in beating Harvard with nothing but a bunch of real walk-ons who were truly “students” first.
@mtmind, the entire Ivy League would have to essentially agree to recruit like NESCAC schools (or other DivIII schools that give coaches even less power).
And yes, beating Harvard with true walk-ons would be glorious. It would also happen maybe once every 50 years or so, if that. It would be akin to putting the U of C football team (the current one, not the Stagg-led powerhouses) vs. an Ivy. Which would be similar to making an Ivy face off against Stanford in football.
Coaches don’t have unlimited admission power. The student still has to apply and go through admissions. If they didn’t care about the academics, why would Singer require his clients to get higher test scores? Most get a pre-read so they know they will be accepted, but how many pre-reads are denied or how many the coach wouldn’t even submit because they just didn’t have the stats? Those numbers aren’t released. The coaches know the criteria and don’t even submit those who don’t meet the AI at the Ivies or the requirements of other schools, no matter how low or how high they are. Stanford lets in football players with ACT of 24. They aren’t taking the place of any engineer. If they didn’t accept the football players, they’d let the spots go unfilled.
The Ivies have some very competitive teams, and some of those athletes have excellent stats on and off the field. It is a sports conference and they set their own rules (AI, number of scholarships allowed, no scholarships, etc). If you don’t like that the Ivies give about 10% of the spots to athletes, don’t apply. It is sort of like complaining that Georgetown is ‘too catholic’ or that MIT doesn’t offer enough art classes. The schools get to decide what they offer, who they accept, who gets scholarships or aid.
This may sound strange, but has anyone else here wondered if any of the people who were caught will kill themselves? I was thinking of Lori Laughlin and her family for some reason. I’m not even angry anymore. I read all these articles and I find myself feeling bad for these people. Am I alone?
Profile of the Yale women’s soccer coach, the first person to be caught in the sting operation.
Players on the Yale soccer team were suspicious about what was going on:
So the players had suspicions but no one working for the university had any?
And if there were a player or two every couple of years, how many fraudulent Yale admits were there? Will anything be done about those who have graduated?
“If they didn’t accept the football players, they’d let the spots go unfilled.”
Uh, no. No elite with admit rates in the single digits is leaving spots unfilled.
“Coaches don’t have unlimited admission power.”
Strawman. Nobody said Ivy coaches have unlimited admissions power. I said they controlled admissions slots. Which they do. So long as kids have the academic numbers, the coach decides which of those kids get admitted.
“It is a sports conference and they set their own rules.”
Which is why some of us are questioning how far-sighted the Ivies are to have their current rules (rather than go the NESCAC route). Nobody is whining. We’re questioning their wisdom.
If a student gets admitted because the coach was bribed, the only “spot” that student has taken is one that would have gone to another athlete for the same sport. And only one… not every single athlete who wishes they could have been recruited but never even got a call from the coach. Basically, if the coach has 3 spots, and sells one – then the person who was 4th in line is the one who got messed over.
So yes, someone has been displaced, but no one owned or was entitled to the spot.
And I know nothing about athletic recruiting, but I am sure that favors and favoritism goes on at all levels, even without overt bribes or payoffs or big donations. That’s pretty much the way things work in just about everything in life, whether it is college admission or who gets promoted in a workplace.
NY Times article arguing that elite universities provide a large benefit to the less privileged, but no benefit to the overprivileged:
While this article makes many valid points, the author fails to highlight that the super-privileged are not looking for the same kind of benefits that the less privileged are seeking from elite universities. The less privileged are looking to advance their socio-economic standing and hopefully also their level of education. The super-privileged are looking to attach to their children a high-status university name that matches the high socio-economic standing they already have, thereby reinforcing and justifying their existing privilege.
A little story: A super-privileged young man once said, “I want to go to (high status) Business School because if I get a (high status) MBA, the people on the board of directors of Dad’s company will think I deserve the seat I already have on the board of directors, instead of thinking I have it only because I am the son of the owner.”
I didn’t really intend to go on this website again, but I have read some of this thread and I think the speculation about
suicide etc is in bad taste. Some of the students may have been completely ignorant of what their parents were doing and even if a few had some idea, they were minors who made a bad mistake. They may well decide to leave universities that they were admitted to dishonestly but still should be allowed to reapply somewhere else and get on with their lives. It is the adults who are really at fault here.
The students involved were at least 17, not 7. People that age are usually charged with and tried as adults for criminal behavior, not juvenile delinquency. One doesn’t get an unlimited free pass to engage in fraud because one is a few months short of turning 18.
Actually, 17 year olds are generally charged as juveniles for nonviolent crimes. So no. It would not be typical for a 17 year old to be charged in adult court in a case like this.
As this story unfolds, I keep remembering last year when S18 was filling out the Common App and trying to calculate the average weekly hours for his sport which varied due to competition weekends. We were so worried about accidentally overstating it and having it questioned by admissions. Crazy to think that at the same time people were photoshopping their kids into sports they didn’t even play!!
Most of the students involved had to know what was going on and should be held responsible by the schools.