@chumom - fairness and compassion? Huh? They will/have lawyered up with top dollar attorneys who will negotiate the best plea possible (doubtful they will do jail time, while others less financially able and charged with any similar crimes might be sleeping fortunate. They brought this on themselves. They are not above the law. The younger daughter didnt even want to go to college- she bragged about her dad using his father’s college money to start his business. No scruples. No sympathy.
“But they shouldn’t be allowed to keep spots that parents bought for them” – @austinmshauri Wouldn’t that mean that about half the kids at Harvard, Yale and Princeton should leave? Because those schools traditionally admit students because of the financial gain the school has/expects to see from their parents? In fact, the parents who wrote $500,000 to Stanford’s sailing team – just how different are they from the parents who wrote $500,000 checks to Harvard in an official fund drive?
Why do these schools “need” athletic teams? Someone upthread said that alumni would go bonkers if the teams weren’t competitive. Part of my family is chockful of HYP alumni. I’ve never heard any of them mention sports. It is not on their radar. Other countries’ universities do just fine without highly competitive athletic teams.
@chumom I agree Lori Loughlin is an easy target because she’s well known … however, it’s hard to watch her daughter’s vapid video talking about how she doesn’t care about college, doesn’t plan to spend much time there, etc.
I mean the whole thing is just so egregious. Fake posing with rowing machine, flying USC flag at their home (knowing their kids had no business being students there), the yacht with USC board member. And then kids withdraw because they are afraid they’ll be bullied?? To date, I have not seen one member of this family show any self awareness.
Full disclosure - I hated, and I mean hated, Full House. My teeth hurt just thinking about it.
So Johnny/Sally got into the school fraudulently, so it’s ok to stay (based on the ignorance defense)?
No question they should be kicked out in my mind. But first I’d give them the option to resign quietly.
2381 The difference is $500,000 goes to Harvard buildings (allowed by Harvard) and $500,000 goes to the coach's pocket (not allowed).
This part is no longer true, and has not been true for many years. Used prep books are available really cheap. Kahn academy is free.
(Back in the dark ages, I checked out a couple of old prep books from the library!)
@parentologist says:
“It’s time to tax the private colleges, and suspend their government funding. It’s time to acknowledge that the highly competitive - admission colleges are mostly the exact same thing as the country clubs that only admitted wealthy, influential, WASP men. Yes, they are preferentially admitting a few people with darker complexions (who mostly are the children of highly educated immigrant professionals, not the descendants of US slaves), but in general, they serve as an exclusive club for the children of the rich and famous, all subsidized by the American taxpayer.”
What??? I’m punch drunk reading posts like these. As someone aptly pointed out, with an admit rate of 5%, there aren’t many spaces for any one particular group. The 5% represents a sprinkling of various groups including unhooked applicants. That you would purport to know the origin of black families that get admitted is…curious…tax the private colleges for what? Because your child didn’t get admitted? Because you feel someone took your much more deserving child’s rightful place? After all your child is supposed to come first, correct? We should acknowledge these institutions and their endowments exist on the backs of wealthy donors. Why can’t some of you just understand not any one demographic has a monopoly on admissions or preference. Talented students from various backgrounds and groups make up any given incoming class. The majority isn’t going to be from your kid’s demographic. It won’t be the minority either.
@coolweather, except at Stanford it DID go to the sailing program.
@Gourmetmom said:
Let’s turn your example on its head. Unlike Vanderbilt and most of the competitive college baseball world, Ivy’s don’t give athletic scholarships, yet still land more than their share of competitive baseball players. That’s because many kids are looking for an Ivy education, yet also want to continue to play the sport they love. Do you think that boosting the admissions requirements for recruited Ivy athletes is going to change this? I don’t. Maybe not quite as many Ivy players would get drafted into professional baseball, but so what? Kids don’t choose Ivy baseball because it is a pipeline to the major leagues.
- good point. Give the students a month to withdrawal from school. If they don’t and get caught up in this then they get expelled which would look worse in their transcript.
- we all want competitive athletes and teams at our universities. We should not change that at Harvard or anywhere else. We just need the admissions office to audit who is being accepted as an athlete to make sure they have the background and to make sure they join the roster.
If all you have is money you can be incredibly poor.
Everyone is so judgmental of everyone else’s motivations, perceived advantages and struggles on this thread.
Except for @Gudmom, who agree or not with her assessment, is only stating her honest direct experience.
Supposedly “rich kids” can be in chaotic, unloving and abusive homes too. Siblings get cancer and parents die also. I don’t know their story. Do you?
If they even see their parents. Or they can live a life we only read about. I don’t know. Do you?
Let’s not judge them as less deserving. Or automatically in the front door. Do you know how many rejections are coming out over the next few weeks.
If it were so easy for this entire class of students, why did the parents have to cheat in the first place?
And kids in less economically advantaged situations may have overcome significant challenges.
Or maybe they have a loving and stable home and education is valued.
Maybe they work a job. That teaches them lessons about life thst help them in innumerable ways down the road. And gives them pride. Maybe they don’t.
And if they can find a way to achieve despite these impediments, there are schools out there willing to take a chance on them. And willing to pay for nearly the whole thing. That’s valuable too. And sometimes they are the ones given the thumb on the scale.
And I’m all for it. That was me 30 years ago!
I was the first in either side of the old family tree to go college. We didn’t have money but we weren’t poor.
And who says it has to be HPYS anyway. That’s 90 percent of the problem.
Middle class families and upper middle class families all have their own challenges. They are the 401k withdrawal and plus loan group. The look for a financial safety group. The sorry you can’t go despite the hard work, we just can’t swing it. I’m sorry honey, group. And some have nice lives and some great pain. I don’t know. Do you ?
People of color come from all of these categories. And we have just made a decision as a country that for the time being, we are going to help them a tiny bit more during consideration in the admissions process . A friendly hand up and not a hand out by any means.
I dont walk a day their shoes, so I will humbly and simply believe them. Believe them when they tell me it’s different for them on a day to day basis. The decision has been made that it’s a good thing for our society. I don’t know? Do you ?
Athletes also live in all these socioeconomic categories. So do they not overcome obstacles too?
Do they not get grest grades and scores too. I don’t know and don’t care. Someone thinks they did.
And I don’t get up at 4am to go to the rink or gym or pool.
And then to school.
And maybe to that after school job too.
And maybe through the tough neighborhood.
Or maybe dads working two jobs to pay for school and never gets to see his family. I don’t know. Do you?
Embrace the schools we get and the opportunities we have right before us. Spending our time angry at others isn’t useful and sometimes someone else’s life is not what you imagine.
Let’s go have some fun and just be a bit kinder today. See how it goes.
Each of these students either lied on their applications, or had someone else complete the applications. Either case would be grounds for dismissing the application during the admission process. The question is what to do with those who are already in attendance. This is different than the students who used the “back door.” They presumably completed accurate applications, and submitted them themselves.
@coolweather wrote:
This is one aspect of the scandal which needs to be more fully investigated. In many instances the bribe money wasn’t going directly to the coaches. Rather, it was going to the school and/or the athletic program in question. Perhaps the coaches were just desperate to boost their programs, but even if this was the case, it still raises questions about the school’s claims that they were unwitting victims.
I think that there is also a difference in perception between what Huffman did - pay $15K to get a better SAT score, which theoretically increased her D’s chances to get in, but didn’t automatically assure it and then deciding not to participate with the next kid - vs. what Loughlin did, which was pay half a million to get 2 kids a guaranteed spot each. I can see public annoyance being greater against Loughlin. Besides, her characters are always so prissy and self-righteous. Huffman’s Lynette, OTOH, was my absolute favorite HW because she was so relatable.
@oldandwise “Fortunately, we had never heard of Mr. Singer, the ringleader of the scandal. We had missed his celebrity endorsements and his well-read books. An we don’t run in the circles of those caught up in this scandal where word-of-mouth would have spread news of his skills. But, if we had heard of him and if his services were within our budget, would we have signed up? Probably. At least to the point where we didn’t cross any lines that we thought were illegal. Donating to schools, athletic programs, non-profit foundations, etc. would not have stood out to us as being illegal.”
You are truly wise – and honest.
But I may be older. 
We love our kids, we want to help them, we want them to succeed, we want to give them every advantage we can, we will sacrifice for them, we love bragging about them – but how far does that go? And at what point does our ‘help’ become an impediment to self-sufficiency, mental health and future success?
I will admit to a very BIG bias – I find many of the CC parents focused on ‘elite’ schools, test scores, rankings, competitions, ECs, anything numerical, etc. quite shallow and disturbing.
I am old, yes, but over time I’ve become far more interested in kids’ character, temperament, self-sufficiency, INDEPENDENCE, citizenship, moral compass, self-awareness, social conscience, curiosity, teamwork, humility, openness to criticism, empathy, openness, self-reflection, etc. than to their effin’ test scores and ability to be ‘excellent sheep’ (look it up).
If I had a few $ billion to spare I’d try to find a way to build the next Harvard, To disrupt. To help kids become the leaders we need to address the many challenges we face.
But that’s what Rockefeller, Carnegie, Stanford and others tried in the past (to some extent).
So I’d probably fail, of course…
;->
For the question of what to do with the students admitted by fraud, anyone else remember the kid that omitted that she attended a private high school and pretended to be a homeschooler? I don’t recall any mention of parental involvement but I’d be hard pressed to believe a high school student pulled that off on their own.
Here’s how that was handled:
I think that’s how these cases should be handled, when students are admitted by fraud, knowingly or unknowingly, admission should be revoked and yes even retroactively if they have graduated. Letting students keep the diploma they gain by fraud devalues the diplomas of that schools honest students. They should also be free to pursue a degree elsewhere so long as they gain admission honestly and in many cases that may require them to state/explain why their admission/diploma was revoked by another school. Parents that broke the law by paying brides, fixing test scores and falsely claiming charitable tax credit should go to jail.
College is a privilege not a right, and as should be honestly earned.
What does this even mean? Is this just a hyperbolic way of saying “she has been roundly and severly criticized”? She absolutely deserves the criticism. Because she is famous, she, unlike many of the others, has been named specifically as “a cheater.” Most of the others are simply referred to as “entitled, rich cheaters.” The only injustice on the thread is that more of the parents haven’t been named, not that Lori Loughlin HAS.
As to why Felicity has received less air time? Probably because she paid 15K and LL and husband paid 500K. Their dishonesty is the same imo and the fact that one of them was willing to pay more for more of a guarantee shouldn’t be all that different in the minds of the public. But it probably is.
@parentologist I dont even know where to start with your post. I will just say that I am the descendant of slaves (proven 1619 arrival, in fact), and I am also fourth generation college educated, sending my families fifth generation to college. My great grandfather had a doctorate, and we all have advanced degrees. My oldest daughter has an MFA, and my other kids (I have five), want to be lawyers, educators and a dentist. We are not an aberration, because most of the African American families we know have this kind of excellence. You probably need to get out more, and actually meet people of color, and stop watching so much TV.
I am done with this thread, because some people are just mad they couldn’t get what they think they deserve, want to blame others, and don’t care about the crimes committed. Happy decision days, to come, people.
“This part is no longer true, and has not been true for many years. Used prep books are available really cheap. Kahn academy is free.”
Like increasing numbers of public schools, my kids’ school actually does free test prep. The tests have become so important and prepping so common that pretty much everyone does it now.
And since the ACT/SAT is now used in many places as the measurement tool for NCLB, the HSs have even more incentive to get the scores up – even if the kids aren’t going to Harvard or even college at all.