“Here’s a succinct — well, uh, a more succinct — list of everyone involved and what they did and did not know. (This is a summary of prosecutors’ allegations in court filings. Fifty people were charged but no one has been convicted, yet.) For reference, CW-1 and CW-2 are cooperating witnesses in the investigation. CW-1 co-founded and operated the organization behind the scheme and CW-2 worked for it. Only the parents – every parent charged in the filings is facing one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, a felony charge – are named in the court documents, so kids are listed under their parents’ names.”
The typical use of the term, football and basketball. What kids with low scores are you talking about? They took money to get kids in the side door using these recruiting spots. I didn’t hear they had low scores. It seems the kids in this scandal had high scores mostly obtained through cheating.
@bearpanther Wow - that is something else. I wonder how a student who scored by their own hand in the low 20s on the ACT managed to have a HS transcript that reflected the doctored 34 or 35? Or not? Low 20s tells me that the student was not taking AP or advanced classes and/or getting the kind of grades that test score should reflect. Wouldn’t that raise some flags at school? I think another shoe is going to drop vis-à-vis the high schools involved.
Seems to me that a lot of things that went on with this scandal should have raised red flags - at the high schools, at the colleges, and with the ACT/SAT testing folks. But nothing did, or if they did, they were ignored. Only reason this rock got turned over is because someone caught up in an unrelated investigation tipped off the Feds.
Has anyone heard anything from the College Board (I believe they administer the SAT) or ACT, Inc. regarding making changes to the test administration process? I have heard much of what the colleges are doing/will be doing re reviewing their overall admissions policies and their student athlete admissions process, but I have heard nothing from the testing organizations. For starters, they could prevent students from flying across the country to take tests in other states, when those tests are offered in their home state. To me, that is a big red flag. If you live in CT, why are you flying to CA to take the ACT? How is this allowed? You should only be able to take tests within a 20 mile radius of where you go to school or live.
Big guns coming out to defend cheaters … $1 bet … nothing will happen to 50 criminals (sad but true … if 50 people don’t go to jail … give up hope on admission on merit moving forward)
High-profile defendants are hiring Big Law attorneys after arrests in college admissions bribery matter
Other Big Law firms on the case include Ropes & Gray, Latham & Watkins, Boies Schiller Flexner
Though perhaps the defendants may find that using the accepted “back door” (development / donations) would have cost less than Singer’s “side door” schemes once the defense lawyer fees are added.
Not to get more off-topic, but don’t conflate “revenue sports” with “revenue-producing sports”
Revenue sports is traditionally defined as football and M basketball. Revenue-producing sports will vary by college; at mine, they are basketball (M&W), hockey (M&W), football, and men’s lacrosse.
Interestingly, most kids in this scandal took the ACT. I wonder if it is because the SAT was new in 2017 and would have been more difficult to “game” a particular score.
Also, a few asked about having someone take the subject tests for their children and Singer charged them a lot more, saying that there were very few people who could do that.
Also worked for Harvey Weinstein and Elizabeth Holmes; according to author John Carreyrou (wrote the book about the Theranos debacle), engaged in unethical “thuggish” behavior while attempting to intimidate whistle blowers (and the Washington Post).
@bearpanther I like your #3000 link with the latest rundown, except there is a HUGE inaccuracy which was disclosed earlier in this thread: John Wilson (the son) knew about his situation because he was on the USC men’s water polo roster with a false Identity for his bio. He stole the identity of a former teammate at Menlo School in Atherton, CA to make it appear that he was worth of the slot on the championship water polo team. There’s no way the student, the coaches and most likely the rest of the team didn’t know this was the “real” John Wilson, star goalie from Menlo School that went on to play at Johns Hopkins. I personally know the “real” family and the fact that this family and the head coach falsified his bio on the roster for his freshman year to cover their tracks is outrageous!
(sad but true … if 50 people don’t go to jail … give up hope on admission on merit moving forward)