When it comes to getting into elite schools, one thing you see over and over on CC is how important it is to write great essays that will make your application stand out from the pack. No doubt this is true. But here’s the thing, of all the ways the rich can cheat their way into college, it seems to me that one of the easiest would be pay an expert to craft your kid’s essays. No need to pay off proctors, falsify athletic achievements, or fly out to Los Angeles. Essay cheating can be done from the comfort of your own home, and while certainly unethical, it’s probably not even illegal. I know that AO’s will tell you that they can tell when a kid did not write his/her own essays, and I’m sure that’s true with amateur efforts. But you look at the resources of the families involved in this scandal and the lengths they were willing to go to, are you telling me that they couldn’t pay someone to expertly craft their kids’ essays and no AO would be any the wiser? Does anyone here think that Olivia Jade wrote the essays on her USC application?
Olivia Jade didn’t even fill out her own application, much alone write the essay. I don’t have a link, but it is on tape where her mother admitted it.
the other side suing colleges based on following
"Deceptive trade practice for a seller of goods or services to represent that “goods or services have sponsorship, approval, characteristics, ingredients, uses, benefits, or quantities that they do not have or that a person has a sponsorship, approval, status, affiliation, or connection that he or she does not have.”
“An “unlawful” business act or practice;
An “unfair” business act or practice;
A “fraudulent” business act or practice;
“Unfair, deceptive, untrue or misleading advertising”; or
False advertising,”
asking for “Class Action” suit against - USC, Stanford, UCLA, UC San Diego, UT Austin, Wake Forest, Yale, and Georgetown—for racketeering, negligence, and two separate types of consumer protection violations: deceptive trade practices unfair competition.
I know CC says, over and over, that you just need to write a great essay. But that doesn’t mean it’s all you need. And so many aren’t even clear what the essay needs to convey. They seem to think of it as another writing assignment for hs, for teachers who know you.
And this whole issue of “potential” needs to be backed with some indication. Show, not just tell. Lots of kids have (undefined) potential, of course. But fewer have been pursuing it. You’re asking for adcoms (and this thread has been about elites) to guess. In fact, to choose a kid who might grow over one who has been engaged in the right ways, already shows awareness and activation.
1200 scores rarely cut it. Again, look at this, linked previously. https://admission.princeton.edu/how-apply/admission-statistics. There’s got to be something much more, some evidence beyond friends and family seeing it. Athletics is a prominent example of where a weaker record can be overlooked.
The essays are indeed important, but only after you’ve met the threshold to prove that you can do the work at the school. An ACT 23 will not get you into the top schools no matter how much money your parents paid for a craft essay.
Not sure if this has been posted or not… interesting:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/15/admissions-coach-theres-a-silver-lining-to-the-college-scandal.html
Daily Beast article on essay cheating.
While it is true that the essay alone is not going to get a student into college, it is also true that if you write in broken English, you probably won’t get in even with perfect scores and grades. The Daily Beast article tells of an international student who got into Columbia after having her unintelligible essay completely rewritten by a tutor. The student then reached out to the tutor for essay help also while at Columbia.
@BunsenBurner - like IRS code. The certain deductions are for only rich … The system is rigged boys and girls… (We all know that of course!)
“I know CC says, over and over, that you just need to write a great essay. But that doesn’t mean it’s all you need. And so many aren’t even clear what the essay needs to convey.”
Of course, when it comes to elite schools, essays alone won’t get you in - just one more piece to the puzzle (along with GPA, test scores, rigor, recommendations, EC’s etc …). But it’s an important piece to the puzzle and sub par essays will likely keep an otherwise strong candidate from gaining admission. As far as many not being clear what the essay needs to convey, that’s where the hired expert comes in. Look at it this way lookingforward, someone with your skills, knowledge about what schools are looking for etc … (but not your ethics) could probably write some great application essays for some rich guy’s kid. If nothing else, this scandal has shown how corrupt and unethical people found ways to use certain components of the admission process (athletic tips, testing accommodations etc …) to beat the system. Why wouldn’t this extend to the essay writing component of the process? In fact, I bet there are many people out there who never go so far as to bribe a soccer coach or have a ringer take their kid’s SAT exam who would not be above paying someone to write their kid’s essays.
Look, you have to be logical. Kids do claim their potential. They want, eg, a chance to study engineering. They tell how they played with Legos when tiny, watched Discovery Channel. Not enough. Then their record doesn’t show higher math. Or maybe it does, but not top grades, math scores, incl AP. And they have no math-sci ECs. If any question asks why this major, a number write about wanting to help people, save the world (yup.) Then, their ECs show nothing where they roll up their sleeves, work with needs around them. It’s not about counting your hours at the animal shelter or playing music once/mo for old folks. Not about founding a club to talk about stem. Or any old title.
Then, CC tells them to be authentic. Lol. That otherwise it’s padding. No, it’s real life.
Meanwhile, others can show what they’ve done. Show they’ll hit the ground running. They took the classes, got the stats, did more than just what their hs offers or their friends do, or what comes easy. More than dream.
This would require some explaining, but I do not believe most pro counselors can write the right essay that tips. Most out there have little experience with the U side of admissions- or it’s not current. I respect a few on CC, two, notably. But they’re not writing for kids, they’re ethical. Their point is to enlighten their clients, point in the right directions, not cheat.
I do know more about what my U looks for. But I also know a range of other elites, by having done the research I advocate. Reading more than the CDS, anyone can.
From today’s LA Times:
No soccer experience, but she still got a spot on elite UCLA team in college admissions scandal
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ucla-admissions-soccer-recruit-20190319-story.html
Part of the Singer scandal, this young woman of no particular soccer talent was supposed to get into USC via a bogus slot on the women’s soccer team, but that was messed up somehow due to a “clerical error.” So they switched to UCLA instead, bribing one of the UCLA coaches. Her parents, the Isaksons, paid the bribes with shares of Facebook stock worth about $250K.
But UCLA has an athletic recruitment committee overseeing the process that requires recruited athletes to actually be on the team for at least one year. So they put her on the soccer team along with legitimate national championship caliber teammates. She never played and probably never practiced, but she had a jersey with a number and held down a spot on the team roster for a year.
She is currently still a student at UCLA.
From my reading of the Daily Beast article, the essay in question was not so much an essay that would tip a borderline student into an admit as an essay that did not ruin a student that the adcomm already wanted to admit based on the rest of the application.
The Daily Beast interviewed 8 essay tutors working for a single company. The writers are not pro-counselors-- they are recent Ivy League graduates in their early twenties. So they are more likely to write in a way similar to high school students than are adult professionals. One essay writer wrote 225 essays for 150 students in a year.
Looking at it from the point of view the adcomm, how would you know how many ringers get past you?
If you go to the Web page for the 2017 women’s roster, the Isackson girl is the only one not in the team photo. They probably took the photo on a team practice day, suggesting that she did not attend practice.
https://uclabruins.com/roster.aspx?roster=182
The article also says something that I don’t quite understand. It says the “first choice [of the student] was USC, but because of a ‘clerical error’, Isackson’s fake athletic profile was diverted to the normal admissions process in February 2017, foiling Singer’s scheme”. Does this mean that the USC admissions committee could tell that an athletic profile was fake? Would a coach’s recommendation have been more believable without a (fake) athletic profile?
Well, yes, I suppose random is “fair”. But this is taking an imperfect system and making it far worse in the pursuit of perceived fairness. Here’s an example I recently used to illustrate why this is such a horrible idea. Suppose you were running an NBA team, and you could pick your players one of two ways.
- Your team gets chosen at random among all NBA players.
- You get to pick your team. If you would like, you get to pick both Steph Curry and LeBron James.
Elite college selection is the same way. The candidates include world-class piano players, budding politicians, and future science prodigies. Does anyone really think those students should lose out due to randomness?
As just your average person going through life, what really gets me about this entire scandal and the information being shared here, is how many people are cheaters! From tests, to essays, to bribes, fake photos - it really is depressing. What are we willing to surrender to be “the best”?
I raised my kids to be honest and kind. I hope most still believe these are important attributes.
And even though it is basically mocked on here by some, I do believe that just being yourself is important. If that’s naive, so be it.
If you read the bio for the Isackson girl, her soccer credentials are far below what you would expect at a big time program like UCLA. Look at some of the some of the other girls on the roster - tons of national honors including playing on the U20 US National Team. The players and coaching staff had to have know that something wasn’t kosher.
When I attended university in Canada 30 odd years ago, when you applied you applied directly to your major of choice and started in the major in first year so you evaluated schools on the basis of your intended major. Granted the top schools were all pretty much strong across all majors but one school might be preferred for a specific major over another. As an example in Ontario, Waterloo and U of T are tops for Engineering and Computer Science, but Queen’s, Western, and U of T are preferred for commerce, and McMaster and Western are the schools of preference for health related majors etc.
Fast forward and when DS19 recently submitted his applications I was surprised to see how many schools now have you applying to a specific faculty, and while some schools may ask you to indicate on your application your preferred major, it’s not binding and first year is general within the faculty. Only one of the schools he applied to admits directly to the major for all majors. The others have a few direct admit programs but the majority are not so most students are admitted only to a faculty. There is also no standardization as to how faculties are organized or under which faculty a specific major falls. At one school Arts & Sciences maybe 1 faculty where as at another Science maybe separate from Arts & Humanities. At some Computer Science is part of Sciences where at others it maybe part of Applied Sciences along with Engineering. Each faculty will have it’s own admissions requirements for both mandatory prerequisite high school courses and course marks. Admission to the specific major is made in year 2 and will have specific GPA requirements.
It seems to me this overcomes the issue of not having standardized tests. Admission to your major is dependent on your first year marks not your high school marks, so this levels the playing field. The change in admission strategy has not however changed the way prospective students rate schools. The majority of students still assess schools on the strength of their individual majors. The only exception might be for generic arts & humanities degrees (e.g. English Lit or History).
@TheBigChef I don’t know about UCLA, but college teams often allow walk-ons, with the walk-ons knowing that they might not get much playing time. In fact, on the 2016 through 2018 UCLA rosters, there is a player from Japan (jersey #28) who had no soccer honors in high school. She did not play in the regular season in 2016 or 2017, but did play a few minutes in some exhibition matches. I’m guessing that she was a legitimate walk-on her freshman year, and the coach allowed her to continue with the team (almost exclusively in practice and not in games, though).
Extract from New York Post about Lauren Isackson whose parents are among the defendants (I didn’t read the original LA Times interview):
UCLA spokesman Tod Tamberg said he was barred from discussing individual students, citing student privacy laws.
But he said teams at UCLA were composed of “student-athletes with varying levels of athletic achievements.”
“Some team members are on the roster for the purposes of preparing the team for competition, and may not play in games,” he told the LA Times.
If UCLA and other universities are “victims,” why are they being so coy?
The Isackson girl must have known she was a fraud and participated in it. Whatever the stories of some other kids, this one looks like she knew! Really hard to see why UCLA wants to keep someone with such integrity on its campus.