So money buys their way into college and out of prison? No, I don’t think so. If those types of fraud come with jail time then I’d send them to jail.
Red carpet treatment, including a reserved parking space for your limo. 
I must admit I thought some of these ruses were common knowledge, i.e., having someone sit the test for you. Some colleges and business schools now interview all overseas students from places like China and India after discovering that admitted students spoke little English despite receiving near perfect scores on their SATs and GMATs. As long ago as when I went to school (90s), counselors advised that students not needing FA had a better chance of being admitted. It’s not just preferential treatment for the very rich, but for those not needing FA.
It’s depressing that Dr Dre is like this now. Straight Outta Brentwood.
Snoop Dogg also bought his son’s way in to play football, and then son never played. Snoop Dog spent years paying for things on the USC football team. His son went to two different California schools (the max) and then transferred to Bishop Gorman in Vegas. This wasn’t secret, there was a documentary on ESPN about it. Now his son was very good, but lots of kids are good. The son actually jumped ship to UCLA when it came time to sign.
Anyway, USC got the benefit of all the Snoop money over the years and then son signed at UCLA, then didn’t play at all.
@austinmshauri no no no, jail time too! Justice must be seen to be done. But as kind of a disincentive to just spend more on legal fees too.
Link to article in the Stanford Daily on changes that Stanford will be making in athletic recruiting:
^^^ Nice. I like the fact that the kid who wrote the article is studying electrical engineering, computer science and economics. In his free time he is a Desk Editor for the paper.
So the S sailing team is ok, except one other admit who fabricated sailing experience, parents gave $$$, but he never sailed. It’s still wrong.
When people complain about extra costs, extra delays, and extra bureaucracy built into colleges, remember that some of it probably exists to check against corruption and abuse of this type.
It’s surprising there haven’t been more scandals given the routine carte blanche given to coaches up to now.
Perhaps there have been shenanigans that were not detected and therefore not made into public scandals. Or detected by the universities and quietly disposed of (corrupt official quietly dismissed, affected students quietly transfer elsewhere).
One of the problems of being on CC for too long is that it causes distortion of perception. A very wise poster once pointed out to me that “elite” is not restricted to a few tippy top schools. For me that was an enlightening experience; I had no idea until then that my definition of “elite” has shifted that much.
At the time my kids were applying, the commerce program was reported by the school as having “the most competitive admission requirements in the country”. I read that as meaning that it has the lowest admission rate in the country.
Having the lowest admission rate does not mean the students are necessarily the brightest. I am willing to bet students in engineering physics can run circles around them in that respect. It is generally recognized that engineering physics is the toughest program in the university. It has the workload of engineering but requires the brain power of physics.
If I have to choose, I would say those students graduating from theoretical physics may be the sharpest of them all. D1 has a friend graduated in that sub-specialty, then promptly left for Stanford to continue his study.
I am sure your son has applied to Waterloo, computer or system design engineering perhaps? Another one off the top of my mind is Toronto’s engineering science. I know of very strong students bombing out of both Waterloo and Toronto in these specialties. They are not for the faint of heart. Your son must be a very very strong student indeed. Congratulation.
I have no issue with Dr. Dre’s D getting into USC. I’m sure his money has benefited many students. It was above board and legal. And truth is she is probably worthy on her own merits - we don’t know.
But the gloating and unaware insta post was the issue, not the fact that he donated a building and his D happened to be accepted. Seriously, it NEVER crossed this guys mind that his huge donation helped her admission? He should have just been quiet instead of casting stones at the USC cheating parents.
I don’t like the gloating and boasting of Dr. Dre and his daughter, but, I have no issue with her being awarded a spot. More than likely, she got in on her own merits, and if she didn’t - I don’t care! Furthermore, the $70m in development funding, (which goes a long way!) was donated 6+ years ago, so even if this was a ‘development admission’ it was well planned and had forethought!
BTW - Dr. Dre also committed $10m to Compton HS for the development of the arts. You can’t fault the guy for that!
Moving along…
Yale has rescinded the admission of one student caught up in the scandal, and I read each of the coaches at USC, Georgetown and Yale, implicated in this mess, are due in Federal court today; they each face 20 years in prison. Let’s see what the end of the day brings…
I came across this YouTube video by a guy who calls his channel LegalEagle. He explains some of the legal issues associated with the scandal and the ensuing class action suits. His opening parody of the Full House theme song was hilarious.
NOTE: if you do decide to watch the video, keep in mind that when he refers to “Aunt Becky,” he is not referring specifically to Lori Loughlin. He is calling all of the accused parents “Aunt Becky.” He does qualify that, but I kept having to remind myself.
No, he doesn’t sound like the brightest bulb in the pack.
Lol, there’s so much we still don’t know.
But if USC thought they implemented better oversight, it sure backfired. Isn’t making the AD in charge of recriiting compliance like the fox in charge of the henhouse?
I watched the LegalEagle video. I am not a lawyer, but I think his argument about the class action suit is wrong. He says there isn’t a class here because members of a class have to be alike, whereas each student is evaluated as an individual for admission.
I understood that there were two points of the suit:
(1) The admissions process was unfair because students were accepted with fraudulent SAT/ACT scores and some also with fraudulent athletic credentials;
(2) The value of the degree from the involved universities will be less because students were admitted with fraudulent credentials, so employers will have some doubt about the validity of degrees from those universities.
Because the suit claims that the admissions process itself was generally corrupt, ALL the students who applied to/graduated from the universities involved in the scandal would be equally affected. They all paid for an application process free of fraud and corruption, but none of them got it. There was a breach of the implicit terms of service of the application process.
Similarly, all students with degrees will suffer the same degradation of the value of the degree, so the students are all alike.
The lawyer also asks, what would the damages be? I understood that the damages would be the cost of the application fee for (1) and the reduced value of the degree for (2).
He also says that Loughlin is facing RICO charges. There were two separate indictments: one for Singer, his employees, and the coaches, and one for the parents. The charges were different on the two indictments. Only the first had racketeering charges. The parents were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, not racketeering.
So not impressed with this lawyer’s legal analysis or due diligence, but his video is funny.
Still way too many blanket statements and generalizations on here. There is no perfect system to catch 100% of corruption, 100% of the time. You certainly want processes in place to discourage it and catch it but people with no integrity will always find a way. At the end of the day you have to hire and bring in people you trust to do their jobs responsibly. Coaches and ADs are always going to have a high level of responsibility for their roles. But those roles have different parameters at every single school and even more so within every conference and especially each division. You can’t apply the specific scenarios in this case across each school and every coach. These people were cheaters, frauds and criminals, and they were caught.