I’m not either, which is why I won’t comment about any of his legal arguments. No offense, but I would prefer to hear thoughts on his legal opinions from people who are lawyers. They may well agree with you but…then again, it’s like medicine. Get 5 doctors in the room, give them all the same case study, and you will get at least 4 different opinions on how to proceed.
I just thought the parody theme song was really funny. And his UCLA/USC comments, which are now even funnier given that UCLA has now been drawn into the whole mess.
If you talk about class action lawsuits, I believe one against the College Board and ACT organization has even more merit. We have heard from students whose scores were cancelled for no apparent reason except that ACT determined that they must have cheated. Yet if you read all 200+ pages of the scandal documents it appears that cheating on ACT or SAT scores had been going on for a long time. One student who had earned a 23 on her ACT had her score raised to a 35 yet she wasn’t flagged? Those fake scores had to affect the overall stats of the other honest students.
I read it that CB/ACT was cooperating with authorities in that case. Wasn’t this student the one that was denied accommodations until ACT was asked to grant them? By the Feds, I would imagine.
Of course there were years and years of this going on.
I might have gotten a few of the stories in that report mixed up as there were so many kids who had their scores raised crazy amounts. But what struck me is how the ring leader, when asked by nervous parents if they might get caught, reassured them that he had been doing this for over 24 years. It makes you wonder how many other families participated in this scheme over the years who just weren’t caught.
“One student who had earned a 23 on her ACT had her score raised to a 35 yet she wasn’t flagged? Those fake scores had to affect the overall stats of the other honest students.”
The schools can fix this instantly.
So very easy for the schools to require applicants to submit ALL their test scores, just not the good ones. And it would be sooo easy for SAT/ACT to set up a system where the schools could check to see that all scores had in fact been sent.
Just like Gtown has done for years.
Side benefit is that you’d take some of the juice out of the current unlimited do-over system, which clearly is a gaming opportunity.
Can they make the applicants pledge that they did not use a consultant? I agree that would be a radical step and it would not be enforceable in any practical sense.
Issue with lawyer insight here is that not all are expert in the various reaches of the law.
But yes, one important and central question in the student lawsuit will be, what role can money play. How can that settle it.
The students will have a tough time proving they were not reviewed fairly, their own full apps. Yes, I tend to think their complaint should be against CB and ACT. Suing the U seems like “deep pockets.” At present, the U as an institution is not indicted.
And other legal resources say 5 years, not 20. Or fines and community service. There’s a lot yet to wade through-- not just details but legal process. So stay apprised. But miles to go.
I have a concern about wholesale disregard of jumps in scores, because teaching students how to legitimately raise their scores is one thing I’m particularly good at. I have raised SAT scores (by section) 100,150, and 200 points, rapidly. I have shown students how to raise ACT scores 5-10 points – both SAT and ACT increases sometimes accomplished in very short periods of time (i.e., 2-4 months), other times accomplished in 6-8 months.
It may depend on the region. I will just tell you that in my region, reading critically is not sufficiently taught, K-12. They know how to read for facts – literal interpretation, but not inference, connotation, tone, etc. So really, I give them a crash course in all the reading skills they’ve never been taught at all, or were scantily taught. During my own K-12 education, how to read was an essential part of the school day. Not so much now.
Btw, lots of kids do submit all scores. And yes, you can see a jump. But you also look at when the poor results were, that context, for perspective. This is not a one and done score situation.
But that’s my whole point. No one should assume that if my student scored much more poorly 3 months ago, he or she cheated on the more recent test. Be clear that, as I said several pages back, I’m ALL FOR electronic surveillance of testing rooms – and not just for standardized tests but high school classroom tests. One of my h.s. students told me recently that her very competitive private h.s. is considering just that.
My guess is that they will rely more on HS college counselors for students they are ready to admit and scrutinize the private counselors who call and advocate directly through personal relationships. I don’t really know.
There are a few private K12 schools in my region that include a student statement in the application: “I did not use any outside help in this application.” The word “paid” is not included, but I’m sure that the school knows it is difficult to prevent students from asking parental advice, at the very least, even if conscientious parents would not actually suggest wording, or edit anything.
Before I agree to help with K-12 apps, I insist that the family provide me with the actual application so that I can see the wording of each app. I’m not content with their filtering that to me. Even though many families are happy to lie about the above question, I will not participate in assisting any student’s application which forbids outside help; that includes just general advice about that application. And even for the other schools, I do not directly edit/overwrite the application contents, but merely evaluate whether the student has answered the prompts fully, and if not, suggest which aspects could be improved.
Since colleges themselves, not to mention college admissions, is such a big business, I anticipate that any disclosure statement would be violated right and left, with the minority of honest people becoming “disadvantaged” by that. And so I do not see the inclusion of such a statement making the admissions process MORE equal. It would enlarge discrepancies and make the process even less transparent. The disadvantage would go to honest signatories. To really control/diminish the effect of private consultants, colleges would have to spend some significant money and time investigating all applications, and I somehow doubt they have the funds or interest in such labor. Or, they could just do what I suggested pages back: in-person applications. (That’s an option at Bard College but not a requirement, or at least it was a few years back.)
@hopedaisy He was flat out lying about pulling these schemes for 24 years. The majority of his scams all seem to have been run between 2011 and 2018. It would seem that he was pretty bad at making money legally from college counseling, since he sold his first counseling company and worked in other businesses until 2004. My guess was that he wasn’t much better at making money legally in his second counseling business, and decided to move from unethical to illegal (evidently much of his advice was unethical - showing people how to people to fake URM status etc), because it was a lot more lucrative.
He probably did pull a few schemes like this earlier, but his “nonprofit” which he used to bribe coaches, was only established in 2012, so he probably has been pulling off these cheats for about a decade at most
It doesn’t sound to me like they are trying to root out people who are getting help writing their essays, tutoring, or pulling together their packages. It’s the consultants who speak to university representatives who might be getting more scrutiny to make sure there aren’t shenanigans. I think that would be pretty easy to do with a policy for your faculty and staff (well, mainly coaches and maybe some admissions staff.)
Which of the following qualify as “consultants” in your view?
[list=1]
[]Parents review a child’s essays and final application before submission
[]An immigrant family that speaks little English asks a friend fluent in English to review essays and application.
[]As part of a classroom exercise, students answer a Common App essay prompt and the teacher provides feedback.
[]A student attending an elite private school has the school’s internal staff provide extensive guidance on how to write essays, activities to highlight in the application, and a final review of both.
[]A parent asks a friend who knows a lot about college admissions to review their child’s application, who does it for free.
[]A parent asks a friend who knows a lot about college admissions to review their child’s application, who does it for a fee.
[]Parents hire a professional, who works with the child to discuss essay topics that showcase the child. The child writes the essay herself, and the professional reviews it and provides feedback.
[]Parents hire a professional essay writer to ghost-write the essays.
