What does the DOE think it might find? The colleges wouldn’t have known about the fake SAT results. And does the DOE think the college knew about the phony athletes? Why would the college go along with a student being admitted for being a phony athlete? If the college wants to admit some underqualified rich kid, they don’t have to go along with a baroque scheme to create a fake athletic resume; they can just admit the kid.
This makes no sense to me.
Or, as my son put it, “Dad, I know you think legacy hooks are bogus, but let’s see what you think when your grandchild applies to Yale.”
I suspect it’s very preliminary, to look for reasons to go further. Outright lies.
Maybe just a gloss look because they have to.
Im.curious what the NCAA is thinking.
I, too, wonder, since the Politico article mentioned Federal Student Aid. Which rich student illegally/immorally admitted is receiving that or even could receive that? Doesn’t seem possible.
As it stands right now, colleges have been able to legally set aside several special admission categories and have done so largely in Early Rounds. In itself, such special or different status advantages these categories and does not “equalize the playing field.” But in the perspective of the colleges, these categories are necessary to admit for the sake of the institution’s goals: representation, Student Life (athletics), financial security (donations), and visibility (celebrities). They don’t have to be abused in order to be maintained, but for some – maybe many – people, the existence of those very different categories from mainstream applicants is itself an abuse.
Yet for most private institutions, especially, their mission goes beyond academics; college is seen in this country very much as a life passage for the late adolescent – a time of discovery, exploration, and preparation – academically, socially, and personally. So unless there are people who believe that either public pressure or legal action can change that mission, I think it will be hard to “cleanse” the colleges and universities of all influence in admissions from outside sources. I’m all for greater oversight and control over all kinds of influence – obviously especially the unethical and illegal kind, but I think that to hope for an ideal standard of purity is a little unrealistic, given the two-tiered system itself.
As far as I could tell from the Politico article, the DOE wants to make sure that the universities have adequate procedures to avoid bribes and fraud in the admissions process, and adequate measures to deal with any cases of bribes or fraud that do arise. The DOE also asked for lists of the students who were involved in the current scandal, so DOE wants to monitor those cases. A CNN segment reported today that 5-10 more arrests of parents and maybe students are expected in the next month.
" Even 30% of public universities consider legacy, which seems to be counter to the mission of a public university to make the opportunity to earn higher education more accessible to all of the state’s residents."
None of my kids made use of the legacy preference my wife and I made available to them. So I don’t much care about this issue.
But legacy preferences don’t exist to benefit the legacies. They exist to benefit the schools. And legacy admissions are just good business for the schools – well qualified kids, high yields on admission offers, and more full payors. It helps make budget (and everyone has a budget, even Harvard).
And the policies vary greatly. At UVA, for example, legacy admissions don’t deprive any in-staters of seats. Legacy tips only go to kids competing for the 1/3 of UVA’s seats that are allocated to out-of-staters. And the OOS-ers pay the higher tuition price.
So Virginia parents (whose kids’ admit chances are not affected by legacies at all) presumably pay lower taxes than they would otherwise. Since UVA is tipping legacy applicants from NJ (who probably are higher SES and more likely to enroll) over non-legacy applicants from NJ. The VA parents really couldn’t care less which NJ kids get in, and they are presumably happy to have UVA get that extra OOS cash.
It is also OK with me if Berkeley does things differently than UVA does.
I don’t believe that to be true, at least I couldn’t find such an OOS on UVa’s website. And to me, a near 50% admit rate for legacies is more than a ‘tip’ (as it is 2x the admit rate for the masses).
Regardless, legacy admissions is kinda off point to admissions fraud.
How are you planning to uncover cheating and how will you prove it once you think you’ve found it?
I think this is a truly bad idea. There are many reasons why kids with lower GPAs may be admitted legally to any school. The last thing we need is for families to judge and make assumptions about other students. This scandal is disturbing, but the number of kids actually admitted through illegal means is minuscule. There must be better things for parents to spend their time on then trying to ruin the lives of kids they suspect don’t deserve their acceptances.
That sounds disturbingly like “witch hunt” based on immoral (and possibly illegal) invasions of educational privacy. It is absolutely not the responsibility of peer parents to try to root out cheating. Certainly, it’s not the responsibility of peer parents to try to root it out based on the myriad of reasons why a kid may or may not have shown up on the “honor roll”(?). That’s a monumental leap that would almost assuredly end in some sort of legal action against the suspicious and whistleblowing parties.
The problem isn’t whether or not kids with lower-than-someone-else GPAs/grades gain admission. Actual GPA, test scores, ECs, community engagement, essays, etc… aren’t the problem. Universities don’t have to consider someone with a ‘higher GPA & on the honor roll’ a better overall candidate than someone with a lower GPA, and not on the honor roll. The problem (as it relates to this thread) is people committing crimes to lie, cheat, and manipulate a kid into a university admission. There is literally no sane way for peer parents to determine a kid’s (not their own) worthiness of admission, based on whether or not they appeared on the honor roll.
"USC is still doing illegal stuff. "
I am really mystified by why anyone would post this. We all agree it is perfectly legal for a university to admit any student they want whose parents donate directly to the university. There is absolutely no academic bar those students are legally obligated to meet at any university, period. And whether those students are substandard or not is very likely similar to what happens with sports recruiting. When a potential student-athlete is miles above the other potential recruits in sports talent, the less important the grades and test scores are. Presumably it works the same in non-athletic admissions – a donation that is miles above what other donors give, the less important grades and test scores are for the applicant to get admitted. Isn’t that what at least a few of the spots on the z list are for? But everyone agrees that as long as the donation goes directly to the university, the university can admit any student it wants to meet “institutional needs”.
So USC admissions would be perfectly legal in admitting a student with low GPAs and low standardized test scores in regular admissions because there is nothing legally precluding them from doing it. They could even go “test optional”. Remember, a lot of the money the parents paid went to either Singer or his company or to a coach or official’s pockets. From the university’s standpoint, the “legal” admissions way would have put every dollar of that money directly in the university’s pockets, with everyone saying that was absolutely fine because universities have institutional needs to fill.
So what would be the “illegal stuff”? This scandal indicates that the admissions office wasn’t letting in big donors’ kids the way they might have done when academic standards for admissions were much lower.
I don’t know if USC is still doing “illegal stuff” today, right now, but USC has had its share (and more) of scandals over the years.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-usc-year-disruption-culture-20181223-story.html
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-usc-scandals-20180520-story.html
I appreciate a few here “getting” what holistic entails.
But careful when suggesting, “There is absolutely no academic bar…” I realize you inserted "legally " but there are ethical requirements and can be repercussions. We’ve spent good time on threads like this trying to convince it’s not send a check and get an auto admit.
Some these posts that are teetering toward a mob mentality are kind of creeping me out. Aren’t we all better than that?
It doesn’t matter what any college has done in the past. People who go around slandering other families are likely to end up with a lawsuit on their hands. No adcom is going to be party to such a witch hunt and high schools who don’t want to lose their federal funding aren’t going to violate FERPA. That means they won’t discuss students with other parents.
Sfmommy19 can certainly tell her district she thinks somebody is cheating if she wants to, but she should some evidence to back it up. “They have a lower GPA than I think deserves to be admitted” to a particular college isn’t evidence.
@sushiritto “USC has had its share (and more) of scandals over the years.”
This is true but so have other universities. Remember, the University of Pennsylvania basketball coach set up a separate account for a donor for a basketball player whose dad paid and there was so little oversight that when he was fired (only because his team wasn’t doing well), the basketball coach could pass along the information to a different assistant coach there. And despite this being public for many months, the university announced no plans to make any changes during that time. The difference is that there were no major newspapers reporting on this as a terrible scandal of oversight that could only have happened due to lax oversight. It’s not as if during those many months the university rescinded the student – because the major media didn’t report it, it was quiet.
Most of these scandals had nothing to do with admissions so I’m not sure why you didn’t address my point which is that USC does not have any legal or moral obligation (except in athletics!!!) to decline a student with low academic credentials and many people here insist if the university gets a nice library and some institutional need is being met, why shouldn’t they admit him?
Perhaps this is unfair for me to say but I doubt that Eric Trump Jr. had nearly the same academic credentials as hundreds if not thousands of students who were turned down from Georgetown the year he applied. Everyone says that is okay because the university had some institutional need it was meeting.
Meeting an institutional need depends on the university. USC admits many students with lower test scores because of their amazing artistic talent, and it would have been perfectly within their discretion to admit any student because what made that applicant stand out from the crowd of applicants who were much stronger academically and had more academic achievements was the big donation or their parents’ fame. That’s what all the selective universities do. If they did not, there would be no need to put any of those applicants in a separate pile at all. They would simply go into the big pile and let the chips fall where they may.
I was addressing what the poster meant by “illegal stuff.” A university can admit anyone they want to, but fake ERG pics and fake soccer resumes, while never intending to row or play soccer, is not the right way to matriculate to a university.
The right way is to give millions to a university, and/or build a building or two on campus, which is what some family I know did to get their kid into a university. 
@sushiritto “The right way is to give millions to a university, and/or build a building or two on campus…”
Ha! It’s so sad that one way is “right”. It’s definitely legal, however, which is why the whole admissions scandal at USC implies that the USC admissions office was becoming quite strict in not letting donations factor into admissions. There was no advantage to USC to have Singer and coaches get donations that could have been made to them, if in fact a hefty donation was all it took. There was no incentive for the university to look the other way in this instance. What this did reveal is that there is a separate issue in which it is clear that at many universities – from Yale to U. Penn to USC, some sports recruit spots can be used not just for non-players, but for athletes who may be mediocre players who would never receive that recruiting tip without a coach or athletic director having a financial incentive to admit them. And there is almost no oversight of that part, and I don’t believe that a university review as to whether the student has a completely fraudulent sports resume will catch whether the student getting the athletic tip is a decent high school player or a truly outstanding athlete who would be recruited without the donation. That’s what happened at U. Penn and there are suggestions this may happen elsewhere, too. If a rowing coach can designate 5 recruits and gets the 4 outstanding ones and the 5th whose rich parent buys two crew shells, isn’t that an “institutional decision” as long as the money isn’t going into his pocket and the student getting the 5th spot has participated in the sport, albeit at a low level? That’s not the case in this scandal, but it did seem as if this may not be all that unusual at universities and Singer just jumped from that to “why even have them be an athlete at all”? The U. Penn (‘real’) basketball player’s dad also gave a donation to Singer’s non-profit.
Well, I’d be happy to offer my services as a compliance officer for any major university. I’ll be happy to fly in and/or check out video on any prospective recruit. Seriously, send me the videos of any soccer, football, basketball, rowing, tiddly-winks game and I’ll review it for any athletic administration. If I have any questions regarding the resume and video, then I’ll fly out and give them a quick performance test in whatever sport they play.
If a football recruit cannot bench press a 225 lb barbell, then I’ll write that up in my report. If the rower cannot row an 8:00 or less ERG, then I’ll write that up in my report. If the soccer player cannot receive a pass, either via the ground or air, or perform even the simplest Cruyff turn, then I’ll write that up in my report.
I’ll do all this for any Ivy League school or Top 25 school for FREE, but the catch is that my '21 kid must be able to attend their university in the Fall of 2021. 