This is an extraordinarily high-profile case. Whatever sentences are given will send a message.
“This is an extraordinarily high-profile case. Whatever sentences are given will send a message.”
Yes, but what message? A fine and jail time for rich people will send a much different message than will a sentence of a fine and no jail time.
There are a few reasons for sentences. To deter others from committing the crime, to deter THIS person from committing the crime, and to punish this person, and to protect society.
The judge (or the legislature if enacting minimum sentencing guidelines) has to decide what punishment meets those goals.
I used to work for a judge who thought all jail time should be for one day, because that is absolutely the worse day of your life. The strip searching, the booking photos, the noise, the meals at off times (like breakfast at 5 am and lunch at 9 am). No one ever wants to go back as they’d assume all days would be that bad. After that first day, most people adjust a little and jail is not so horrible as it was that first day.
Throw the book at them–four years at ASU
@Scipio “So far as I can tell having a Harvard kid in the family did not move our social standing a single inch.”
It could certainly move your SES. a few hundreds K of life savings are easily gone by the time kids finish their Ivy degree.
Please don’t just hand out community service!
martha stewart attended club fed for lying about something that was not even a crime. most of these parent-perps knew with certainty what they were doing was illegal.
Hey, maybe this will make a great college essay for current juniors: ‘my parents tried to lie, cheat and steal to get me into college and now I’m an emotional wreck: Admit me as my background is certainly unique’.
Bordering on cruel and unusual. 
Oh, I think there is going to be financial punishment, including some amended tax returns.
Also in today’s news: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/us/college-admissions-scandal-plea-ucla.html
Agree with post 3678, but will add something else.
The highly publicized Ivy policies (now universal) of need-blind admission and economic AA are inconsistent with favoritism for big donors. Those two messages could not be more contradictory, despite the fact that donations “help the whole campus,” which they do. If those donations provide different levels of admissions access for different economic groups, then a split message is being communicated. And there are probably far more donors – if not on the million-dollar level than on the hundreds of thousands level than there are truly accomplished students who are also truly impoverished. The benefits to these opposite classes are unevenly distributed, vis-a-vis the colleges’ practices.
I do not object to different kinds of access for big donors (privileges, invites, etc.), but I think that the admissions process should operate as donor-blind, not donor-aware, much as the concept of financial need does.
I take this position even though I have witnessed, and still do, that the social opportunity of an elite education for an impoverished student tends to be limited, although the economic advantage is clear and can be documented. That is only important because social class cannot always be reduced to economic class.
“That is only important because social class cannot always be reduced to economic class.”
This.
I think this thread has been very therapeutic for many people.
I just watched some broadcast on this today. The offending parents are taking all the responsibility and saying their kids knew nothing about it. I don’t quite think it is the case, but it shows every parent is the same, at the end of day we would go to jail, give our limb to our kid to make sure he/she wouldn’t be harmed. It is something I could relate.
“The offending parents are taking all the responsibility and saying their kids knew nothing about it. I don’t quite think it is the case, but it shows every parent is the same, at the end of day we would go to jail, give our limb to our kid to make sure he/she wouldn’t be harmed. It is something I could relate.”
I hear you, oldfort, but I think the consensus on all this is the parents are the ones who initiated the scheme. They have a level of influence over, and responsibility and obligation to, these kids to both preach and practice a moral and legal behavior at which they failed. On purpose.
Yes, they should throw themselves down on the track with train rolling toward their own heads, and spare such injury to their children if possible. They have a responsibility and obligation to do so.
“The offending parents are taking all the responsibility and saying their kids knew nothing about it. I don’t quite think it is the case…”
The kids may well be innocent in some cases, but there are others where the kids were pretty clearly in on the fraud - starting with kids who put on their apps that they planned/hoped to play a sport at the intercollegiate level for which they had little or no talent or experience.
And any high school junior or senior who sincerely believes that a “special” SAT administered solely to him at his home and proctored by his own mother is somehow legit probably isn’t college material in the first place.
This may be the best public apology I’ve ever seen, from Felicity Huffman:
"I am pleading guilty to the charge brought against me by the United States Attorney’s Office.
I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions.
I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community. I want to apologize to them and, especially, I want to apologize to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly.
My daughter knew absolutely nothing about my actions, and in my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her. This transgression toward her and the public I will carry for the rest of my life. My desire to help my daughter is no excuse to break the law or engage in dishonesty."
@Waiting2exhale “I think the consensus on all this is the parents are the ones who initiated the scheme…”
I may be the only one, but I don’t think the parents initiated the scheme. Singer and the Harvard grad who was getting paid lots of money to take or change SAT and ACT tests for kids are the ones that initiated it. If they don’t get a sentence twice as long as these parents then there is something wrong with the system.
I have seen no evidence that these parents decided to break the law and were looking for someone to help them do it. What seemed to happen is that these parents hired a very expensive and highly recommended college counseling service that had personal testimonials from people like pro golfer Phil Mickelson that everyone said was so great and had done such a great job getting their kids into college. This counseling service came highly recommended.
So these parents hire Singer and Singer suddenly holds out his illegal services like a drug pusher. “Everyone does it”. “I’ve been doing this for years and years.” “I made parents feel so great when their kid got in”. The parents broke the law just like drug addicts break the law. But there is absolutely no evidence that they would have broken that law without the guy that Phil Mickelson himself vouched for as terrific egging them on to cheat.
Or, it’s possible that Singer was known as the guy to go to because he got results any way he needed to, in which case colleges that admitted any Singer clients should assume that their applications are full of exaggerations and fraudulent claims. The man cheats and will do anything to get a client’s kid admitted. Why would anyone think the help he gave all his clients didn’t cross the line. How many essays written? How many kids getting extra time on SATs (even if they took it themselves)? How many “activities” added to a college application to make a kid look better? I suspect Singer just kept going further and further with it.
Felicity Huffman’s apology (quoted in #3694) is a good one. But I’m cynical enough to think that she probably did it to protect her long-term stream of income. She may or may not actually be sorry for the things she listed (other than for bringing harm upon her daughter).
I will give her full credit for hiring a smart PR person, though.
Well, the kids must have wanted to attend these universities, which were out of their league. The parents would not have done it if the kid said no way to USC.
“Singer and the Harvard grad who was getting paid lots of money to take or change SAT and ACT tests for kids are the ones that initiated it. If they don’t get a sentence twice as long as these parents then there is something wrong with the system.”
Since Singer long ago “flipped” and was wearing a wire to nail the parents, I bet he gets a pretty light sentence. Why else would he do it if not for the hope/promise of a significantly reduced sentence?
Keep in min @roycroftmom in at least one case the kid DIDN’T apply. I forgot the names, but the indictment included the person who bribed the Stanford sailing coach for a slot and his kid didn’t even apply to Stanford.