In Huffman’s case I can see her daughter not knowing. Mother suggests she get testing. Kid agrees. Results come back that she qualifies for assistance. Kid is allowed private testing. For me it’s not a stretch that some kids would just go with the flow. Forget all the “my kid would never…” indignation. Baby kids aim to please, are trusting, believe their parents would never do such a thing etc. I’m not saying the kids shouldn’t facebdone consequences, but let’s stop portraying them all as conniving liars.
The applicants were close to 18, not 8. I think it is reasonable to assume they were willing participants in fraud. They probably don’t see anything wrong with it; their parents didn’t.
@roycroftmom and that’s your take. There are a lot of immature, naive kids out there. There are kids out there who go to college not knowing how to make a sandwich or a bed, who have mom call school to fix all their problems, but you can’t believe some would be clueless about this? And please don’t judge a teenager based on the actions of the parent. There were definitely a few examples brought up in this case where the kids had absolutely no clue.
Now these poor parents need to hire more high-priced consultants to help them figure out who to bribe so they can get into the really elite prisons and maybe even hire a stand in to help them pass the strip search.
Perhaps, @lehigh22, but this particular set of parents and their offspring seem wealthy, worldly, and quite sophisticated, if ethically deficient. They may not know how to make a bed but they know how to make a bribe. They are fortunate they were not charged as accomplices. Naive little girls fresh off the farm in Kansas, they were not.
Opaque admissions requirements and criteria create an environment ripe for abuse. The schools are to blame. The solution sadly is plaintiffs’ lawyers. Self policing has never worked in any industry and won’t work here. The schools accept public money and tax exempt status. They owe a duty to the public. Members of the public who are unfairly denied entrance should have standing to sue. That is the only way the system will change. The first suits should seek refunds of entrance fees. Then damages. The consultants should also be investigated for the promises they make. Telling a lie knowing someone will rely on it for your profit and their loss is fraud. Unless the schools self-police, only well funded plaintiffs’ lawyers have the funding and power to create change.
Whether or not Felicity Huffman feels actual remorse or has some underlying motive for self-preservation that drove the content of her statement, I appreciate that she didn’t try to obfuscate the situation or try to whitewash what she did.
People are always remorseful when they are caught.
I would really like to know what colleges in general are going to do going forward to help prevent this.
This has been said many times before here but some of the wiretaps talk about measures taken to hide the truth from the kids involved, whereas others clearly show the kids knew what was going on. All the parents are guilty; not all the kids are. I still don’t think any of the kids should be allowed to benefit from the fraud, whether or not they knew what was going on.
Huffman pleaded guilty because she knew she will be facing about half year sentence. Loughlin pleaded not guilty because she is facing at least two years in prison.
I hope these parents are saving money for the long term psychological counseling their kids will need.
I wish we didn’t clog our prison system with offenders like this. I vote for significant community service…like daily work at an inner city soup kitchen for a couple of years, plus a significant fine to be placed in a useful fund.
These folks are not going to get sent to the state Pen. They are going to get sent to those country club prisons…and you know what? We pay for that.
And really, is that going to make a difference in them? Let them work off their crimes.
I think it will be very interesting to see what comes out regarding the neuropsychs who tested and diagnosed for extra time. I know lots of people, my daughter included, who had to really push for time and a half, after 15 years of IEPs, consistent learning disability diagnoses, and extended testing time based on IEP. Going to the next level, double time, over two days, was something our legitimate neuropsych thought would never happen. I suspect that some of these “innocent” kids were tanking the neuropsych testing. That’s fraud, too, but certainly of a lesser degree.
I am having a hard time imagining how any of these students didn’t know. I haven’t read the case document, but weren’t all the cases either 1) extra time on testing, so they could get in the compromised test room and have their tests corrected or changed or 2) false athletes? How could a student not know that he/she was in the room with extra time and not ask why? Did these students not fill out their own applications, including the extra curricular and athletics parts? Were they not looking at their own emails they would be receiving about said athletics? I suppose I could imagine a student questioning their parent, and the parent saying something like “just trust me, this is what you should do, don’t ask questions.” And the student trusting their parent, and not asking more. But bottom line, each student has to “sign” their own applications stating that all of the information is correct. Correct?
“This has been said many times before here but some of the wiretaps talk about measures taken to hide the truth from the kids involved, whereas others clearly show the kids knew what was going on. All the parents are guilty; not all the kids are. I still don’t think any of the kids should be allowed to benefit from the fraud, whether or not they knew what was going on.”
I agree. All of the kids who benefited from the fraud should have their admissions, credits earned, and degrees (if any) revoked. Jail for the parents. Expulsion for the kids.
Kids for whom it can be clearly demonstrated they had no participation in or knowledge of the schemes should be allowed to reapply to their respective colleges, their applications put in the regular big pile with all of our kids, and be either admitted or not, through the front door, based on their own legitimate merits. Kids who were part of the fraud should be simply dismissed.
@TS0104 You can read the transcripts here: https://www.justice.gov/file/1142876/download
I would bet that many of these kids did not fill out or sign their own applications. I wonder if they can tell if the applications were submitted on one of Singer’s computers. Many “normal” kids don’t read their emails. Maybe if the info was sent via SnapChat they would have seen it. 
For example Caplan said that his wife didn’t approve
and
Others like the children of Buckingham, Henriquez seem to be very aware of what was going on. https://nypost.com/2019/03/13/ceos-daughter-gloated-about-cheating-on-sats-in-college-scam-prosecutors/
Concur. Sure, some of them had to know, and others were likely clueless (Lori L’s vapid D too busy trying to become a Kardashian).
Let the kids skip Club Fed as long as they are expelled from college due to fraudulent applications.
The good news is that ASU has an extremely high admission rate.
Certainly Felicity Huffman had her PR people write her apology, but all these high profile people have their PR people write their “apologies,” yet usually the apologies are weaselly, whiny and self-exculpatory. Huffman, on the other hand, put her name to a straightforward apology.
She didn’t say she barely stepped over the line by mistake; she said she knew it was wrong and she did it anyway. She didn’t try to cast the on blame unfair admissions departments, or hint that other people cheated in admissions too. She said she was ashamed of what she did.
She accepted the consequences due her, instead of assuming that apologizing means she shouldn’t get any other consequence.
And she didn’t use the If Trope; she didn’t say she was sorry IF other people were hurt or offended by her actions. She knows, as they all know, that she did something hurtful and offensive, and she owns it and expresses remorse. Compare that to the guy that says he’s sorry IF his employees were offended when he whipped out his johnson in front of them, or he’s sorry IF his fans were offended when he used a vile ethnic slur, as if it’s somehow mysterious and unpredictable when people are offended by something offensive.
Maybe it’s all insincere, but if so, it’s still better than what we usually get. An insincere apology (if it is insincere) at least shows she knows what she is supposed to be feeling.
Post 3725 is exactly what I meant about blaming colleges…as if there aren’t individuals involved who sought personal gain. It’s a sort of ‘deep pockets’ approach to behavior choices: as if, as long as you can proclaim someone else equally - or more- at fault, hey, the ethical responsibilities were “beyond my control.”
Not.
Each participant was/is a participant. And most of us try to teach our kids that saying, “Well, Billy did it, too,” or that the cookie jar was there, so it’s not my fault, is wrong. You did what you did. YOU are responsible for that.
As for the kids, if they’re so out of it that they don’t get that std testing isn’t done from home or a plane ride away, etc, then are they smart enough for a highly competitive college? Umm?
As for, “daily work at an inner city soup kitchen for a couple of years,” it should be tougher work and an ensured deep commitment. Not drive up in your Mercedes, don a cute apron, and gone in 2 hours.
I’m in favor of soup kitchen experience, in general, because it’s humbling, exposes kids to another reality, offers new perspective. But it’s not punishment.
@lookingforward “I have a hard time when the talk turns to the big bad colleges, as if that exonerates the individuals. They came into this with their drives. They weren’t just innocents who fell for this. They came into it.”
First of all, has Harvard fired their fencing coach yet? Stanford used questionable wording by saying the student they expelled was not a “recruit”. She had exaggerated sailing credentials and the sailing program got a big donation and she was admitted. I doubt that a “tip” did not help her. Harvard’s looking for a way to make what the fencing coach did seem minor (Harvard just needs to make him aware of their conflict of interest policy?!) just shows you that there is little desire to stop this. Are we now saying that as long as your child is a decent student-athlete and has good enough grades that they “could” be admitted over thousands of students with better grades, no one will question if a coach who gives them a tip gets rewarded (either via donations to the program or having his house purchased)?
Edit: I agree that the participants were not innocent. Just pointing out that neither were a lot of other people and institutions.
@twoinanddone “Singer had a lot of clients who didn’t cheat on the SAT and didn’t use the side door to get in as an athletic recruits. Phil Mickelson’s daughter used Singer’s firm for help with her application and essays. Joe Montana’s kids also used the service. I’m sure there were many who didn’t need to cheat but still benefited from a little polish.”
Singer’s firm demonstrated that they had absolutely no ethics in terms of what they would do to get a child admitted. None. Anyone who used that firm is tainted because we now know that Singer ran a firm for many years that apparently had extraordinary success in getting students into the colleges that they wanted and had no qualms in skirting ethical lines. While Singer didn’t break the law with any other clients except the ones charged (although if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you), I would never assume that absolutely none of other Singer clients who were not charged benefitted from having a college advising firm that demonstrated just how far they would go to help their clients.
Not one parent who was offered this “special” service and turned it down reported it to anyone – it didn’t seem to be the kind of shocking revelation that would lead a parent to talk to the school or someone else. It seemed just like one step further on the road this consulting firm had always used to help their clients, where ethics were secondary to getting results.
To be clear, I’m not saying that other famous clients did anything improper and there is absolutely no evidence than any of them did anything illegal like Huffman and others. But I’m saying that they hired a college consulting firm we now know would to do anything necessary - whether or not it was ethical, improper, and in some cases, illegal – to make sure that their clients’ children got an edge in their application to college.
Generally, a ‘recruit’ at a D1 school means ncaa scholarship recruit…since the woman did not receive a scholly, she would be considered a (tipped) ‘preferred walk-on’. So, the wording is clear to most. (Not even sure Stanford awards schollies to sailing team.)