@lookingforward I might agree with you except UCS, Stanford and Yale fired coaches immediately with the evidence they had. Harvard? No. Is Harvard really investigating OR, is the Fencing coach a good old boy and part of their “system” of admissions at Harvard? There is a reason Asian Americans sued Harvard. its never been fair, there has always been a SIDE DOOR into Harvard, and I would say that 80% of Harvard admits are back door , side door and true athletic recruits. There are few “normal students” at Harvard, its all some sort of pay off there, or political person like Malia Obama, or a donor, or a legacy or an up and coming so and so , or the head of Pakistan’s daughter ! Yeah, she went to Harvard, took over Pakistan and got shot! There you have it. Harvard is always a place for special connected snowflakes, that are in line for something important.
Harvard still has excellent academics though all the way to the PhD level. But anyone that thought Harvard was ever fair, is kidding themselves or not familiar with Harvard.
“USC has placed holds on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme,” it reads. “This prevents the students from registering for classes (until they have agreed to participate in the review of their case), withdrawing from the university, or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review.”
So kids allegedly involved are in a kind of limbo state for now.
And:
“According to earlier reports, the school was also considering revoking degrees of alumni who were thought to have been involved in this type of scam. As of March 22, the school ID’d eight alumni who they think got in through similar schemes.”
"one alum has already come forward to “turn himself in,” saying he cheated on the ACT with the help of Rick Singer, the man who orchestrated the whole thing. That alum received a scholarship and played football at the school, even though a source told TMZ he didn’t meet the academic requirements for athletes. USC will reportedly not revoke his degree because he came forward on his own. "
hmmmm, sounds like this could rise to the level of NCAA investigation. Football player with sub-standard test score? If under the NCAA minimum, 'SC would have to forfeit the games that the kid played in. Yeah, sure, ‘we’re giving him credit for coming forward on his own.’ (sarcasm intended)
Perhaps the difference in the Harvard case was that the applicant dmitted was indeed a very good fencer who did compete for Harvard and apparently won sometimes. So maybe a borderline recruit who got a small tip, but was a credible candidate anyway, is a less culpable offense.
Easy, c-mom. It was easy for Stanford and Yale to fire their coaches since the feds had tape and the files were very easy to adjudicate. (Not to mention that Singer already admitted guilt.)
The Harvard fencing coach? Really bad optics, and a huge appearance of impropriety, but no smoking gun yet. Perhaps kid #2 got in to H to balance the Ivy team’s academic index? Instead of getting kid #2 into H, perhaps daddy’s money went to get a business associate’s kid into H?
In other words, to fire a long-time employee, gotta investigate per Employee handbook. That takes time. Harvard has no reason to protect a fencing coach (unless he had video of the Prez in compromising positions with underage kids).
To those who think the parents shouldn’t be punished more harshly than Singer, remember that if no parents had been willing partners in committing these crimes, no crimes would have been committed. As despicable an opportunist as he was, the greed and self-entitled disregard for the law by these parents needs to be appropriately punished. IMO their worst offense is the (legal) utter disrespect for their children’s abilities and potential, regardless of whether or not the kids were complicit.
I’ve been wondering if there are any Title IX implications of this, primarily in the RA situations. Since athletics are usually split between men’s and women’s teams, and assuming that their are limits to the number of recruited athletes a coach can claim to be recruiting (based on their sport), then one could argue that by taking the bribes and falsely designated a student as a recruit they have discriminated against a candidate that would otherwise have been a legitimate recruit. Probably a stretch, but you never know.
What makes you think Singer and Riddell are getting off lightly? Singer’s facing a prison sentence of up to 65 years and Mark Riddell is facing up to 40. Those are hardly light sentences.
@bluebayou “no smoking gun yet…” Really? Overpaying for a coach’s house by hundreds of thousands of dollars, not doing anything but selling it later for a loss of $300,000? When the house never even seemed to go on the market but was just purchased? Donating $1 million to a foundation that turns around and gives $100,000 to the fencing coach’s newly incorporated non-profit?
If that is now okay, a new college advising service could make a mint arranging new favors and athletic department donations so that rich student-athletes in sports played primarily by affluent students can get “tips” from coaches as long as they meet basic academic standards of the university. There could even be a bidding war! One “advisor” has a decent fencer but not one who would normally be recruited whose dad promises to donate $300,000 to the fencing program. But another advisor has a decent fencer slightly lower ranked whose dad will donate $750,000. Since neither fencer is up to the standards of the athletes who are recruited without their parents paying a nice donation, why not give the tip to the one whose dad will pay $750,000? After all, everyone says it’s perfectly fine and the fencing program has more money to spend.
If that’s what we have come to, it isn’t just big time revenue-producing college sports that has lost its way.
Really! What is the quid pro quo, observer? Can you say with certainty that it was to get his kid(s) in and not someone else’s, or a cousin? Can you say with certainty that the kid was not admitted to improve the AI (which happens all the time)?
Sure, the odds are near certainty that this was fraudulent, but until someone cops a plea, H has to investigate to see exactly how/what/who. Just can’t up and fire a long term employee based on internet chatter. And what’s the rush to judgement? Put the coach on Admin leave today, investigate and can fire next week or month when the facts are in. Plus, there may be a lot more fencers suspiciously admitted from prior years…might as well pickup all the rocks, so to speak.
I was thinking that the quid pro quo was irrelevant because even if it is a “gift” after the fact, it skews the admissions process. Just knowing that choosing one recruit over another is highly likely to lead to a nice gift causes bias. I suppose I should acknowledge that is how it works with big donors in regular admissions, so maybe that makes it okay in athletic recruiting, too.
You are right that this should wait for more investigation, but I didn’t think the coach had been put on admin leave yet and the statement about improving the conflict of interest policy seemed absurd, as if having a parent paying nearly twice the value of a coach’s home would ever be okay.
Imagine if this was a professor and a student’s parent heard he wanted to move and offered him hundreds of thousands of dollars above any reasonable asking price for his home. And the professor accepted it! Is it really okay as long as the professor gave the kid a B+ and not an A? Would Harvard need to explain the conflict of interest policy a little better to the professor so he didn’t keep accepting such “gifts”.
I’m not sure what assumptions some here are working on. But I think it reaches back to individual notions of what’s fair to you and what you “think” should be the admission process. I believe that’s inherently flawed. Insufficient. And that you should go back and find your own (biased) “logic” and acknowledge it.This isn’t about the Asian lawsuit (its existence doesn’t “prove” facts, one way or another.) Stanford is no more upright than Harvard for firing sooner. None of this scandal sheds more light than what court documents show about this Singer travesty.
Maybe check NCAA rules on “after admission” giving to a sports program.
And realize, throughout, that this scandal focuses on the illegitimate back door(s) Singer used and some parents bought into. Right now, no more than that.
Miles to go. It’s hardly a month. If you want to try to put the pieces together, fine. But don’t confuse the minimal “facts” with speculation. Identify the few facts.
In this interview with an “elite private college counselor Allen Koh,” they talk about this scandal and his relationship with Singer. But around the 2:00 mark, he outlines the costs of packages he charges: $50,000 for the basic package, $350,000 for the higher-end package, and over $1,000,000 on the highest end. He won’t say what each package buys you, other than “more access to his time.”
There are those who have plead guilty and now there are those who have been indicted with money laundering etc. The former group includes Felicity Huffman who may be getting as little as four months. The latter group seems they have yet more money to burn on expensive lawyers and believe they can yet again cheat the system… is it arrogance or is it a desire to self-destruct? By all means they have a constitutional right to defend themselves and get their day in court. But if the fact finder finds them guilty, the judge should show no mercy. Each fact pattern may be slightly different, so it would be wrong to prejudge…
It’s interesting though that one of those who has already plead guilty was Gordon Caplan, formerly co-chair of a big law firm. And he “only” fixed the test and faked disability to get test accommodations for his daughter, but didn’t buy a place for his kid with a bribe for much larger amounts. Felicity Huffman sounded contrite, at least publicly. The Isackson parents plead guilty and agree to a cooperation agreement.
Wonder what the advice the indicted group is getting that the pleading group could not get. If they are getting the same advice, it must be individual preferences to risk much longer sentences and to roll the dice as they did before.
Makes sense. Of all the people charged, he arguably has the most personal knowledge of how the system works and what is likely to happen so has concluded pleading is the best way to get the lightest sentence, serve and start to try to move on with his life. He’s accepted reality. Many of the others may - like many defendants - be living in a state of denial over what is likely to happen.
I guess it’s just me, but I find the idea that a parent would knowingly pay to have someone else either take a standardized test for their kid or change the answers for their kid is morally and ethically a lot worse than thinking a big donation to some coach’s foundation and an exaggerated athletic profile would get their kid an athletic tip and she would play on a team that she was not really good enough to play on (as in UCLA). I know both are illegal but somehow the idea of pure academic fraud is worse to me than bribing a coach to give a “not outstanding” kid an admissions tip – I guess we could call it “athletics fraud”.
@lookingforward " If you want to try to put the pieces together, fine. But don’t confuse the minimal “facts” with speculation. Identify the few facts."
I’m not sure if you were referring to my comments about the Harvard fencing coach, but I agree with your points and it is the identified facts that raise questions. The dad of two fencing student athletes made a private arrangement to purchase the coach’s house for hundreds of thousands of dollars above any reasonable assessment of market value (as proven by the fact that he then sold the house for a $300,000 loss). And the dad of two fencing recruits gave one million dollars to a fencing foundation that just happened to turn around and make a $100,000 donation to a non-profit that had just recently been formed by the fencing coach - a non-profit that did not seem to have any other outside donations either before or after that.
There aren’t any other facts known as yet and I’m not speculating beyond the two facts stated above. But I don’t think any additional facts would be necessary because I find it odd that any person in the employ of Harvard University would be allowed to accept those kind of gifts, period. Whether they are scientists, professors, athletic directors, assistant admissions officials, or work in the registrar’s office. But maybe I’m naive and a parent of a student or potential student doing a financially helpful favor for someone who works at Harvard is not immediately noted as unacceptable.
I was wondering when the “rules don’t apply to me” attitude started for some of these parents. Now I know, they’ll even break safety rules at Disney to get their babies whatever they want!