Hidden conveniently from the press, and IMO just as complicit, are the private high schools who allowed these applications to move forward. How could a college office counselor NOT know that Lori and Massimo’s daughters were not rowers? To my knowledge, all of the cases involved private day schools–some with as few as 100 students in their graduating class. With case loads of 30 or less per college office counselor, how could they NOT have stopped some of these applications from moving forward?
The only answer is that they turned a blind eye for their own endowment funding. Hard to believe that the staff in these prestigious Marin County, Newport Beach, and Greenwich schools were ALL so incompetent.
I find the argument for development admits to be very naive. If we are really talking about HYPS, they pay more to money managers in fees every year for managing their endowments than they withdraw from those endowments for financial aid. If they really rely on direct donor dollars-for-admissions to find financial aid, it is a cynical decision by the colleges to do so, not in any way a true “need” of the university to fund FA. HYPS could make tuition free for every student, and their endowments would STILL continue to grow, just at a slower pace.
@itcannotbetrue My daughter attended the same high school-96 in her graduating class, I believe. My daughter was a gymnast but her counselor knew nothing about it because it was club and outside of school. The college counselors at the school are only college counselors (i.e., they do not do guidance counseling; someone else does that) so they don’t know the kids as well as the guidance/academic counselors do. My daughter’s college counselor (no longer at the school) didn’t know my daughter would be applying ED as an athlete until my daughter told her.
However, it would have been easy enough to see my daughter was a real athlete by googling her and seeing her stats on one of the sports stats aggregation websites. I guess no one did that for Loughlin’s daughters.
@Emsmom1 – Interesting, thanks for your insight, but that’s just it! No due diligence. Isn’t it the responsibility of the college office to know who excels in which club sports outside of school as students develop their applications? Shouldn’t that be conveyed well ahead of time to the college office? In a large LPS, I can easily see this happening. But with small student caseloads, how can this happen at elite private day schools? Especially when applying as an ED athletic recruit? It would seem that the school should care about the integrity of their students’ applications, and know who is applying with which hook.
Actually, that was one of the issues they had. The guidance counselor was questioning them so they had to devise a way to work around it.
And a statement saying that Singer’s employee submitted the application on behalf of Olivia Jade. Granted Olivia was copied on the email so she knew what was going on.
The rest of the country may have forgotten or not been aware in the first place, but here in San Diego about a 15 years ago a local Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham (a decorated war hero fighter pilot from the Viet Nam war) was caught up in major bribery scandal that first came to light in a house purchase scheme similar to this Harvard case - a defense contractor seeking government contracts bought Rep. Cunningham’s house at way above market value and then later sold it at market value for $700K less than he paid for it. The contractor never lived in the house. He just bought it for what amounted to giving a $700K gift to Cunningham.
For that and other bribes that were subsequently uncovered in the scandal, Cunningham was convicted on federal charges of tax evasion, and conspiracy to commit bribery, mail fraud, and wire fraud. He was ordered to pay $1.8 million in restitution and served an 8 year prison sentence.
If it turns out to be true and can be proven in court, this house-buying scheme involving the Harvard coach is not some minor violation that prosecutors will just wink at.
@lkg4answers Thanks for the quotes; I had previously read them. This is ONE guidance counselor (and per @Emsmom1 post, is the guidance counselor at this school even their college counselor?) at ONE school. And the fact remains that the applications were still falsified and submitted.
I’d like to know which school we are referring to. . .
High schools that I’m aware of involved, per press articles/parents were asked to step down from board: Sage Hill School in Newport Beach. Other schools? I seem to remember reading something about Harvard Westlake and Marin Country Day.
Maybe I am just a jaded, cynical, skeptical human, but I have always just assumed that 5-10% of any given college’s admissions slots are “reserved” for the wealthy, undeserving, privileged, hooked, legacy, desirable, beautiful, famous (use one or multiple descriptors). Those slots were never intended for my average “joe plumber” kid. So, honestly, it doesn’t matter to me if they cheated, lied or paid their way in. My Momma always taught me life ain’t fair. Karma is a wonderful thing…it will catch up with them, eventually.
These people were caught, they should face the consequences of their actions, but in the end I don’t think it will make one bit of difference. These aspects of inequality will never change, it is business and human nature.
What annoys me most…
The Institutions themselves, pretending they didn’t know or playing the victim…yeah right. If you believe that the schools aren’t complicit; then I have some land in south Florida for you or a bridge in NYC for sale.
The misguided belief that SAT/ACT tests are meaningful, valuable measures of a student’s actual ability to succeed in college.
Menlo School was the one with two water polo players named John Wilson. One was a legitimate star player, recruited to play at JHU. The other went to USC and was implicated in the scandal.
You perhaps misunderstand the purpose of the standardized test. When added to GPA, the combined provide a better picture than either alone. Moreover, the tests only claim to project Frosh year grades, not ‘success in college’.
There was allegedly also at least one girl a Marlborough (years past?) who got into Yale by similar means; allegedly, her father Maurie Tobin, was the one being investigated for other financial crimes, and he blew the lid on the college admissions scheme, to cut a sweeter deal for himself
Dr. Priscilla Sands, the head of Marlborough, said the school does not comment on individual parents. A letter to parents reads in part, “Another type of loss rocked the independent school and college communities. It is the loss of dignity, humanity and morality that has undermined what we stand for and what we hold dear.”
The letter continued: “I ache for the qualified child who perhaps lost her place at what may have been her college dream but through a lack of access and money ended up in a pool of qualified students who did not have either a back door or a ‘side door.’”
In a statement to ABC7, Sands said she hopes the scandal will not include any students from Marlborough.
“Maybe I am just a jaded, cynical, skeptical human, but I have always just assumed that 5-10% of any given college’s admissions slots are “reserved” for the wealthy, undeserving, privileged, hooked, legacy, desirable, beautiful, famous (use one or multiple descriptors).”
It’s way higher than 5-10% at elite and near elite schools like the ones involved in this scandal. If you are unhooked and applying to these types of schools, a good rule of thumb is to take the published acceptance rate and cut it in half - the resulting number is your acceptance rate.
@itcannotbetrue : “Isn’t it the responsibility of the college office to know who excels in which club sports outside of school as students develop their applications?”
Per each student “as the students develop their applications,” it could be, yes. But it is dependent upon said student and/or family to submit this information to the college counseling office via forms to be attached to the student profile, or in some other manner.
“Shouldn’t that be conveyed well ahead of time to the college office?” No, not necessarily. (See above)
Oftentimes, when a student competes at a high level in a sport which is not also one in which the school participates, the family will have to apprise the school of the student’s progress and/or achievements. Now, it is also true that such students can often need time away from class to participate out of town during a time when school is in session, so the guidance counselors, teachers and sometimes Heads of School may have knowledge of this reason for absence/sport participation, but not necessarily the college counselors.
Another point, though, and this to points made by Emsmom1 and others, parents often submit articles and info to the local press, who are only too happy to showcase a local student participating at at the regional or national level.
Does a university really have to have special training so that their athletic department coaches know that it isn’t a good idea for coaches to agree to a private sale in which the father of a student athlete and/or a potential student athlete pays hundreds of thousands of dollars above market rate for their house?
@labegg: “Maybe I am just a jaded, cynical, skeptical human, but I have always just assumed that 5-10% of any given college’s admissions slots are “reserved” for the wealthy, undeserving, privileged, hooked, legacy, desirable, beautiful, famous (use one or multiple descriptors).”
@waitingtoexhale undeserving meaning…those whose academic history does not support admission on it’s own merit, but whose familial connection or degree of celebrity in conjunction with passable academic ability might secure some measure of publicity, future income for the institution.
There is apparently a conflict of interest policy already. I just think that where coaches may need “training” is if a parent picks up a tab for a dinner or the kind of minor issues that the NCAA is always punishing those low-income student athletes for doing (“they sold the team jersey that belonged to them and got free tattoos! Throw the book at them!”) Maybe some coaches are inadvertently violating the policy, but the publicity is about an incident that stretches the imagination to think was just an inadvertent violation of the conflict of interest policy.