I would expect that the high schools suspected something was up, but did not know the details, nor care to inquire further. Why should they? Admissions aren’t based on merit in many instances, and it is up to the colleges to enforce the integrity of their admission process. I don’t think the schools knowingly lied. Just looked the other way.
What kid thinks flying across the country to take the ACT is typical. Heck…we didn’t even want our kid to go,to a neighboring HS for the SAT but he had to.
Our kids talked about the SAT…planned what kinds of snacks they would take, planned what they were going to do afterward. Whined about how long it was, etc.
Didn’t these kids do that?
On the other hand, my kids knew so many that had special accommodations, either for time or for the physical testing situation, that they’d have thought it normal to have accommodations added at any time. Their school didn’t host testing, so everyone was going to another school, a testing center, some even took it on different days. I’ve seen postings here on CC about multi-day testing accommodations. I didn’t even know that existed, but no one else seems surprised.
Were they trying to get this kid on the football team at USC and on sailing at Stanford or was another sport at Stanford involved?
And why not just send the kid to the ‘biggest kicking camp’? They take like 3 days and they could take a lot of pictures and wouldn’t have to use photoshop, the kid could put it on his resume that he attended the camp, etc.
If a plea is offered again, nearly all the parents will take it. Impossible to imagine they want the Feds to go through discovery - rejecting a plea would be inviting the pre-trial discovery process - what other tax fraud or illegal conduct may come up in their lives and financial statements, and who wants their barely teenage kids to be interviewed at jeopardy of perjury and self-incrimination, and possible charges against the kids too? They have all this evidence already - and who knows, they probably have the kids on tape too on further wiretap warrants once they had probable cause to believe that the family committed a crime. Unless, that is, someone is entirely innocent.
I totally understand kids going to a different school to take the ACT or SAT…but fly across the country? Nope…that wouldn’t “fly” (pun intended). Maybe the parents concocted some reason they kid needed to be across the country for the ACT. But come on…there are plenty of schools local where one can take this test. Then again…maybe those schools monitor their proctors appropriately.
As I said, I have proctored tests. I NEVER knew which room or what students I would have until the morning of the testing.
Something isn’t right with this part of the story either.
My kids went to schools similar to Harvard-Westlake and I don’t think it would be too difficult to hide a big lie on your application. Yes, it’s true that they devote time and resources to college counseling, but if you were willfully trying to sneak in false information, it’s doable. The counselors will look over student’s applications before they send them in but only in a draft stage. The students send them directly. They could swap out essays and change information. I have no idea if the counselors have access through Common App after submission, but I doubt it.
A ridiculous number of people use extra time via a neuropsych’s diagnosis so I don’t think that would tip anyone off, whether you are talking about the HS or the student. People complain about this incessantly so it might feel like “leveling the playing field” to the kid in question. I’m aware of the irony here.
I think the biggest risk area is the college counselor speaking to the universities’ admissions representatives. I suspect that if a student is applying ED, that’s a lower risk. That seems to be what happened with Aunt Becky, iirc. The HS counselor was talking to USC admissions and was questioning the coxswain recruitment, then the dad drove to the school and went nuts on the counselor. They said she rowed crew via club, which is how most of the sports recruits from my kids’s schools get recruited, whether or not the school has a team for the sport. How would a HS counselor know whether or not a student was on a sailing team near their weekend house in Rhode Island, for instance? They aren’t likely to play detective and track that down.
I think there is zero chance the students who fudged the sports recruitment info didn’t know. I’m less sure about the SAT/ACT fraud.
Does this mean that ‘the guy who runs the biggest kicking camp’ was also in on this scam?!
With such rampant abuse of accommodation for SAT/ACT, I haven’t heard much from College Board/ACT about how they are going to deal with it. This is very disappointing.
^ indeed. At the very least the faked scores should be scrubbed. I haven’t seen anything on this?
Re extra time- this is an interesting read:
and more interesting, Jenna Glassman, a student at HW wrote an op-ed about this topic in her school newspaper, weeks before the ‘scandal’ broke: “I have seen more than a few of my classmates flock to specialists with the hopes of being diagnosed with a disorder that would qualify them for extra time on their entrance exams,” Glassman wrote. “Extra time has been exploited by some wealthy families who use their easy access to expensive medical professionals to give their children an upper hand in the college admissions process.”
and from WSJ
…some 25 percent of students at elite American universities are now classified as disabled, “largely because of mental health issues such as depression or anxiety.” One school, Pomona College, reported a 17 percent jump in the number of disabled students in just five years.
TWENTY FIVE PERCENT!!! That’s a shocking number, and my guess is - there’s nothing that can be done to stamp out the fraud, without massive lawsuits coming down the pike
Not much the college board can do. People already complain loudly when they don’t get accomodations. College board isn’t going to start investigating the professionals who signed off on needing the accomodations.
I think a substantial number of people feel that the accommodations are warranted. Their kids attend very rigorous schools that routinely ask students to leave if they can’t keep up. When the kid starts to struggle, bam. Extra time not only for standardized tests, but often also in school.
Of course, there are tons of kids with legitimate claims and they shouldn’t be discriminated against.
“A ridiculous number of people use extra time via a neuropsych’s diagnosis”
Not sure what qualifies as “ridiculous.” I’m a lot more concerned about privileged people’s abuse of this accommodation than I am about policing the results of neuropsychological exams. This particular abuse may well make it more difficult for kids who legitimately need extra time to get it.
At the very least, the training and assigning of proctors needs to be reviewed. Simply put…Singer KNEW who his proctors would be and could cook the results. If the proctors had been randomly assigned BY THE SCHOOL administering the test, this might not have been so easy…unless, of course, these schools were in on the action too.
This is definitely a common sentiment and one I’ve seen at my sons’ school and local parent groups as well. I had multiple acquaintances imply I was a bad parent because I wouldn’t hire a college counselor, wouldn’t get my kids test or school accommodations, etc. Their strongly held belief was that since “all” the other parents in our area/school/socioeconomic bracket were doing this that my kids would be at a severe disadvantage. Even down to the idea that without a counselor my kids’ college apps would appear to be hopelessly basic and not competitive with the other apps that were polished by the counselors. It’s a sincere belief that if you don’t do these things, your kid can’t possibly compete because every other kid is doing them.
Don’t even get me started on how abusive they believe it is that I made my kids get jobs… (insert eye roll here).
There definitely is an arms race happening and a strong undercurrent of feeling your kids will be left behind if they don’t participate fuels the race.
@hzhao2004 I completely agree. The College Board and the ACT have been eerily silent in all of this. I’ve heard NOTHING about how they are planning to review and revamp their policies re test administration. Clearly the practice of kids taking these tests in states where they don’t reside needs to stop immediately!
I think many of these kids were used to private arrangements in life. I’m sure they travel extensively. If a trip to California was planned the week of testing the parent could say, “Oh shoot, you have the ACT that day? Well, let’s find a testing center in California that you can go to.”
In these cases, the extra time was not extended time because that would have had to be done at a local school (in whatever state) in a group setting with other extended time people. With extended time you need to stay the entire time and cannot move through the test at your own pace.
Very few places offer two day tests and, of course, Singer’s test centers did. If the kids got approval for a two day test then they could be tested at Singer’s centers where he controlled the proctors and test taking. Over and over Singer had to explain to the parents exactly what type of accommodation they needed approval for so that they could take the test at Singer’s center.
There were a variety of test scenarios that played out. Some took the test on one day without extended time and left thinking they took a regular test in at a test center in a different state. None of the kids showed up for the second day as that was only used so that they could take the test at Singer’s center. They didn’t realize that anything happened to their test after they gave it to the proctor. In at least one case the student took the test on the computer and the proctor bubbled in the answers. In another case the proctor answered students questions during the test. And of course, there is the poor soul with tonsillitis who took the test at home with his mom as a proctor.
@lkg4answers Agree. These kids have had accommodations made for them their entire lives. Restaurants stay open for them, they are given private rooms for dining and stores even let them shop off hours. I doubt that flying somewhere for a test would remotely phase them.