@damon30 I think you have a typo also thought it gave new meaning to the phrase "mommy guiltY!!
My two athletes, (both D1, one an Ivy) verbally committed a year ahead of attending, and signed NLOI in fall senior year, prior to enrollment. The D1 athletes we know did not go through regular decision. That is way too late for recruitment for most sports.
@chable that’s true. But it appears that the Georgetown tennis connection and Yale soccer coach were over significant periods of time and many students as well.
The Georgetown coach, Gordie Ernst, is a Brown hall of fame athlete and tennis coach in both Martha’s Vineyard and DC. That’s where Michelle Obama and family met him. He was the family coach! He comes from athletic royalty in Rhode Island. Not economic royalty. It’s shocking if you knew the family.
2.7mm he was paid. Not taxed.
Also haven’t heard anyone mention the Harvard tennis player taking all these tests as a really bad actor.
You go to Harvard and this is your job? You should know how hard it is to get in on your own.
It’s like a decorated drill instructor taking the physical exams to help unqualified students get into West Point. It’s unfathomable.
USC’s reputation of the University of Spoiled Children is more apt now than ever. That actress goes from “Full House” to the big house.
“I’m late to the conversation but I don’t get how the college board didn’t flag these just jumps in test scores?”
There were several parts to the scheme. It takes a village to pull something like this off and then conceal it.
It appears they were very careful not to boost the scores too much to avoid getting flagged. Seems they tried to keep the jump under 30%. There have been cases of pro-caliber athletes (Derrick Rose) having problems with NCAA eligibility because of suspiciously big improvements on tests. So these guys presumably knew how much was too much.
The pattern seemed to be to first get the kid to post as high a score as possible via prepping, multiple tests, and getting max accommodations for more time. Seems like bribed accomodations was a key first step and essential to pull it off. Looks like the goal was to get double or 100% extra time. Because that makes the test so very long, the kid ends up taking the test on two days on the weekend. After the kid posts a base score, then they do the redo test and boost it up to the 30% or so limit.
One Huffman daughter was trying to get into a Gtown level school. So they needed to post a pretty good base score first so they could then later boost it up the target level for target schools. Because of the unusual double time accomodations and related logistics, they were able to get the location moved from the typical HS setting to the bribed test center. At the bribed test center, the bribed test taker/proctor was flown in from out of town. With all the time and privacy, the test taker/proctor could then do their work to boost the score. Pretty ingenious and nefarious.
Bribing the coaches for bogus athlete slots was a different/separate tool in the toolbox of this operation. Another gimmick was having paid test takers take online HS classes that would boost the HS GPAs. A very full service operation.
Some of these techniques (bogus SATs, bogus online class grades) have also been used to get star athletes over the low bar of NCCA elgibility. But here they are being used to get kids into high end selective colleges.
@TatinG “That actress goes from “Full House” to the big house.” :))
Her husband is a fashion designer - maybe he should start putting together her ‘jailhouse duds’!
@ninakatarina I watched the press conference hours later. You can watch it online.
My kids have autism. My oldest kid, has very obvious “ism” in his mannerisms (being too honest, blunt, quirky sense of humor), speech, eye-contact. He is a GREAT kid who survived and learned in school thanks to IEP accommodations and some amazing teachers, mentors, friends, and tutors. He did take the ACT and SAT Subject tests with accommodations. I hate to think kids with true learning disabilities documented from a young age could lose testing accommodations in the future because of these frauds. I am especially mad that their is at least one doctor involved writing up fake diagnoses for lets face it greed! Any how, why did these well-off parents not just hire the best tutors, test prep, and college admission advisors?! Isn’t that enough of a blessing for these kids to have access to the best legit and honest help?!
“Or was some of it a simple phone tap that they got a judge’s order on when they found probable cause through some other means?”
The indictment refers to “consensual recordings” several times. That probably means the cooperating witness recording stuff on his phone. In most states (like New York), it is legal to record a conversation if just one party consents.
California is a two party consent state. So any CA-to-CA conversations might have needed to be warrants and wiretaps. Not sure what the rule is if the conversation is CA-to-NY. Probably OK if the recorder is sitting in NY talking to someone in CA – either NY law or federal law (one party) applies.
Why didn’t these parents love the kid on the couch…and find a college for that kid.
Are the doctors who wrote the false diagnoses for extra test time a part of the indictment? Hope so.
The students knew it. Even if they did not, they should all be expelled.
He’s going to need his own too, as he’s also named in the affidavit…Mossimo Giannulli
@nobord There is no question that wealth and connections are very helpful in getting a kid accepted to top colleges. However, the very fact that these parents needed to cheat the system in order to be accepted is evidence that wealth and connections alone are rarely enough to get somebody accepted.
Since it beats repeating, I will repeat it - these parents were unable to get their kids into an elite school based on wealth and connections.
They needed to fake high SAT/ACT scores, they needed to fake excellence in other activities, and they likely faked letters of recommendation (a student who is faking being a top athlete needs a LoR which mentions it), their essay, and likely their GPAs. If being wealthy and the child of the rich and famous were enough, this would not be needed.
The problem with colleges admissions is less that the colleges are accepting rich kids who do not qualify, and more that the educations system of the USA has been failing lower and middle income kids for decades or centuries. So the vast majority of poor and middle class kids who are just as qualified, or have the potential to become just as qualified of they had good schools, have almost no chance at attending elite colleges. Moreover, it is mostly private colleges that have the funding required to provide elite education, or public schools which are priced to high for most low and middle income students, because people in the USA have failed public higher educations as well.
There are two types of people who fight against inequities in income, the people who want to get rid of wealth, and those who want to get rid of poverty. Ask yourself, would you rather spend your energy and outrage pulling down the wealthy or would you rather spend it to pull up the poor? Do you want to punish rich people or do you want to help poor people?
Would you rather fight to make a great education available to every kid in the USA, or would you rather spend that energy trying to destroy the colleges which provide the education mostly to the rich and powerful?
@MomofSaxPlayer: Legit help requires
- The kid to work.
- Even if the kid is willing to work hard, he/she simply may not be smart enough.
@damon30 ^:)^
Probably another thread but I wonder what the consequences of this will be. Will admissions departments now have to verify that athletic recruits actually play their sport? Or an AO has to be present at all recruiting meetings? Certainly there will be changes that put in place more checks and balances with regard to athletic recruitment.
@gallentjill My first comment when I heard this morning, there are numerous college options, many schools for B students, etc. I read that Lori Loughlin and/or husband didn’t want their daughter to end up somewhere like ASU. So parents even shaded a specific college!
@MWolf This is an interesting point. Is it mentioned anywhere in the affidavit? AFAIK, the HS GCs and teachers were not implicated.
I don’t think any diagnosing docs are indicted yet.
Might be a tough case to prove in criminal court. Since there’s no blood test for whether a kid has ADD or some other LD. An LD diagnosis is more of a judgment call.
Probably more likely that the docs will face some kind of issue with their professional license.