My kid was a huge Full House fan growing up, and she just reminded me about the episode where Lori Loughlin’s character, Becky and her FH husband lie about their twin sons’ accomplishments so they can be accepted into a prestigious preschool. Weird coincidence!
^^^ Life imitating art! :))
On the athletic side, a coach or an AD can let in anyone they want and it doesn’t matter if the student plays hockey or swims or does it good enough to play on the varsity team, doesn’t matter if the student has a 3.8 gpa or a 2.5, doesn’t matter what the SAT is as long as it covers the minimum required by the NCAA. If the tennis coach at Georgetown wants to give away spots to players who aren’t very good, well that’s his choice. I’m sure that more than a few spots have gone to children, nieces, neighbors, fraternity buddy’s children over the years just.
What does matter is that some of the students may have cheated to get the scores and that money changed hands. That’s illegal.
So far the consequences are that a lot of people have lost their jobs. I bet some of those test centers will be closed down. I suspect the NCAA will be reviewing some of those donations to the school. There are big restrictions on what boosters can give and of course it all has to be reported.
Most people thought Martha Stewart would never go to prison, but . . . . . . .
These tippity top colleges love to advertise that they don’t give merit awards but can give away any athletic merit spots without question. So much for focusing on academics.
@hgtvaddict LOL. Here it is: https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/226811/lori-loughlin-full-house-scam-school-clip
These things do matter at some schools. The days where ADs and coaches operate as an island are over at many schools. Some schools want to reserve athletic slots for students who play and excel at the sport. Some schools demand greater than the NCAA requirements. Some schools demand athletes be in range of GPAs and test scores.
Today the number of schools that care about these things is greater than it was yesterday.
Are some of these kids seniors in high school right now? If so, wouldn’t they be expelled from high school? Our school would expel them I would think.
@twoinanddone It’s not just a matter of the G’Town tennis coach or the Yale soccer coach giving spots to who they want. It’s that the took money or sold those spots that’s the issue. Sure they can pick any good or bad athlete they want, but the issue is that they sold the spot and pocketed the $.
It’s the choice for coaches/ADs to give away/sell spots for no good reason only if the college adcom/President allows it. And I think it would be folly for the President at any prestigious elite to allow their coaches to do that.
@damon30 Thanks for the link to the episode of “Be True to Your Preschool.” Lori Loughlin should have taken her character’s advice!
The worst thing for our family is that we are waiting on decisions for our Senior. As a result of this scandal, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a bunch of schools delay their decisions to spend a bit more time with the application pool to ensure the legitimacy, integrity and legality of those that they have accepted this year (both with early and what was to be in the next few weeks). The ramifications and ripple of this from Stanford, Yale, Ivys, all the way down, are sure to have some consequences. I am anticipating some delays from what announcements were supposed to be. I also anticipate that some kids that got acceptances to schools may not release those spots until they hear from other elite schools on this list of illegal activity. We were waiting on a few schools from the list of those involved. It’s crazy! We have aways believed in certain meritocracy and even though we know that certain “special interest” groups exist (who doesn’t want the President’s daughter, or Meg Whitman’s son?), we had a small bit of faith that our kids’ records would be enough. Nope. Money seems to speak louder than integrity. I am just sad that my child will likely need to wait longer, have more uncertainty, and have less choices as a result of this news…
Good luck. But I don’t think of schools as up or “all the way down”.
President’s sure.
Meg Whitman’s kids. In line with the rest of us.
“Wow. This is cringey… “I don’t know how much of school I’m gonna attend,” Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade Giannulli told nearly 2 million subscribers in August. “But I’m gonna go in and talk to my deans and everyone, and hope that I can try and balance it all. But I do want the experience of like game days, partying… I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know.”
I watched one of her Day in The Life in college videos. She spent a surprising ( to me) amount of time going to class and doing homework. And cleaning her room and doing laundry. And working ( on her social media but for a sponsored post, ie for $) Certainly didn’t seem to be for “show” as her comments indicate she doesn’t seem to care if she’s viewed as vapid and stupid. I got the impression from some of her other videos that she’s pretty susceptible to what others around her are doing so maybe since most kids at USC really do take school at least semi seriously that’s rubbed off on her? But I don’t think she’ll care that much if they end up kicking her out. More time for her YouTube channel. I see in my work how much influencers with 3 million YouTube followers make ( and it’s a shocking amount of money) so she’s gonna be self supporting for at least a time.
@anon145 @Nocreativity1 This is the point I was trying to make. The unhooked high performing kids are not getting accepted to the top schools unless maybe they have top scores. As a parent I have encouraged my child to apply and see what happens because she has worked so hard. Her test scores are good but not great and it is disappointing to see that she is competing with a lot of kids that were given special accommodations for time that they did not need.
^ “The unhooked high performing kids are not getting accepted to the top schools unless maybe they are amazing. Often in multiple ways.”
Fixed.
11 pm local (NYC) news said that the next news in the case will be the naming of some other Division 1 coaches at other schools who participated…so stay tuned!
How are the kids that are unable to get a high SAT/ACT score for admission without cheating able to pass the academic course work at those competitive colleges? If those students were truly academically unqualified one would expect them to have failed and kicked out after the first semester. Are the so called elite colleges serious about academic standards or just exclusive country clubs with edutainment?
Bucket List:
- Become well off, via Stardom, or success at the “C Level” CHECK
- While doing #1, have a family, and be the best parent one can be CHECK
- Raise said family doing the best one can, but maybe not quite strike all the correct chords for well rounded college bound kiddos CHECK
- Wake up one day and realize said Progeny may not be up to snuff for the level of University expected and/or desired CHECK
- EXPLORE OPTIONS! WOW, THIS 501C3 LOOKS PROMISING CHECK
- Write a check that would pay off many folks outstanding mortgage balance CHECK
- Yay! Kiddo is going to college, taking your child’s spot, who was number 4 in her class, with a genuine 1540 SAT/35 ACT and mostly 5’s and a couple of 4’s on her AP Tests CHECK with a Capital F U … … well you know the rest…
I feel ashamed that I at first thought this is just wrong facts, and could not be, but then I remembered I am Middle Class, but upper MC, so my child needed grants, etc. but we did not qualify for, so was left out of the process. I am at fault here, for not having the funds to put her in a different Class, where none of this even matters…
OK, back to being less melodramatic: I have 2 great kids that will go on to do great things, because they saw their parents do everything they could to enable them to go to college. And shame on these elitist pigs that just so easily played the system.
there are plenty of athletes that get into those schools without high SAT/ACT scores and they graduate. Standardized testing doesn’t tell the whole story.