Special testing accommodations ?
Felicity Huffman’s daughter was auditioning for theater BFAs this year. A friend saw her (and William Macy) at the Unifieds and Juilliard. That’s what makes this more bizarre - you really don’t need super high SATs for many BFA schools.
A test proctor was also charged, so I’m sure that’s how the scores were changed.
One soccer coach was bribed with $400000.
I’m in no way surprised by this behavior,but I am disgusted. Work hard and get in your dream school regardless of wealth? Nope! Get in line behind the rich cheaters.
This SI article has good details:
https://www.si.com/more-sports/2019/03/12/college-admissions-recruiting-bribery-scheme-indictments-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin
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Stanford’s sailing coach was involved. So that explains why their roster looks like an old Dancing With The Stars daycare roster.
:))
@partyof5 , this was asked at the conference and the answer was that someone else was taking the test for them, or that someone would change the answers after it got turned in (no specifcs were given on that latter instance unfortunately…I’m wondering that too!)
The complaint makes for some fascinating reading if you have the time. Regarding Huffman, the complaint says her husband (William Macy) was in on it, but for whatever reason, only Huffman was indicted.
Looks like there were two test administrators involved. One in a public high school in Houston TX and the other out of a private high school in Los Angeles, California. You can read the details in Singer’s doc (and more) at:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme
Here’s the story from Inside Higher Ed:
https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/12/dozens-indicted-alleged-massive-case-admissions-fraud
I read the indictment. The conspirators had test administrators in on the scam. The parent would get extended time for the student, so the student would be taking the test alone in a room. Then the scammers and the parent would get the test moved to a test location either in Houston or in LA, where the scammers had paid off proctors. Then the student (who did not know what was going on) would take the test, and afterwards the proctor would have their paid test taker substitute his answers for the student’s answers.
In the athletics scam, the scammers would make a fake profile for the student, asserting that the student played some sport at a high level (tennis, crew and sailing were three mentioned sports) when the student did not do that sport. The coach would get the student in with an athletic “tip.”
In many cases, the students really didn’t know what was going on. Parents paid bribes for their kids to be admitted to Stanford, and then the kids decided they didn’t want to go to Stanford.
I can’t wrap my head around this. What happens to these fake athletes when they show up on campus? Doesn’t anyone expect them to show up for a team? How could the kids not know?
“There is no way at least some these kids couldn’t have known. A smarter kid is taking the entrance exam FOR you? Come on!”
You are assuming that the kid never took the test. If they did and worked with a PCC who got all their materials together for them as many wealthy kids do they very well may never have seem the score that was submitted.
So the kid would get into the college…but how would they be able to succeed? Would they cheat there too?
There are a handful of theater programs where SAT scores matter but overall, it really makes little sense. There are enough great theater programs out there that don’t care about SATs so why risk so much for one or two schools?
Re post 61, I believe Huffman paid the money for her oldest child and ultimately did not go through with the scheme again for current applying daughter.
From the charging documents, coaches/sports -
Men and women’s tennis at Georgetown
Senior associate athletic director at USC
Women’s soccer USC
Water polo USC
Men’s soccer UCLA
Women’s volleyball Wake Forest
Women’s soccer, Yale
Colleges defrauded include
Georgetown
Stanford
UCLA
USD
USC
U Texas Austin
Wake Forest
Yale
This is sad, CW-1 (cooperating witness-1) is the mastermind behind all this, Caplan a parent:
“CAPLAN And it works?
CW-1 Every time. (laughing)
CAPLAN (laughing)
CW-1 I mean, I’m sure I did 30 of them at different, you know, dates because there’s
different dates, and they’re all families like yours, and they’re all kids that
wouldn’t have perform[ed] as well, and then they did really well, and it was like,
the kids thought, and it was so funny ’cause the kids will call me and say, “Maybe
I should do that again. I did pretty well and if I took it again, I’ll do better even.”
Right? And they just have no idea that they didn’t even get the score that they
thought they got.”
You mean it wasn’t the heartfelt essay? maybe the kids thought it was just part of the “holistic process” hah hah. Seriously, I wish all the elite schools would drop that non-sense. National award recognition- NMF, robotics champion, olympic level athlete for sports team, high achieving URM or donor.
The test-taking scam raised some kid’s ACT scores from 23 to 32.
I thought Wake Forest was test optional