The very famous sports academy that I noted in post #19 above has been revealed as IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Seems to have taken over or merged with Nick Bolletari’s tennis school.
@4gsmom Huffman decline for her second kid… now we know why!
They also arranged for ringers to take online courses for students, and then the online course grades were submitted on their applications.
Maybe the parents paid a real actress to go to the auditions too. If you can do it with athletics, why not acting?
“So the kid would get into the college…but how would they be able to succeed? Would they cheat there too?”
Anyone with 12k posts on CC knows that many many students who would do just fine at top universities are turned down. We had friends who bribed the “legal way” for their kid with a 250k donation through the development at a top 20 college. The kid had been a straight A student in HS in a challenging curriculum but was a poor standardized test taker never getting her score above a 27. She graduated college with a 3.85.
Doesn’t the teaching staff go to acting auditions? They’d notice if one of the 12 kids they admitted suddenly morphed into a different person when they showed up for the first day of classes.
LOL: “In other instances, CW-1 and 15
his associates simply found photos of athletes on the Internet and either used those photos or
used software such as PhotoShop to insert the applicants’ faces onto the bodies of legitimate
athletes.”
I am sorry but the student who fills out the application has to mention the sports on resume or ec sections.
And after multiple attempts your score goes up 400 points all of a sudden? Some had test takers and some didn’t it appears. For the ones with a test taker. The student knows if they sat for the exam or not.
Maybe not in on it, maybe they are but also following parents lead. Not sure what to think.
It’s jsut like the scandal for the students at that school in Louisiana recently on the other end of the economic spectrum. At least they were trying to break a cycle of poverty. Still bad.
But simply what in the world is happening?
Wake appears to be one of the schools where a coach was claiming a kid was an athlete when they weren’t. Testing isn’t necessary for that scam to work.
On a funny note, the indictment describes all of the schools as being “highly selective” except San Diego, which is just “selective.”
the federal filing is a great read. Explains how the test cheating took place.
https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/indictment0312.pdf?mod=article_inline
These kids knew what was going on. I hope the schools do the right thing.
Many of the students have already graduated from undergrad
From the indictment: “In exchange for this money, FERGUSON agreed to designate the daughter of one of Singer’s client (sic)-who had previously applied to Wake Forest and been placed on the wait list-as a recruit to the women’s volleyball team, thereby facilitating her admission to the university”
I do not think that it is fair to state that the students knew what was going on.
My favorite part of it is the last part, where the parent pays for a student to be admitted to Stanford as a sailing recruit. The student is deferred, and decides to go to another school. Then another parent pays for their student to be admitted as a sailing recruit, and the student decides not to apply. These kids didn’t know.
My son had extended time on his SATs. If I had arranged for someone else to correct his answers (I did not!), he would never have known.
The truly infuriating thing is that every single one of these kids had multiple options for higher education. There are hundreds of fine schools which would have taken them on the merits. These parents had the money to pay for any school. Its different if a family cheats because they are desperate to gain admittance to one of the few “meets full needs” schools. Its not right, but its understandable. This is just pure vanity. I can’t even imagine the pressure on kids whose parents would be so humiliated by a child attending a “normal” school that they have to indulge in this. I actually feel sorry for these kids.
In the cases where the parents paid to have answers corrected after the fact, I think it’s very plausible the kids didn’t know. And can you imagine the degree of that betrayal and heartbreak if they are only finding out right now?
This scandal reminds me of a conversation I had over Christmas with a niece who is a 2nd year resident at a prestigious Children’s Hospital. I asked her what was the least favorite part of her job, thinking she’d say something like “the hours” or “difficulties finding the right diagnosis” or “dealing with dying children.” Instead she instantly said, “my least favorite part of the job are THE PARENTS.” Parents are often simply nuts. This whole scandal is yet another proof.