^^Buffett son went to Stanford, Gates son is at Chicago and Bezo’s kid is at MIT, not quite state schools.
But the Loughlin kid had almost every hook imaginable—legacy, celebrity family, donation and the first gen. The only other hooks she did not have were URM and RA. And Singer managed to sell them one extra hook as RA for $500k? How sad.
@SJ2727: “I imagine a lot of students are looking at their wealthy peers and re-examining whether or not their parents bought their way in.”
Re-examine? Huh. I always assumed that kids of the famous and wealthy who went to elite colleges got in at least in part because of their parentage. At least in the US.
Can you guys imagine if you are one of the 750 families who took Singer help? They should start thinking about what size of an orange suit they will need soon.
Lots of them probably didn’t need Singer’s help, they were just conned.
well, there 750+ kids out there since 2011 who got into these elite schools and 750 well-deserved kids got a boot … SAD! #CollegeCorruption
@LisaNCState “They should start thinking about what size of an orange suit they will need soon.”
Orange is The New Mossimo!
From the NBC report → https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna982666
I’ll bet that’s fairly close to what a lot of parents pay on their own to get the diagnosis needed, including some parents of kids with legitimate LD’s. (Especially if you add up the costs over the years for various forms of neuropsychological testing for those who have to fight to get services from the schools). Seems like Huffman tool more of an à la carte approach to whatever Singer was selling? Opted for the extended time package, but passed on the ringer and phony athletic credentials? Obviously had enough info to know that Singer was a cheat … but I can see a wealthy person seeing $15K as a reasonable fee to navigate the convoluted & difficult path to arrange for additional time on the test.
One of the students whose parents paid a bribe was the child of a USC dentistry school faculty member. Seems like that would have been a hook anyway. In the 200+ page affadavit, the parents asked for additional time to pay the bribe because they needed to take out a HELOC to pay it.
From an article: "Homayoun Zadeh, a professor of dentistry from Calabasas, agreed to pay about $100,000 to bribe a USC coach to help his daughter gain admission as a lacrosse recruit even though she didn’t play the sport competitively, prosecutors allege. Zadeh was charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. "
“…there is little room for most kids to get in top U’s.” Yes! Exactly. Some of these schools have rejection rates of 90% to 95%.
These people in this scandal committed fraud and absolutely should be punished. But I’m with those who have a hard time working up a huge amount of outrage. First, the system has always been unfair. It’s not new. It has always been rigged in favor the wealthy and powerful and it continues to be. Maybe instead of focusing on the vagaries of the admissions process we should be asking ourselves some basic questions about income inequality and why parents feel that their kids won’t have decent opportunities if they go to a “second tier” college.
Second, the reality is that there are only a limited number of seats at top 10 schools. Posters on CC say over and over again that hundreds of well-qualified kids are turned away but somehow everyone thinks that their kid is the one who will not get turned away. The math just doesn’t work like that. Not every kid with a hook is “undeserving” and not all of them can waltz into any school they want. And rare is the “average excellent” kid who gets completely shut out of every school. I agree with posts I’ve seen in the past that we should be talking not about acceptance rates but rejection rates just to remind ourselves that there just aren’t that many spots out there and a lot of people applying.
Sorry but for some of these kids from wealthy high performing suburban schools, college admissions are the first time that they and their families are actually confronted with societal unfairness that most people have to deal with on a daily basis. But the reality is that these kids are ending up at LMU instead of USC, NYU instead of Columbia, TAMU instead of UT. All great colleges where they will have wonderful opportunities if they seize the day. All of the drama over this scandal just perpetuates the myth that only certain colleges will do.
They are probably busy hiding money in off shore accounts in preparation.
Olivia Jade has disabled comments from all her youtube videos. I guess she didn’t want to deal with the uproar.
@PurpleTitan “Re-examine? Huh. I always assumed that kids of the famous and wealthy who went to elite colleges got in at least in part because of their parentage. At least in the US.”
Sure, I meant in the sense of actually cheating/side-door bribery vs the “normal” advantages of wealth.
I will admit, having gone to school in a system where it’s much more grade based (but can still be holistic for the top schools) - and where there is no such thing as a hook from recruited athlete, legacy or donation - the US has been something of an eye-opener for me.
@jzducol “Lots of them probably didn’t need Singer’s help, they were just conned.”
Not sure. There was one whose ACT went from 23 to 32. 23 is not going to get you into any top school.
That was predictable. Her days as a Youtuber may be over. I suppose she could write a book.
One of the New York Times articles mentions that altering biographical information including race/ethnicity was sometimes done to try to take advantage of being URM.
Isn’t a hook only a hook if you are already competitve for admittance? If those kids at 1200 SAT scores, I don’t think any hook is going to get them in…hence, the drastic, illegal measures.
How can someone have both legacy and first gen?
I find it hard to believe that a direct donation of $500K to USC via their development office wouldn’t be a tip for admissions for just about any student. That’s not a building, but USC isn’t an Ivy either.
Hopefully, the FBI goes after all the additional 750 families. Even if they can’t get them all convicted, they all need to get a large dose of serious stress! Also, the larger this gets the more likely it is to have a long lasting effect on future cheating. I sense this is something that most people on CC care about as we approach 1000 posts in little over a day.
I think quite a few of the bribes were much lower than $500K. The college consulting company, known as “The Key” was both in Sacramento and Newport Beach CA, and William Singer was a basketball coach so he knew how to reach and appeal to various college sports coaches at many schools who are apparently “underpaid”. Many of the sports coaches made only a few tens of thousands with Singer getting some of the bribe money.
I think this is the tip of the iceberg really. There are many more cheaters out there getting kids into colleges. And @bopper, some of these schools are not hard academic schools, like U of San Diego, its not that hard of a school, but the students needed a boost to get in, so this was one way.
Yes, its out of control. We should just do a lottery for all college seats and be done.