I think they’re mostly referring to Wall Street IB firm recruitment, not IB in genenral or IB clubs. At least that’s my perception as someone who was more or less recruited into IB via undergrad college connections, but not on Wall Street and not an IVY grad.
I could be wrong, though. First time for everything. 
Some of what are conventionally seen as hooks can be much greater in effect than others, although it depends on the school (some do not consider legacy and/or URM, for example). Big donor relation is conventionally regarded as the strongest hook, followed by recruited athlete; academic standards may be bent significantly for these categories. Legacy and URM are more common but usually regarded as less strong (for example, at some super-selective schools, they give an “average excellent” applicant by academic stats a reasonable chance to get in, while an ordinary applicant may need some outstanding achievement beyond “average excellent” academic stats to have a similar chance).
One of the many disturbing things about this story is that many of the payments were made as tax-deductible donations to a non-profit, so that the rest of the tax payers end up subsidizing it. Same thing with tax-deductible donations to a university for a new building or whatever which can help your offspring get in. I wish we could really limit tax deductions to charities and non-profits to something like $50K a year rather than 50% of AGI. That way, we could encourage charitable giving to some extent, but after that point, if you want to donate, you’re doing it out of the goodness of your heart, or for the social status, or to be on the board and make social connections or whatever. Then use that tax money to support affordable tuition at state universities for more kids, among other things.
@gallentjill I think Mossimo Giannulli may have attended USC briefly though he never graduated; according to one of the daughters he took the money his parents thought he was spending on tuition to start his fashion business. Also found this:
"A profile of Giannulli posted on fashion site The Hundreds in 2016 revealed that the designer may have never technically even been enrolled in USC. According to The Hundreds, Giannulli said he sent his father fake report cards and tuition bills.
“SC was expensive, so that was how I was starting my company. I used all that cash,” he told The Hundreds. “I used to have hundreds of thousands of cash in my top drawer in my fraternity house.”
So not a legacy but there was a tenuous tie to the university.
USC is having to act quickly
Just read all the complaints on justice.gov Yep, this is going to grow to possibly 700-800 and even more once people start talking. I hope these people pay big time. The system needs to be cleaned up.
This is going to make a great movie one of these days!
But are you a wealthy, powerful person sending your kid to a private high school that charges sky-high tuition and boasts absurdly high acceptance rates into the elite colleges? My point is that even if the colleges call the school to verify the student’s involvement they will very likely be lied to by school officials that are unwilling to risk their careers by angering their wealthy clientele.
Or she could “write” a book. She could hire someone to write a book and put her name on it.
Yes. Outside of this thread, the conventional opinion on these forums is in support of legacy and development preferences (but much greater hostility against URM preferences), and there is a lot of complaining about the cost of college from the no-financial-aid self-described “middle class”, who seem to resent that the bottom 97% (if the parents are not divorced) can get financial aid at HYPS, even though few will get into such colleges, and most colleges that most students will attend have much worse financial aid so that the actual middle and lower income families have a difficult time affording their kids’ college, especially if they live in a state where the in-state publics have poor financial aid, like Pennsylvania.
Hmm. I wonder how many of the folks outraged by this will decide on schools/programs that admit almost purely by academic merit (Caltech/Oxbridge/honors colleges; for that matter most top unis in the UK, though being a full-pay American who meets minimum entry standards is enough for the Scottish unis or nearly everywhere in England as well). Or schools that offer terrific programs that just aren’t tough to enter (Sarah Lawrence). Or programs at may not admit purely on academic merit but are so tough that anyone who graduates from there is the real deal (UIUC CS/ECE/EE; I’m quite certain nobody is bribing to get their kid in to the UIUC EE program). Throw Cal EECS somewhere in there too.
Or will the worshipping of prestige trump all?
USC says it will REJECT all prospective students connected to college bribery scam and may kick out those who are already enrolled
if you’re going to kick out prospective students and not already enrolled students what message does that send?
USC has no choice. they have to kick out all students including enrolled if they want to come out of this above water
From the Affidavit:
Why would a transcript come from the parent and not from the school? Any chance the transcript was also fake?
“This is going to make a great movie one of these days!”
Hey,it can be one of those movies where the actors play themselves!!
This is the hypocrisy: USC and others are shocked, shocked that bribery was involved! But bribe them with lots of money and they will overlook low grades and scores and let the kid in. If they get paid, it’s okay. If others got paid, not okay.
Pay to play depending on who is being paid.
What’s scary is that USC has the bulk of these students right now at 33 parents… could it be more than 50 students?
From my experience, printed transcripts are not official unless they come from a high school guidance counseling office, usually with a certain procedure - taped over the envelope seal and then stamped with the high school stamp.
I’m thinking we’ll see tee shirts soon: OLIVIA JADE TOOK MY CHILD’S SPOT AT USC
@ninakatarina someone from my school got into Duke swimming as an athlete with an 1100
@aurora2016 is he/she not an athlete?