Just checked with the wife to make sure we are not among them without me noticing. We are in the clear! :-bd
Now I can return to my outrage.
I suspect there are lots of Singers out there, lots of non-revenue generating college coaches jealous of the football and basketball coaches, lots of schools looking for ways to enroll more well funded students, and lots of parents willing to pay to get junior accepted.
What could possible happen?
I generally agree with you, but since not everyone is looking to go into engineering or hard science, lets add that I don’t see too many people paying bribes to get their unqualified kids into Columbia or University of Chicago. On the other hand, I know plenty of parents who deep down would admit that they wish they could do something to help their very qualified kids get into these schools. I don’t think anyone I know would ever do it, but its hard to watch your son with perfect GPA and SATs who is desperate for Columbia and know that he probably won’t get it no matter how hard he worked in college.
"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"
I completely agree. It was disappointing they put staff “on leave”. For every college involved, the right thing would have been to put out a memo first thing this morning stating that involved parties were fired. Prospective students involved would be rejected. Students already enrolled in the college would be immediately suspended pending outcome of the trial, but of course would be welcome to apply elsewhere should they not wish to put their education on hold.
Not gonna lie, kinda feel bad on how hard I worked to get the achievements I have now and the sacrifices my family made…and these kids…
For the students whos parents were connected to this, but who did not know, and who have excelled at USC once they got in, I can understand the school wanting to appear to give the student an opportunity to transfer. They need to go to great lengths to appear they are thoroughly investigating this. If there is a plausible argument that the kid would have / could have gotten in anyway, the school has a duty to be fair.
I’m not sure if anyone of these rich kids falls into that situation, and since they have to go back a few years to investigate, I am okay with not rushing to judgment on those kids till they know for sure.
@jzducol she can’t have both legacy and first gen
@airway1 yes admitted early as an athlete
@aurora2016, revenue sport? Definitely would not surprise me
Any one else think that it’s funny that colleges have fired coaches and an AD right after this indictment came out? Yet, there is an investigation into bribery and kickbacks with big time division 1 college basketball, yet (unless something has changed very recently) that exactly one head coach (Rick Pitino) has been fired.
I’m all for outrage and there being consequences. But sorry, there is also a tons of hypocrisy.
@TatinG this level of bribery and special admits for the wealthy and celebrities is widespread at elite schools (either that or the 1% has a monopoly on genius status) and has been for decades. The outrage in this case is only because the perpetrators used email and federal mail to carry out their crimes AND claimed tax exemptions on their hefty bribes so the Feds took notice…of course, the administration at Yale Georgetown USC etc are ‘shocked, shocked’ that this happened. What else can they say??? We all know of that kid with average grades and SAT in school who gets into a top tier university and wonder how. Well now we know…
@aurora2016 that is different if he went in as an athlete… if he had a 1500 after a PSAT of 800 then there is an issue
@marrast And how many other organizations like Key exist in metropolitan areas in the US and abroad??
@deb922, swimming isn’t a revenue sports anywhere.
Not surprised that this happens at Duke, though.
The question is did the schools know what was going on but ignored the problem because Singer and the coaches were bringing them well funded students willing to pay the full COA. Just like the baseball owners ignored steroids because they were making money with more fans watching.
@jonri time and time again it’s been proven that fraud is harder to do when collusion is required. So no, this was not beyond the control of admissions. If they left admissions decisions up to a single coach, who was then tempted to take a bribe, then they are partly at fault.
@gallentjill:
“but its hard to watch your son with perfect GPA and SATs who is desperate for Columbia”
Yes, but then the question to ask is “why Columbia”? What characteristics can (or can’t) be found elsewhere? And even if Columbia, why not GS or a Master’s program (another way to ask “why Columbia, not elsewhere?”).
For that matter, why desperate for any school?
Will Felicity and Lori play themselves in the upcoming movie? You know someone in Hollywood is optioning this right now!
For those commenting on restricting accommodations such as extra time, or marking the scores of those who have extra time, I just want to reiterate that there are all kinds of accommodations. As a disability consultant, I have clients with no use of their hands or no hands at all, clients with sensory disabilities such as low vision or no vision, and clients with clearly documented learning or verbal differences (including many with autism). Some of my clients need to take the test with a voice command computer, or to verbally say an answer and have a proctor mark down that answer. Would it be right to punish these students, or to take away their accommodations, because rich people used the private room accommodation as a mechanism to cheat? Really? If a doctor had a scam involving kickbacks for cancer medications – would anyone suggest that we stop the cancer medication for all?
There is actually no indication in the complaint that extra time was used as an accommodation inappropriately. The cheaters just wanted a “private room” accommodation, something that is offered to people who can’t handle distractions, in order to render cheating easier. How is that being translated in this thread into a complaint that too many people are receiving extra time? If your child was given extra time, but asked not to use his hands, how would he do? How about giving the test with extra time to your child, but with the condition that she must read questions through a cheese cloth, to obscure acuity.
I’ll also comment that the testing companies used to demarcate those who took tests with accommodations. They were sued in a civil rights case, and under settlement agreed to no longer do this. Let’s not advocate turning back the clock.
Felicity didn’t do either of those. She paid someone not associated with the school to doctor her kid’s SAT exam to give her a higher score than she deserved.
@PurpleTitan The vast majority of kids who would be accepted into CS at UIUC would not need bribes to help them, and most kids who would require bribery to get them in would likely drop out anyway, and change to a major that they could have gotten into without bribery.
However, I’m sure that there are kids whose parents are getting them accepted to UIUC in general with bribery. There was a stink a while back because a student who should have been rejected was accepted since he went to the same high school as the then governor of Illinois.