@SJ2727 - in typical school senior class is about 300 (on the higher end) and say you have 150 on accommodation (to me its a red flag immediately) or 5% of the class is on accommodation on lower end ( 15 kids) I think its not that difficult to do … 150 kids on accommodation … he/she should report this number to the college board immediately! For me, anything above 5% is a red flag in a typical school
I have worked in Elite Private High Schools for the past several years. One school I worked in had 50%, one 40% and my current school 20% of students with accommodations - extended time on tests. The school with the 50% rate had a system where families knew of a doctor they could pay 3-4K in order to get the diagnosis. The majority of students were getting this classification in order to get an edge. But when the numbers are so high for “false accommodations” then the students without accommodations are at a disadvantage.
My kids ended up being good test takers and being middle class they just used Khan Academy and practice books - doing multiple tests to improve. They joked that 3 hours was enough sitting time, and they wouldn’t want to sit for 6 hours. But there were times when a few more minutes would have helped. But there is no way I would try to game the system. But when so many are gaming the system then it becomes an unfair playing field.
And on the essay front - I know people who hire people to write their college essays. One mom even bragged about to a whole group of people about writing her son’s essay. Later I asked her if SHE (the mom) had gotten in. And I know of a parent who was doing her son’s college assignments.
This college insanity needs to stop - and parents and the pressure to get into elite colleges is definitely crazy.
I wish there was a cap on the number of college applications - like 4. The SAT or ACT (or some kind of standard assessment) is necessary as a standard because there are no standards among High School grading. One might dole out A’s, while another might not (I have seen this firsthand how grading is different amongst schools).
And there are advantages to these elite schools. They give way more aid and have more resources to give to students.
This is a complicated issue - like an onion, so many layers.
Someone upthread shared a link that I can’t find now, of the tax records for the bogus charity. They had read through and found a list of colleges that weren’t mentioned elsewhere in the filing that had received money from the bogus charity. Can whoever that was, if they’re still reading this, share that information again?
@momofsenior1
Right on! Good luck getting through McGill if you can’t manage your time effectively. As they say in the trades, “First you get good, then you get fast”, with the implication being that both are necessary for competence. Isn’t the whole point of elite schools that they are the best of the best, which to me means that they must be able to good, and fast?
I wasn’t the initial poster, but you can access the 2014-2016 tax filings for Key Foundation from here:
My daughter’s friend is an excellent soccer player. She wanted to go to Yale and plays soccer. After watching her play and she had an excellent game too, the Yale coach wouldn’t even give her a chance. Meanwhile it was very clear that some other kids who were MUCH less talent getting committed. Everyone just kind of brushed it off as unlucky or whatever. Stuff happens (The girl got accepted to another ivy)
Never crossed anyone’s mind that it could be due to bribery/connections. With this scandal I do wonder how many much less talented athletes out there from all the top schools that got committed ( and actually playing the sport) , are due to some sort of bribery? I mean this would be a much less elaborate scheme and it could easily be done one on one, no middle person, harder to get caught, no need to fake photos, SAT test or whatever. I can imagine this could be a much more wide spread issue. Hard to prove, though, other than anecdote evidence.
@Nhatrang - She should join this class action for sure just reported by Bloomberg!
What? You didn’t know that when you shook the coach’s hand that it was supposed to contain a check for $450K?
Request please: For those of you who would like to discuss the pros/cons of testing accommodations, extended time on all testing, the ability of students with LD to succeed in elite schools, etc., could you please take those topics/side discussions to the Learning differences or SAT/ACT forum? This thread flies along with lightening speed with directly on-topic posts about the cheating scandal as it is, and while those discussions may be related, they really deserve their own thread. The side discussions make it hard to follow the conversation topic here.Thanks!
We are not talking about time management. That is a necessary skill but irrelevant to this conversation. Schools that want the best of the best still need to determine what that means. Is the person who can solve a math problem faster necessarily better? Why? Is the person who takes 2 hours to write an essay “better” than the person who takes 3? Why? There are so many anecdotes on these boards of kids who needed extra time on the standardized tests but have gone on to excel in high level work at very rigorous universities. Are there achievements any less valuable?
It may be true that if you take away the time element, you won’t know who is “fastest” but why do you care? That tells you nothing about their ability to go farthest.
@bamamom2021 Your post #1283 is really worth reading as far as how nuts accommodations have become and your point is well-taken – it doesn’t matter if your child is not doing this because the sheer number of kids/parents who are gaming the system will guarantee that they are no longer playing fairly.
@jym626 To date, side discussions have been locked and posters redirected to this thread.
Will side discussions on time be allowed @skieurope?
@jym626 - Accommodation is the reason Felicity is for 250K bond and got indicted …
@LisaNCState - its only tangentially related to the discussion. Whether or not you believe in accommodations or whether or not testing should be longer for everyone is not the topic of this conversation. Thanks!
And actually, its because she paid someone to change the SAT responses and/or take the test for her kid that she is indicted, not the issue of the accommodations itself. That is another topic.
under the cover of accommodation, all these things happened… ( I was not even ever of this practice until this cheating scandal broke out) I am sorry I disagree … I let moderator make the call 
thank you!
Stanford students are suing because their chances of getting into less selective universities such as Yale and USC were severely impacted by this scandal. welcome to the matrix.
Well be mindful that the conversation here is about the bribery and cheating. Not about whether accommodations are appropriate. In the past, when someone kindly asks posters to take a tangential conversation to a new thread, they usually do. Just sayin’.
@momofsenior1 - duplicate threads wee redirected/closed. Not side discussions.
I think the fact that parents were able to get accommodations (for non LD kids) pretty easily - is part of the discussion.
@Leigh22 I don’t happen to agree with you regarding spending money on college consultants…if you can…and find this helpful.
Just like I don’t judge people based on the amount of money spent on college costs.
The issue here…these folks were dishonest. I know plenty of people who used college consultants for a variety of reasons and at many price points. That certainly is a family decision.
But to knowingly cook the books? Nope…l don’t support that at all.
@momofsenior1 A separate thread discussing time accommodations in general, but unrelated to the events of this week, is fine. That said, we’re giving this explosive thread a lot of leeway; tangential conversations (like time accommodations) are bound to happen here (as they have). But users should also recognize that since many of these tangents are tied back to the main topic, it is unrealistic to presume that the moderators are going to split out tangential posts.