Feds uncover admissions test cheating plot

Applying to College
1481

Being admitted as an athlete is not ‘going through the back door.’ It’s the front door. The schools say ‘we admit athletes, and here are the rules.’ No secrets, nothing underhanded, no back door. They are open about the admissions standards. The Ivies have an entire formula, the Academic Index, for athletes. There is no such index for the ‘Z’ list admits at Harvard. The admissions offices do ‘pre reads’ for athletes, and some do not get in because they do not have the academics. It’s still pretty open, not back door stuff.

The issue in Varsity Blues is that these were NOT athletes, and may have cheated to get the scores necessary to even meet the requirements of the recruited athlete. If all stupid athletes are just admitted with no standards, why would the Singer group need to cheat on the tests at all? Why not just submit the 1100 SAT scores because the athlete is ‘guaranteed’ admission through the back/side door? Because it isn’t a back door situation.

1482

But even other schools - will they look deeper to avoid this scenario? Or even the optics of it all?

1483

@Dustyfeathers - If you read all my posts ( I know it’s hard in the fast moving thread), I said multiple times that we need to TRUST BUT VERIFY.

If a kid has a valid accommodation request then it must be signed, sealed and punishable by law if caught lying ( I am sure kids who have a legitimate issue don’t mind this enhanced check)

Trust me my heart bleeds for kids who need accommodations however we have to remember that there are many inner-city kids who never get a privilege to get identified and unfortunately they never get a chance like typical well to do kids get (again no fault of their own).

I hope I am clear this time! :slight_smile:

1484

@CardinalFang - My dd had standardize testing starting in elementary school. I want to say the first one was in 3rd grade but there may have been reading assessments earlier (I can’t remember). Tests were initially tied to common core but then moved to various different state tests when the state ditched common core. She took more standardized tests in middle school, and then entrance exams for HS. She’s consistently been 98th/99th percentile all through school…no difference for ACT/SAT.

I’m doubling down that USC is NOT a victim. They have culpability for lack of oversight over their own employees doing the scope of their work. I do agree that USC students who didn’t cheat and bribe their way in, are victimized by this scandal.

1485

Probably none for most students, where the first college-admissions-relevant standardized tests would be the PSAT in 11th grade and SAT and/or ACT in 11th grade if (as would be generally advisable) they want to have scores before the summer college search. Some may take AP exams earlier if they take AP courses earlier (often easier ones like human geography).

1486

@Lostinsearch

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2019/03/14/six-usc-student-applicants-linked-college-admissions-bribery-scheme-denied-acceptance/8yVrSYe1sxh2VGy1LGMbzM/story.html?s_campaign=bostonglobe%3Asocialflow%3Afacebook&fbclid=IwAR0V66PCw2dFr5nrjVQLoNJqTEr3Ykgh16LBQUAhl1uzuhQ8K-fau7UtCGk

1487

Varsity Blues (1999), with James Van Der Beek, Jon Voight, Paul Walker, etc., a very underrated movie BTW. :smiley:

1488

I realize it’s TMZ, but I have a feeling the news may go from bad to worse for USC, as that seemed to be Singer’s easiest side door with the most connections.

I know UCLA was also involved in one case, but from what I read, the parents of the student involved were initially expecting Singer to get their child into USC, and for unexplained reasons, the USC employee involved worked a side deal with the coach at UCLA to get the student in there instead. Unless I misses something, it doesn’t sound like Singer had side door connections there himself, but as more shoes drop, I guess we’ll see.

1489

Caplan’s kid went from a 23 to a 34 on the ACT? Given the flagging that ACT has been known to do that seems…suspicious.

On another note, I really hope that some investigative journalists start digging very deeply into the accommodations issues as some of the top prep schools. I feel like a bright light needs to shined into that dark corner, and I actually feel doing so would benefit those with legitimate accommodation needs. There is a culture of “keeping up with the Jones” at those schools and it is creating a snowball effect. The more kids that get accommodations the more all the families feel they need more time on the ACT just to keep up with everyone else. Who gets hurt…the students that legitimately need the additional time.

1490

@twoinanddone ridiculous notion…it is a back door but so is the TUBA or band…the mission statement of most highly reputable schools is that of academic and scholarly excellence. Sports is late to the party and an afterthought, Sports in university does not occur anywhere else in the world, and is reflective of our TV/Media culture.

1491

Wow!!!
Read Dave Berry’s article here on CC, because it has a bunch of links, including some “dirty little secret” -type tell-alls. https://www.collegeconfidential.com/articles/the-great-college-admissions-scandal-of-2019/

1492

@sushiritto There are many standardized tests given innpublic schools across the country; it has always been the case, less so when 50-something me was a kid, but I do remember testing in 1st and 8th grades. My older kids (in NJ) had the NJ ASK every year in math and reading, and in 8th they also had science. Then when the Common Core was rolled out in the dark of night, the testing changed to the PARCC or the SBAC in all of the 47 states that had adopted it. Pushback from parents made those two particular tests lose a lot of participants, but they were replaced by very similar things.

My youngest, 11, was taking the MAP test (also a national test, 2 hours) 3 times a year, and also was supposed to start taking the PARCC exam in 3rd grade - a WEEK LONG TEST!!! I refused that particular test, and now she is in a private school, still taking the MAP. She is well aware that her scores have come way up since leaving public school; she is well aware that her math scores are still something she needs to work on. The difference is, the private school actually USES the scores to guide instruction, which is the theory behind testing, but in public schools, not the practice.

1493

Probably not relevant to most colleges. Colleges that are less likely to worry about this kind of thing would include:

  • Colleges that are not that selective (no need to cheat if it is not hard to get into honestly).
  • Colleges that are not prestigious enough to be desired to be admitted to.
  • Colleges where the curricular rigor discourages academic slackers from applying.

Yes, there could be exceptions (some people may try to cheat even when they could get what they want honestly, or the student may have trouble getting into even a moderately selective college honestly), but it does look like the targeted colleges are mostly those which are high on the selectivity and prestige scale, and have places where academic slackers can hide and graduate with “gentleman’s C” grades.

1494

@Lostinsearch , I think we should assume that virtually every very selective Top 50 university or LAC who might be releasing decisions in the next couple of weeks will be reviewing every accepted applicant at the moment. I think delayed decisions will be rampant.

1495

@observer12

I’m not suggesting that at all. But on the other hand, if there’re repetitive instances of corruption (e.g. at USC), you may need to look for systemic causes.

1496

@TheBigChef you are correct Caplan attended Cornell not Columbia. My bad.

But a bit of the “forest among the trees” to my larger point.

But just to keep the fast moving thread up to speed with an earlier post about the elite schools and advanced degrees of the parents. Shocking that they would have perpetuated this fraud after having all that hard work in their own story. And they were not wealthy to begin with for the most part.

Here’s the list:

“Gregory Abbott, Princeton ‘72
Marcia Abbott (nee Meighan), Hotchkiss School, Duke
Gamal Abdelaziz, University of Cairo, Egypt
Todd Blake, Vanderbilt ’88, University of Michigan MBA ‘93
Diane Blake, Providence College ‘86
Jane Buckingham, Horace Mann HS ’86, Duke ‘90
Gordon Caplan, Cornell ’88, Fordham University JD ‘91
I-Hsin Joey Chen
Gregory Colburn, UCLA Medical School ‘84
Amy Colburn
Robert Flaxman, University of Southern California
Manuel Henriquez, Northeastern ‘87
Elizabeth Henriquez
Douglas Hodge, Dartmouth ’79, Harvard Business School MBA ‘84
Felicia Huffman, New York University
Augustin Huneeus, UC Berkeley, Northwestern/Kellogg Business School
Bruce Isackson, UCLA ‘80
Davina Isackson, University of Miami BA ’84, MS ’86, PhD ‘91
Michelle Janavs
Elisabeth Kimmel, Stanford ’86, Harvard Law School JD ‘90
Marjorie Klapper, UCLA ‘90
Lori Loughlin, no college
Mossimo Giannulli, University of Southern California (reportedly dropped out)?
Toby MacFarlane
William McGlashan, Yale, Stanford Business School
Marci Palatella
Peter Sartorio, Arizona State Univ ‘89
Stephen Semprevivo, Harvard ’88, Harvard Business School MBA ‘94
David Sidoo, University of British Columbia ‘82
Devin Sloane
John B. Wilson, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute ’81, Harvard Business School MBA ‘83
Homayoun Zadeh, USC School of Dentistry DDS ’87, Univ of Connecticut PhD
Robert Zangrillo, University of Vermont, Stanford Business School”

1497

It should be trivial to circumvent this law. A donor just contributes a monetary gift to a donor-advised fund, and is allowed to take a tax deduction in the year of that gift. Then when he wants to benefit a particular school, he requests that the fund make a grant to that school. Such funds generally comply with such requests and provide information to the school about who made the request. Even under current law, the donor doesn’t get a tax deduction for that grant because he already got the tax deduction previously, but the school still benefits. Wyden’s proposed bill won’t change this procedure.

1498

I do feel many of their children did know. Simple.

The narrative is being dictated to allow a pass for all of the students it seems.

1499

I wonder what it’s like TODAY and for sure in the next few months visiting these schools on a college tour where they talk about admissions and they walk around campus. A little solemn? Are kids going to turn the other way? Texas and UCLA are in State schools and will probably not be affected. But Missouri, MSU, and PSU probably had some short term issues with their scandals.

I have a rising senior right now going through all these ACT/SAT nonsense. Pretty smart kid but by no means “elite” so the schools in question are not in the radar. He does have decent scores and wants to raise it a little more in order for him to give himself a chance for merit and for some options. But the amount of pressure is too real. Between all the school work, AP, and these standardized test, he is starting to get burned out to the point that he might not even take the test again and call it a day. The problem we all faced is the financials involved. One ACT point can be the difference between a lot of merit vs little merit. By the end of the day, it will be what it will be. I will always be proud of him knowing that he is giving it his best. Not much a parent can ask.

1500

@SouthernHope @GnocchiB

I just listened to today’s episode (“Bribing Their Way Into College”) of the NYT’s “The Daily.” The reporters interviewed said that Operation Varsity Blues began as a result of the Philip Esformes-Medicare fraud investigation, which snagged Jerome Allen, Penn’s former head basketball coach (and now his assistant coach as well). Esformes provided the original tip that led to the “Varsity Blues” investigation.

Allen was coaching for the Boston Celtics when he was indicted. Beyond that, I’m not sure if there are other Boston connections.