The plan I wrote about was the work of graduate business school admissions officers who had formed an educational consulting group. Their actions were known to & approved by the Ivy League school. The price was a $10,000 fee & an ED application.
If you are the kid who actually scored 23 on ACT and came out with a 32… surely, on some level, you know? Or do you just think you got lucky on the day?
I can believe not all of these kids knew …but some must have, and some must have suspected.
Ah, now I understand how some of those clueless kids at my Ivy got in…I always figure they donated a building!
Count me really, really happy they got caught. But as sensational as this story is, there are probably a lot more small time cheaters that just pay someone to take a test for them.
It’s just scammers, not personal. But it probably does mean any time extension requests your daughter makes in the future will be scrutinized more closely.
Wow, just wow. I just wonder if this isn’t just the tip of the iceberg.
I am wondering if this may change some aspects of the admissions process going forward. It was an eye opening experience when going through the college admissions process with my son (class of 2023) this past year. The treatment he received at the more “elite” schools was clearly evident while visiting those schools in comparison to the not so “elite” schools. I will be really curious to see where the end result will be with all of this.
@scoutmom2002 : Diagnosis of a learning disability in order to get special testing accommodations is a not uncommon, nor new, practice. In some cases it is unethical & in most cases it is not.
I didn’t read the entire 10 pages, not sure if this point was brought up…I hope the investigation doesn’t just stop at the college admission. What about the kids when they got accepted, the cheating continues? I mean those kids didn’t have the grades/the brains to get admitted, how would they “graduated” without cheating?
In a sense, admission to these schools are “fruit of the poisonous tree”. Admission has to be revoked, it doesn’t matter what the kids know or didn’t know… It speaks directly to these schools admission process credibility.
This is especially true at USC, where the scandals seem to be endless.
I agree @SJ2727 I think some had to know/suspect. But at the same time, you’re a 17-18 yr old kid w/ a mommy and daddy saying here I just spent six figures on getting you into your dream school. What are you going to do… say no and call the feds?! I think not.
These coaches basically hold admission tickets to top schools, which is an extremely valuable thing to possess. Is it any wonder that some of them trade them in for cash bribes? This has happened before too. There was a story a few months ago about a guy who got his son into Penn as a basketball recruit and the kid never played for the team. Going forward, it seems clear that admissions must do its due diligence and ensure that every applicant who is waived through as a recruited athlete is in fact a legitimate athlete. Not a hard thing to do. If someone is good enough to play a D1 sport, a simple Google search should bring up plenty of local news articles about their exploits. Or better yet, do away with the recruited athlete hook altogether. Nobody cares about the USC crew team or Georgetown’s tennis team.
There are likely dozens of icebergs.
One insight is the essay questions they must have linked it to their fake sports achievements … I can’t believe they never knew… I worked with my kids and no way you can do something in the process without them knowing… parents are now trying to cover for kids until evidence is against their statement
On the athlete front (and staying a bit vague here) but we have a neighbor whose child won their event in the World Cup (!), was recruited to an Ivy League college to ski, and quit the team 3 weeks after arriving because she was burned out on skiing but stayed at the college. So that part is not that unusual.
Sounds like SAT and ACT need to put in place more secure procedures. Cameras in the testing rooms maybe. So proctors cannot change answers and so someone else cannot take the tests for the applicant.
I’m surprised its that easy to get testing accommodations so late in the process. Don’t you need evidence of plans having been in place for some time? Or did parents simply pay to have all that history fabricated as well? Or did parents have so little faith in their own children that they have been preparing to cheat for years?
Well, this set of circumstances seems to provide evidence that coming from high income families doesn’t correlate all that perfectly with SAT scores. 
Sometimes they struggle. A lot. This is actually an old problem and comes up mostly with legitimately recruited athletes, e.g. Rashad McCants at UNC.
@Gator88NE: I understand your thought process, but this is not really a violation of the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine. Yes, the students were beneficiaries of an illegal scheme–akin to the illegal evidence addressed by that doctrine–but the resulting benefits are minor compared to the loss of one’s freedom & other rights that comes with a felony conviction.
If the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree Doctrine is applied to the college admissions process, then what happens to those students who were admitted using an edited essay ?
SAT and ACT have always had issues with cheating… they had a major one where a guy would travel the US testing on behalf of students … no one checked him… I think they have major issues in China (or had)… it’s a global issue and there is always ways to cheat if one ones too…
How many times have students been caught lying on applications? The common app and universities thirst for applicants to push down their acceptance has made it harder for them to manage the pool of applications