Feds uncover large-scale college entrance exam cheating plot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

Isn't part of the test of intelligence how fast you can think? Truly asking. I've seen a lot of definitions of intelligence include how quickly you can grasp new concepts and figure things out. And that's why we have parents complaining that elementary school moves too slow for their smart kids, who grasp concepts much quicker than others and are bored with the time spent getting others to understand.

Because neither the SAT nor ACT is supposed to be a test of knowledge, supposedly it's of skills. I was very good at the verbal part, not that great at math. People who are better at math than me can solve math problems faster and more accurately than me. Getting extra time on the math part would have been advantageous to me because I probably could have figured out most problems eventually, and I would have been able to go back and double-check answers and correct any mistakes I made. But unlimited time would have obscured the difference between me and someone really brilliant at math who could have gotten all the right answers in an hour.

I don't know, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

But that is what is happening today w the system abuse - you have kids who don’t need it but getting extended time to be able to go through all the questions and check their answers. So who is left? Kids who are smart but don’t have a diagnosis so will score lower than the abuser. Then you have the poor kids who can’t get a diagnosis or know of even such a thing. Then you have kids who need accommodations but the accommodations are not personalized - a kid may only need 10 minutes but get an hour so their score would be higher and a kid who needs 2 hours but only get an hour accommodation. So the current system is broken - fix it by giving everyone unlimited time, and if the kid finishes early and want to hand in their tests early, go ahead.

Right now we have a system that depends on $$ and parents who know how to navigate the system. Why not just remove the time component? If at the end of the day it is about learning and knowledge, what is the problem of removing the timed component of the tests?

Its the middle income kids who miss out. You can get evaluations via medicaid. Most kids who have real needs have them documented from an early age. That should be considered when getting accommodations. There are kids, but usually ones who fall through the cracks who go unnoticed for many years but if you get to high school and no one does anything about it, then its probably gaming the system. The tests are geared so basically kids who are smart/high IQ. So, those of us not so high IQ's aren't going to do as well so just give IQ tests. The SAT/ACT has been flawed for many years. This is nothing new. New is they actually investigated it and decided to do something about it. Real question is why now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

The SATs are a weird combo of testing for intelligence and testing for knowledge. Processing speed is one of the key components of intelligence. Math, grammar, and vocabulary are knowledge. The ability to retrieve memorized info quickly is considered another form of intelligence. That said, kids who truly have processing speed or other issues should get extra time.

Can you imagine a world where all kids feel like they need to stay all day (until 5pm closing?) at the test center so they don’t do worse than the kids who ARE staying all day? The SATs effectively become a 9-hour test instead of a 3-hour test. Don’t think that fixes anything for either challenged or not-challenged kids.

At least they have a choice - you finish early, hand in your exam and leave. I don’t understand the resistance. You know there is abuse. You know poorer kids tend not to get diagnosis and accommodations especially inner city kids. Even the current accommodations are unfair as it is not personalized - a kid w a certain disability may only need an extra 10 minutes while another may need 2 hours but both are given an extra hour. So just get rid of timed tests. These tests are meaningless now to test for processing speed when there are accommodations. Give everyone as much time as they need.

You don't get to leave early on the SAT or ACT. You must stay until the bitter end so as not to distract others who are still working on the answers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

The SATs are a weird combo of testing for intelligence and testing for knowledge. Processing speed is one of the key components of intelligence. Math, grammar, and vocabulary are knowledge. The ability to retrieve memorized info quickly is considered another form of intelligence. That said, kids who truly have processing speed or other issues should get extra time.

Can you imagine a world where all kids feel like they need to stay all day (until 5pm closing?) at the test center so they don’t do worse than the kids who ARE staying all day? The SATs effectively become a 9-hour test instead of a 3-hour test. Don’t think that fixes anything for either challenged or not-challenged kids.

Processing speed and IQ are different things. Some are combining them but they are not. My child has processing issues but an good IQ. Does ok to well on standardized tests. Not sure if extra time will help. School sucks and will not work with us.

[Anonymous]

"But by the time my contract was up and I’d helped assemble the next year’s class — not only seeing how the sausage was made, but sticking my hands right there in the meaty mess of it — I was deeply disillusioned about my college, the liberal arts, and, frankly, the entire US education system at large. I saw firsthand how colleges and well-intentioned parents alike can play a crucial role in perpetuating inequity in higher education by prioritizing the acceptance of white, wealthy, and male students to meet their bottom line. The real scourge of higher education isn’t affirmative action, but wealthy families who will pay any price to prioritize their own children and keep their family’s elite status alive."

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/anonymousadmissions/college-admissions-scam-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin-ivy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

The SATs are a weird combo of testing for intelligence and testing for knowledge. Processing speed is one of the key components of intelligence. Math, grammar, and vocabulary are knowledge. The ability to retrieve memorized info quickly is considered another form of intelligence. That said, kids who truly have processing speed or other issues should get extra time.

Can you imagine a world where all kids feel like they need to stay all day (until 5pm closing?) at the test center so they don’t do worse than the kids who ARE staying all day? The SATs effectively become a 9-hour test instead of a 3-hour test. Don’t think that fixes anything for either challenged or not-challenged kids.

At least they have a choice - you finish early, hand in your exam and leave. I don’t understand the resistance. You know there is abuse. You know poorer kids tend not to get diagnosis and accommodations especially inner city kids. Even the current accommodations are unfair as it is not personalized - a kid w a certain disability may only need an extra 10 minutes while another may need 2 hours but both are given an extra hour. So just get rid of timed tests. These tests are meaningless now to test for processing speed when there are accommodations. Give everyone as much time as they need.

That’s not how this would play out. ALL the kids gunning for Ivies will stay until closing. Maybe the kids aiming for Frostburg would go home early. So now there’s even more pressure on the Ivy gunners, and the kids who formerly benefited from deserved accommodations have lost any benefit because they’re now competing with the Ivy wannabes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

The SATs are a weird combo of testing for intelligence and testing for knowledge. Processing speed is one of the key components of intelligence. Math, grammar, and vocabulary are knowledge. The ability to retrieve memorized info quickly is considered another form of intelligence. That said, kids who truly have processing speed or other issues should get extra time.

Can you imagine a world where all kids feel like they need to stay all day (until 5pm closing?) at the test center so they don’t do worse than the kids who ARE staying all day? The SATs effectively become a 9-hour test instead of a 3-hour test. Don’t think that fixes anything for either challenged or not-challenged kids.

Processing speed and IQ are different things. Some are combining them but they are not. My child has processing issues but an good IQ. Does ok to well on standardized tests. Not sure if extra time will help. School sucks and will not work with us.

Actually, no. There are several different types of intelligence, including crystallized memory, retrieval, and processing speed.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the naysayers - can’t leave early: we’ll, if you revamp the exam to that one can, why not?. Those who stay behind - hey, that is a choice they made.

Are you naysayers saying you prefer the system today that openly discriminates the poorer kids, inner city kids, disabled kids who don’t the proper time accommodation and would prefer the current system that can be abused by wealthy families?

[Anonymous]

WSJ

Original tipster who led federal authorities to the biggest college-admissions scam they’ve ever prosecuted was Morrie Tobin, a Los Angeles resident who was being investigated in a securities fraud case, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Mr. Tobin was being questioned in an alleged pump-and-dump investment scheme—in which people conspire to inflate the price of a stock so they can sell it at a profit—when he offered a tip to federal authorities in an effort to obtain leniency, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financial executive, who attended Yale University, told investigators that the head women’s soccer coach at Yale had sought a bribe in return for getting his daughter into the Ivy League school.

So an alleged Ivy League scam artist dropped this dime on hundreds of families to get himself out of trouble. Wow.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WSJ

Original tipster who led federal authorities to the biggest college-admissions scam they’ve ever prosecuted was Morrie Tobin, a Los Angeles resident who was being investigated in a securities fraud case, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Mr. Tobin was being questioned in an alleged pump-and-dump investment scheme—in which people conspire to inflate the price of a stock so they can sell it at a profit—when he offered a tip to federal authorities in an effort to obtain leniency, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financial executive, who attended Yale University, told investigators that the head women’s soccer coach at Yale had sought a bribe in return for getting his daughter into the Ivy League school.

So an alleged Ivy League scam artist dropped this dime on hundreds of families to get himself out of trouble. Wow.

You're surprised that dishonest people will out other dishonest people to get themselves out of trouble? Color me shocked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Its the middle income kids who miss out. You can get evaluations via medicaid. Most kids who have real needs have them documented from an early age. That should be considered when getting accommodations. There are kids, but usually ones who fall through the cracks who go unnoticed for many years but if you get to high school and no one does anything about it, then its probably gaming the system. The tests are geared so basically kids who are smart/high IQ. So, those of us not so high IQ's aren't going to do as well so just give IQ tests. The SAT/ACT has been flawed for many years. This is nothing new. New is they actually investigated it and decided to do something about it. Real question is why now?

Some kids aren’t diagnosed until the demands on their abilities increase ten-fold in middle or high school. Their problems are still real.

That said, the real problem with the SAT is that it benefits kids who get expensive test prep and/or grew up in UMC families that used large vocabularies since birth. This has been studied extensively.

Another, more subtle, advantage is being full pay at a school that costs $70k. You get an admissions bump to support the FA kids. None of the ivies offers merit aid. Yes, someone always chimes in that Harvard offers generous FA, but the rest don’t. And most families don’t have Jared Kushner’s “development” potential.

I say this as the parent of a white DD who got into a USNWR top 5 on merit with national-level ECs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Two college students suing some of those schools and the ringleader. I was wondering when someone would sue those schools.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-stanford-students-file-first-133412573.html

Well thousands and thousands of parents and students could sue for fraud. They should refund application fees for everyone that applied in the last 10 years and did not get in. All the real high scoring applicants that are told there are just not enough spots for all the smart kids- well that has taken on new meaning.

Should we sue the College Board and ACT for abuse of the extended time accommodations? All tests should be untimed - enough of abuse by the wealthy. Level the playing field for EVERYONE- no more accommodations for extra time or calculators- give EVERYONE unlimited time and calculators.

While we're at it, just give everyone THE ANSWERS, already!

See? Why is anyone resisting in giving every kid unlimited time? We will truly be testing knowledge of the materials. No more abuse.

Isn't part of the test of intelligence how fast you can think? Truly asking. I've seen a lot of definitions of intelligence include how quickly you can grasp new concepts and figure things out. And that's why we have parents complaining that elementary school moves too slow for their smart kids, who grasp concepts much quicker than others and are bored with the time spent getting others to understand.

Because neither the SAT nor ACT is supposed to be a test of knowledge, supposedly it's of skills. I was very good at the verbal part, not that great at math. People who are better at math than me can solve math problems faster and more accurately than me. Getting extra time on the math part would have been advantageous to me because I probably could have figured out most problems eventually, and I would have been able to go back and double-check answers and correct any mistakes I made. But unlimited time would have obscured the difference between me and someone really brilliant at math who could have gotten all the right answers in an hour.

I don't know, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

But that is what is happening today w the system abuse - you have kids who don’t need it but getting extended time to be able to go through all the questions and check their answers. So who is left? Kids who are smart but don’t have a diagnosis so will score lower than the abuser. Then you have the poor kids who can’t get a diagnosis or know of even such a thing. Then you have kids who need accommodations but the accommodations are not personalized - a kid may only need 10 minutes but get an hour so their score would be higher and a kid who needs 2 hours but only get an hour accommodation. So the current system is broken - fix it by giving everyone unlimited time, and if the kid finishes early and want to hand in their tests early, go ahead.

Right now we have a system that depends on $$ and parents who know how to navigate the system. Why not just remove the time component? If at the end of the day it is about learning and knowledge, what is the problem of removing the timed component of the tests?

Maybe. There are a lot of ways to abuse the system right now, that's for sure. But to just give up and say fine, everyone can have unlimited time just removes any use there may have been in the test in actually showing intelligence/skills/quick-thinking-ness? Just like when they redid the scoring. I sound like an old curmudgeon, but back in my day, before they watered down the SAT, it meant something. You actually had to answer every question right to get a 1600. Now there's a lot more leeway.

I guess they can use it to weed out those truly unqualified who can't score more than 1000, but at top edge then it means nothing. You'll just have more kids scoring 1600, with perfect GPAs (grade inflation), with impressive ECs (carefully curated ECs) and polished essays (reviewed by many educated parents and maybe even a hired counselor) that are indistinguishable from one another and parents crying foul because their indistinguishable kid was not selected over another indistinguishable kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the naysayers - can’t leave early: we’ll, if you revamp the exam to that one can, why not?. Those who stay behind - hey, that is a choice they made.

Are you naysayers saying you prefer the system today that openly discriminates the poorer kids, inner city kids, disabled kids who don’t the proper time accommodation and would prefer the current system that can be abused by wealthy families?

One of the naysayers here. Your proposal will strip any help from kids who actually need the accommodations. Now they’ll be competing head-to-head with the kids applying to Ivies. Sure, there’s abuse in the current system—so crack down on that, but don’t get rid of special accommodations completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:WSJ

Original tipster who led federal authorities to the biggest college-admissions scam they’ve ever prosecuted was Morrie Tobin, a Los Angeles resident who was being investigated in a securities fraud case, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Mr. Tobin was being questioned in an alleged pump-and-dump investment scheme—in which people conspire to inflate the price of a stock so they can sell it at a profit—when he offered a tip to federal authorities in an effort to obtain leniency, according to people familiar with the matter.

The financial executive, who attended Yale University, told investigators that the head women’s soccer coach at Yale had sought a bribe in return for getting his daughter into the Ivy League school.

So an alleged Ivy League scam artist dropped this dime on hundreds of families to get himself out of trouble. Wow.

Yale to jail

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does everyone recall those Sony Pictures hacked emails from about five years ago? Weren't there lots of emails in there that talked about bribing their kids into Ivy League schools? I vaguely recalled $500,000 donation and Brown being written about, but I could be wrong.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand the naysayers - can’t leave early: we’ll, if you revamp the exam to that one can, why not?. Those who stay behind - hey, that is a choice they made.

Are you naysayers saying you prefer the system today that openly discriminates the poorer kids, inner city kids, disabled kids who don’t the proper time accommodation and would prefer the current system that can be abused by wealthy families?

One of the naysayers here. Your proposal will strip any help from kids who actually need the accommodations. Now they’ll be competing head-to-head with the kids applying to Ivies. Sure, there’s abuse in the current system—so crack down on that, but don’t get rid of special accommodations completely.

DP- the accommodations aren’t to give a leg up. That’s not the point.