Feds uncover large-scale college entrance exam cheating plot

[Anonymous]

The mindset expressed in this mother's letter to the Atlantic about her DC's college application experience explains a bit how we get to the college admissions scandal. There is a view that there are only a few highly selective schools that are acceptable, and that acceptance to any one of them is indicative of your worth as a student and a human being. Right now, my DD is applying for internships and she is frustrated at not getting the ones she want and in exasperation she has asked me "don't you think I deserve it?" Yes, she works hard. Yes, she has good grades. Yes, she goes to a "good school." Yet, I have a very hard time telling her "yes, you deserve it and it is not fair that you are not being selected/" I haven't yet figured out how to answer her question.

That being said, the Mom who writes this letter to the Atlantic is a nutcase and she is going to ruin her child for life. Life is not fair! Get over it! You do not have a right to attend an Ivy League or any other school.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/im-worried-my-son-wont-get-good-college/582979/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

Actually, med schools don't care all that much about where their applicants went to college.

On the WARS index that applicants widely use to figure out where to apply to there are 121 possible points. Going to HYPSM gets you 9 points, going to a highly selective school outside of these gets you 6 points, and all other schools gets you 3.

The boost from going to a highly selective undergrad is actually quite minimal in terms of med school admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It honestly sounds like the ringleader guy was taking advantage of gullible rich idiots during a time of anxiety. Outside of HYPS, none of these colleges are worth what they were paying, even if you have money to burn. USC? Georgetown? UCLA? NYU? Give me a break.

Oh cut it with the elitist snootiness. No these are not the tippy top schools, but they are all well known and very respectable. The people who paid these bribes were rich parents of ordinary kids who would never have been able to get into schools of this caliber on their own. These kids would have otherwise attended directional state university or it's private college counterpart.

That's not elitist, just a fact. USC, Georgetown, UCLA, NYU are fine selective schools, but they don't pop off the page. I know a lot of verifiable very wealthy and very connected people who have sent their kids to Pepperdine, Hobart and William Smith, Tulane, SMU, Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, and Miami-Ohio.

You really think anyone is more impressed that a bimbo went to USC instead of SMU? Not in the slightest. These parents are idiots.

You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

I have a pair of children in selective colleges and two more heading soon. USC has over 20,000 undergrads, antithesis of tiny, hyper-exclusive Ivies – it's a massive rich slacker bimbo/douchebag school. They only jumped in rankings because of endowment, they literally bribe thousands of truly smart kids with big scholarships, ala Alabama, and a huge surge in international apps. The obese layabout idiot Rob Kardashian recently graduated from USC's business school! lol

Again, if your daughter is a pretty bimbo, nobody is more impressed she's a USC undergrad instead of SMU. This entire thing is just batsh*t crazy. Ruined their reputations and jeopardized their freedom so their kids can attend a 20-something US News instead of a 40-something (Pepperdine) or 50-something (SMU) US News?

It's akin to all the obnoxious rich Jersey/Long Island kids at GW (#60), should their parents have bribed them into #30 NYU for more prestige? No, because the prestige difference is totally nominal, to the tiny % who even grasp the difference. Dumb!

[Anonymous]

We have a family friend at USC in his third year. Brilliant kid. Valedictorian, etc. He’s there for computer science, a great program. You on the other hand are a misinformed moron who oversimplifies things so you can grasp them.

[Anonymous]

When I think of USC undergrad I think: Rob Kardashian, Spencer Pratt, coke trash sorority bimbos, trust fund druggy film students, and low watt douchebag business school students who can't wait to buy a yellow or red Porsche and perpetuate some sort of financial fraud after college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a family friend at USC in his third year. Brilliant kid. Valedictorian, etc. He’s there for computer science, a great program. You on the other hand are a misinformed moron who oversimplifies things so you can grasp them.

Your unverified anecdote is a grain of sand in a mountain of verified and sustained evidence to the contrary. There are of course students as you describe at USC, often bribed to attend with generous scholarships, but the temperature on campus is that of low watt tacky obnoxious druggy sleaze.

[Anonymous]

The USC engineering programs are very well-respected. More so, in fact, than some of the east coast elite schools you all idolize.

This is also true of some of the state schools. A Georgia Tech engineering student is likely a better hire than a Brown engineering student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It honestly sounds like the ringleader guy was taking advantage of gullible rich idiots during a time of anxiety. Outside of HYPS, none of these colleges are worth what they were paying, even if you have money to burn. USC? Georgetown? UCLA? NYU? Give me a break.

Oh cut it with the elitist snootiness. No these are not the tippy top schools, but they are all well known and very respectable. The people who paid these bribes were rich parents of ordinary kids who would never have been able to get into schools of this caliber on their own. These kids would have otherwise attended directional state university or it's private college counterpart.

That's not elitist, just a fact. USC, Georgetown, UCLA, NYU are fine selective schools, but they don't pop off the page. I know a lot of verifiable very wealthy and very connected people who have sent their kids to Pepperdine, Hobart and William Smith, Tulane, SMU, Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, and Miami-Ohio.

You really think anyone is more impressed that a bimbo went to USC instead of SMU? Not in the slightest. These parents are idiots.

You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

I have a pair of children in selective colleges and two more heading soon. USC has over 20,000 undergrads, antithesis of tiny, hyper-exclusive Ivies – it's a massive rich slacker bimbo/douchebag school. They only jumped in rankings because of endowment, they literally bribe thousands of truly smart kids with big scholarships, ala Alabama, and a huge surge in international apps. The obese layabout idiot Rob Kardashian recently graduated from USC's business school! lol

Again, if your daughter is a pretty bimbo, nobody is more impressed she's a USC undergrad instead of SMU. This entire thing is just batsh*t crazy. Ruined their reputations and jeopardized their freedom so their kids can attend a 20-something US News instead of a 40-something (Pepperdine) or 50-something (SMU) US News?

It's akin to all the obnoxious rich Jersey/Long Island kids at GW (#60), should their parents have bribed them into #30 NYU for more prestige? No, because the prestige difference is totally nominal, to the tiny % who even grasp the difference. Dumb!

Look, these parents' behavior has nothing to do with how much a degree from a particular college will help a kid do better in life.

It has EVERYTHING to do with feeding the parents' egos. To being able to post on Facebook or drop into conversation at the grocery store

"Oh, that's great your kid is going to Cal State Northridge. DID I TELL YOU, MY LITTLE LARLA IS GOING TO USC."

In LA at least, USC has much more cachet than SMU. And it's just further evidence of how child's accomplishments have become an extension of the parent's reputation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The USC engineering programs are very well-respected. More so, in fact, than some of the east coast elite schools you all idolize.

This is also true of some of the state schools. A Georgia Tech engineering student is likely a better hire than a Brown engineering student.

Huge yawn. USC is a clown college with zero social capital. Typical that left coast new money trash see it as the brass ring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The USC engineering programs are very well-respected. More so, in fact, than some of the east coast elite schools you all idolize.

This is also true of some of the state schools. A Georgia Tech engineering student is likely a better hire than a Brown engineering student.

Have things really changed that much there? I grew up in LA, went to college out that way. Friends went to UCLA, Cal, Harvey Mudd... pretty prestigious schools. USC had a reputation that you only went there if you were rich and couldn't get into one of the more elite colleges in CA. You didn't want to go the middling public universities with the masses, so you paid $$ to go to a middling private university with the rich kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mindset expressed in this mother's letter to the Atlantic about her DC's college application experience explains a bit how we get to the college admissions scandal. There is a view that there are only a few highly selective schools that are acceptable, and that acceptance to any one of them is indicative of your worth as a student and a human being. Right now, my DD is applying for internships and she is frustrated at not getting the ones she want and in exasperation she has asked me "don't you think I deserve it?" Yes, she works hard. Yes, she has good grades. Yes, she goes to a "good school." Yet, I have a very hard time telling her "yes, you deserve it and it is not fair that you are not being selected/" I haven't yet figured out how to answer her question.

That being said, the Mom who writes this letter to the Atlantic is a nutcase and she is going to ruin her child for life. Life is not fair! Get over it! You do not have a right to attend an Ivy League or any other school.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/im-worried-my-son-wont-get-good-college/582979/

Best quote from the mom's letter:

"According to all of the statistics and reports, he should be accepted at Ivy League schools, but he has not been. He will eventually get into a “good” school, but it is my guess (based on what we are seeing with his peer group) that he will be overqualified for the school he ends up at."

Lol! Her son is overqualified for any school that is not Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

Actually, med schools don't care all that much about where their applicants went to college.

On the WARS index that applicants widely use to figure out where to apply to there are 121 possible points. Going to HYPSM gets you 9 points, going to a highly selective school outside of these gets you 6 points, and all other schools gets you 3.

The boost from going to a highly selective undergrad is actually quite minimal in terms of med school admission.

NYU med is free. Let's see what the first class looks like besides having a bunch of their grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It honestly sounds like the ringleader guy was taking advantage of gullible rich idiots during a time of anxiety. Outside of HYPS, none of these colleges are worth what they were paying, even if you have money to burn. USC? Georgetown? UCLA? NYU? Give me a break.

Oh cut it with the elitist snootiness. No these are not the tippy top schools, but they are all well known and very respectable. The people who paid these bribes were rich parents of ordinary kids who would never have been able to get into schools of this caliber on their own. These kids would have otherwise attended directional state university or it's private college counterpart.

That's not elitist, just a fact. USC, Georgetown, UCLA, NYU are fine selective schools, but they don't pop off the page. I know a lot of verifiable very wealthy and very connected people who have sent their kids to Pepperdine, Hobart and William Smith, Tulane, SMU, Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, and Miami-Ohio.

You really think anyone is more impressed that a bimbo went to USC instead of SMU? Not in the slightest. These parents are idiots.

You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

I have a pair of children in selective colleges and two more heading soon. USC has over 20,000 undergrads, antithesis of tiny, hyper-exclusive Ivies – it's a massive rich slacker bimbo/douchebag school. They only jumped in rankings because of endowment, they literally bribe thousands of truly smart kids with big scholarships, ala Alabama, and a huge surge in international apps. The obese layabout idiot Rob Kardashian recently graduated from USC's business school! lol

Again, if your daughter is a pretty bimbo, nobody is more impressed she's a USC undergrad instead of SMU. This entire thing is just batsh*t crazy. Ruined their reputations and jeopardized their freedom so their kids can attend a 20-something US News instead of a 40-something (Pepperdine) or 50-something (SMU) US News?

It's akin to all the obnoxious rich Jersey/Long Island kids at GW (#60), should their parents have bribed them into #30 NYU for more prestige? No, because the prestige difference is totally nominal, to the tiny % who even grasp the difference. Dumb!

You seems to devalue cities schools. I hope your kids enjoy their merit aid and are able to get a job!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You are the idiot! And you have not had a college age child. You are also ignorant of job placement and graduate school acceptance or alumni earnings. What popped out the page 30 years ago has changed and honestly you overall facts are wrong. If you talking about movies, Wall Street, law medicine PHDs. When your kid or maybe grand kid ends up at some crappy school you may realize things have changed.

Actually, med schools don't care all that much about where their applicants went to college.

On the WARS index that applicants widely use to figure out where to apply to there are 121 possible points. Going to HYPSM gets you 9 points, going to a highly selective school outside of these gets you 6 points, and all other schools gets you 3.

The boost from going to a highly selective undergrad is actually quite minimal in terms of med school admission.

NYU med is free. Let's see what the first class looks like besides having a bunch of their grads.

It will be interesting. My child interviewed there in the fall and said some of the chatter among the prospective matriculants was that NYU is a med school for which family connections and donations can make a difference in admissions. Child did not hear that at other schools, but then NYU was the highest ranked school for which they received an interview invitation.

FWIW making a difference in this case would likely mean MCAT and GPA scores that are somewhat, but not drastically, below the average. So still qualified.

One of the NYU interviewers expressed surprise that child graduated from a DC public high school and not a DC private. Child also reported that NYU interviewees were by far the best dressed of any they encountered at the schools they visited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It honestly sounds like the ringleader guy was taking advantage of gullible rich idiots during a time of anxiety. Outside of HYPS, none of these colleges are worth what they were paying, even if you have money to burn. USC? Georgetown? UCLA? NYU? Give me a break.

Oh cut it with the elitist snootiness. No these are not the tippy top schools, but they are all well known and very respectable. The people who paid these bribes were rich parents of ordinary kids who would never have been able to get into schools of this caliber on their own. These kids would have otherwise attended directional state university or it's private college counterpart.

That's not elitist, just a fact. USC, Georgetown, UCLA, NYU are fine selective schools, but they don't pop off the page. I know a lot of verifiable very wealthy and very connected people who have sent their kids to Pepperdine, Hobart and William Smith, Tulane, SMU, Arizona, Alabama, Indiana, and Miami-Ohio.

You really think anyone is more impressed that a bimbo went to USC instead of SMU? Not in the slightest. These parents are idiots.

Well of course they don't pop off the page, but these kids probably wouldn't have been able to get into pop off the page schools even with fake SAT scores or as athletic recruits. And yes USC and Georgetown are much higher regarded than Pepperdine, Tulane, and SMU.

I doubt USC is much higher regarded than SMU or Tulane, especially outside Southern California. IT was not that long ago when 1050 SAT score and the ability to pay full tuition practically guaranteed you admissions.

The real story, however, is that it was totally irrelevant to these rich kids and their parents whether little darling went to USC or Pepperdine or some hick college. Their outcome in life would be exactly the same. They don't need the hypothetical (and greatly overstated) hooks and connections that comes with a more prestigious school. Those kids were set for life. Guaranteed a lifetime of multi-million dollar mansions and flying only first class and parties and fancy clothes and idleness. GUARANTEED. So.... why did these idiotic parents risk prison over faking SAT scores? That is the intriguing part of it all.

At our private w very wealthy families - some are listed in Forbes - they all want HYP, Stanford, Ivies, Duel, Top 20 even though little Johnny or Susie are set for life. They have the wealth, now they want the “pedigree”. Why did Jobs kid want to go to Stanford? Also they want to make sure little Johnny and Susie mix with the right crowd and marry into the right crowd.

They all know each other outside college and after college when they move to LA or NYC. The college itself is just an accessory. A lot of the dumb rich never go or finish.