Feds uncover large-scale college entrance exam cheating plot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone explain this to me:

Once these students were admitted, how were they supposed to keep up with their coursework? Were the parents planning to bribe the professors or administrators? Did Singer continue to facilitate bribes after enrollment? What would the endgame be?

This is what I'm wondering. It's one thing to bribe your kid's way in to college, but how did they actually expect them to graduate?

It doesn't matter if they graduate, but even attending for a year or so is a decent credential while they try to figure out what to do with their lives.

It's also harder to get into some of these schools than graduate. They can also easily afford a 5-year plan, so there is time to re-take classes etc.

I went to Stanford. Believe me, there were complete idiots who managed to graduate just by picking an easy major.

And by paying people like me to do their work for them. I attended two whole classes in my time at my university as another student. They were both from wealthy families and terrible at math. My university didn't make you show ID for any tests (and still doesn't, from what I hear), you just had to write your student number on your test. The key was to stick to the larger lecture courses with 100+ students where you could just blend in. I know someone who pretended to be another student in the lab portion of a biology course with only 35 other students. Just thinking about doing that would make me anxious.

Trust me, cheating is still rampant in college.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. How did you get this gig?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand why these people had to bribe their way into universities. If they have that much money and the contacts to go with it, then does it really matter where these kids attend college? Lori Laughlin’s daughter would follow the same career path (influencer or whatever) whether she attends ASU or USC. Let’s not pretend that where these kids go to college really matters because they’re set for life no matter what. How was this worth risking their reputations and getting into legal trouble? The risk truly wasn’t worth the reward. Is it for the parents’ bragging purposes? What was the point?

Is it possible the parents didn't know this was illegal?

I doubt they're that bright or with it. They may have thought they were just working with a really expensive college counselor with excellent results (hence why really expensive).

Like all the people who got suckered into Madoff's ponzi scheme. A lot of financial people knew something smelled wrong there but they didn't know what. And a lot more people had no clue whatsoever.

Uh huh. Like when Huffman says, "ruh roh...the high school wants to provide their own proctor" ...I'm sure that she had no idea what she was doing was wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand why these people had to bribe their way into universities. If they have that much money and the contacts to go with it, then does it really matter where these kids attend college? Lori Laughlin’s daughter would follow the same career path (influencer or whatever) whether she attends ASU or USC. Let’s not pretend that where these kids go to college really matters because they’re set for life no matter what. How was this worth risking their reputations and getting into legal trouble? The risk truly wasn’t worth the reward. Is it for the parents’ bragging purposes? What was the point?

Is it possible the parents didn't know this was illegal?

I doubt they're that bright or with it. They may have thought they were just working with a really expensive college counselor with excellent results (hence why really expensive).

Like all the people who got suckered into Madoff's ponzi scheme. A lot of financial people knew something smelled wrong there but they didn't know what. And a lot more people had no clue whatsoever.

Ignorance of the law is not a defense, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone explain this to me:

Once these students were admitted, how were they supposed to keep up with their coursework? Were the parents planning to bribe the professors or administrators? Did Singer continue to facilitate bribes after enrollment? What would the endgame be?

This is what I'm wondering. It's one thing to bribe your kid's way in to college, but how did they actually expect them to graduate?

Like many athletes: easy degree. The favorite athletic degree at my university was communications. Another easy one was the health sciences degree which covered nutritionists and training. You could graduate from that program with you B.S. plus the certification to begin as a personal trainer.

For many, it's not about what the degree is in, but where it is from.

Most athletes outside of men's basketball and football and the majority of athletes major in something of substance. More athletes participate in other sports besides football and men;s basketball. For example, Maryland Women's Basketball had 3 seniors go off to medical school the same year. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2016/03/24/three-players-put-the-md-in-maryland-womens-basketball/?utm_term=.5952cef04967

That is true. The least popular sports were the ones who did churn out some with real majors.

I knew one basketball player who could only read at the level of an elementary schooler. I was his assigned tutor for a math course and it was one hell of a struggle to get the lowest C possible with him in that course. I can't imagine what it took (probably cheating, let's be honest) for him to get a C in english and lit courses. He was THE star of the team, though, and destined for the NBA. Until late in the season his junior year when he blew out knee and then got a terrible infection after surgery. He was never even 80% again afterwards and never played ball again. I'm not even 100% sure he graduated from college. If not, I'm not sure where he's at now in life is all that great based on his level of understanding of most academic things.

You should google him. I would.

[Anonymous]

The kids will probably want to leave anyway.

Who would stay in that situation knowing that their classmates and professors likely know?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Down falls another pillar of what used to make us better than many foreign lands.

This headline is THE definitive answer to all of those people who whine about affirmative action.

Affirmative action is for the poor to counter the bribes? Huh ?

This scandal shows that wealthy people are more than willing to use their privilege to cheat their way into institutions that they couldn't get into otherwise.

Black and Latino kids are usually assumed to have only gotten in because of their race.

But I can promise that no AA candidate's mom paid someone to boost their SAT score from 1020 to 1420 they way Huffman did.

Everybody that test preps is paying to boost their kids SAT score.

Come on, you can't seriously be comparing test prepping a student with someone fraudulently impersonating a student to take a test for them?

A test prepping student still needs to bust his ass! Prepping is hard work! How dare you equate that with cheating!

But what about the families that can't afford the prep. I went to one of those free "let me show you how we do this" seminars and it is dirty. Not illegal like this, but dirty. Showing kids every shortcut, what to look for, how to decipher and breakdown each question. Which passages to read, which ones to skip. How many X questions are on each test and how to learn those. The last 3 years trended this way. blah blah blah.

It is an upper hand to those that go to those prep courses. Not to mention the $100/hr tutors that come to your house to find every angle to get you a better score. Even families living her making $100K to $250K have no idea what the rest of the country is like. Maybe you didn't bribe people, but you allowed your child everything they needed. No working during the school year (my kid is "sooooo" busy!) You made sure they got into top private schools and paid for it. You went over all the forms 10X over and made sure your kids applied IB and magnet. You decided where you would live in relation to schools/education. You pushed until they got into the classes they needed for a inflated GPA. You paid for educational camps and clubs. You made their applications "well rounded" with tons of EC's. You have the money to allow the kids to take it multiple times and get tutors/prep between each one to micromanage it into a better score.

I mean even having the time to read to your kid is more than many poor and lower middle class families have time or event the means to do. Handing them activities as kids, money each week for doing nothing is entitlement. I mean how many seniors have never worked a job, but have cars in the school parking lot? Entitlement. YOU just don't see it that way because you have surrounded yourself with similar people.

Many kids can not do EC's because they work 30 hours a week while going to high school full time. This helps keep food on the table for their family. Many could never in a million years get test prep or tutors, let alone a book to help them study on their own. Many go home to no heat or electricity. Many are fosters or homeless. Or basically parentless with drugged out families.

College admissions will never be even be close to even unless they took every kid to a boarding school away from their families (for better or worse) and teach them there. No money given. They apply on their own to colleges. But that will never happen.

So at the very least, they need to stop inflated grades. Stop allowing so many retakes of standardized tests. Stop making EC's such a big deal. Stop allowing donations and legacy to have any merit on a child's worth into a college. And for the love of God, get rid of the ED and ED2 that are also for only the rich. So corrupt.

This is so true, it is SCARY.

I am African-American and my parents paid for me to have private test prep. I am from an average family and I even had tutors in high school for math and science. Several, of my peers also had the same thing and are minorities.

Average in America is total income of $56,000. Are you saying your parents made that or less and still paid thousands for test prep and a hundred dollars an hour for tutors? And why are you mentioning race? No on here is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the kids will get to stay.

They didn't do anything illegal.

Except having someone take their SATs for them??
You can't be serious.

not all of them did that though

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand why these people had to bribe their way into universities. If they have that much money and the contacts to go with it, then does it really matter where these kids attend college? Lori Laughlin’s daughter would follow the same career path (influencer or whatever) whether she attends ASU or USC. Let’s not pretend that where these kids go to college really matters because they’re set for life no matter what. How was this worth risking their reputations and getting into legal trouble? The risk truly wasn’t worth the reward. Is it for the parents’ bragging purposes? What was the point?

Is it possible the parents didn't know this was illegal?

I doubt they're that bright or with it. They may have thought they were just working with a really expensive college counselor with excellent results (hence why really expensive).

Like all the people who got suckered into Madoff's ponzi scheme. A lot of financial people knew something smelled wrong there but they didn't know what. And a lot more people had no clue whatsoever.

Ignorance of the law is not a defense, lol.

I didn't know stealing from a story was ACTUALLY theft, your honor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone explain this to me:

Once these students were admitted, how were they supposed to keep up with their coursework? Were the parents planning to bribe the professors or administrators? Did Singer continue to facilitate bribes after enrollment? What would the endgame be?

This is what I'm wondering. It's one thing to bribe your kid's way in to college, but how did they actually expect them to graduate?

It doesn't matter if they graduate, but even attending for a year or so is a decent credential while they try to figure out what to do with their lives.

It's also harder to get into some of these schools than graduate. They can also easily afford a 5-year plan, so there is time to re-take classes etc.

I went to Stanford. Believe me, there were complete idiots who managed to graduate just by picking an easy major.

And by paying people like me to do their work for them. I attended two whole classes in my time at my university as another student. They were both from wealthy families and terrible at math. My university didn't make you show ID for any tests (and still doesn't, from what I hear), you just had to write your student number on your test. The key was to stick to the larger lecture courses with 100+ students where you could just blend in. I know someone who pretended to be another student in the lab portion of a biology course with only 35 other students. Just thinking about doing that would make me anxious.

Trust me, cheating is still rampant in college.

Congrats for being a scumbag.

Grad students who adjunct at Christopher Newport are paid 1700 dollars for teaching an entire semester long course. It is the criminally low wages paid to grad students which creates the conditions where some grad students are going to feel driven to cheat by people for whom 1700 dollars is pocket change. The issue is not the criminal behavior of people who take courses for others. It's the ridiculous wage structure in our nation that pays a college president 5 million dollars and a professor 1700 dollars. This is why cheating is rampant in places like Africa and CHina and why it is now being exported to the US, along with Russian kleptocracy. Wage inequity creates corruption. It's not rocket science.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the kids will get to stay.

They didn't do anything illegal.

But they actually did not qualify. If you got in for crew, and it's exposed that you do not know how to play, how would the college let you stay? If you got in with a 1420 SAT score, but it's revealed publically that you got that through your parent's cheating, how could they allow you to stay?

The students won't go to jail, but those who knew about this may be dismissed from the colleges, for submitting a false application. For example, the ones who posed for pictures on an ERG to show their commitment to crew were clearly complicit and there is language on the Common App requiring students to state that all information is true and accurate.

Very similar in my mind to a person who signs a fraudulent tax return without reading it. They can still be held accountable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Down falls another pillar of what used to make us better than many foreign lands.

This headline is THE definitive answer to all of those people who whine about affirmative action.

Affirmative action is for the poor to counter the bribes? Huh ?

This scandal shows that wealthy people are more than willing to use their privilege to cheat their way into institutions that they couldn't get into otherwise.

Black and Latino kids are usually assumed to have only gotten in because of their race.

But I can promise that no AA candidate's mom paid someone to boost their SAT score from 1020 to 1420 they way Huffman did.

Everybody that test preps is paying to boost their kids SAT score.

Come on, you can't seriously be comparing test prepping a student with someone fraudulently impersonating a student to take a test for them?

A test prepping student still needs to bust his ass! Prepping is hard work! How dare you equate that with cheating!

But what about the families that can't afford the prep. I went to one of those free "let me show you how we do this" seminars and it is dirty. Not illegal like this, but dirty. Showing kids every shortcut, what to look for, how to decipher and breakdown each question. Which passages to read, which ones to skip. How many X questions are on each test and how to learn those. The last 3 years trended this way. blah blah blah.

It is an upper hand to those that go to those prep courses. Not to mention the $100/hr tutors that come to your house to find every angle to get you a better score. Even families living her making $100K to $250K have no idea what the rest of the country is like. Maybe you didn't bribe people, but you allowed your child everything they needed. No working during the school year (my kid is "sooooo" busy!) You made sure they got into top private schools and paid for it. You went over all the forms 10X over and made sure your kids applied IB and magnet. You decided where you would live in relation to schools/education. You pushed until they got into the classes they needed for a inflated GPA. You paid for educational camps and clubs. You made their applications "well rounded" with tons of EC's. You have the money to allow the kids to take it multiple times and get tutors/prep between each one to micromanage it into a better score.

I mean even having the time to read to your kid is more than many poor and lower middle class families have time or event the means to do. Handing them activities as kids, money each week for doing nothing is entitlement. I mean how many seniors have never worked a job, but have cars in the school parking lot? Entitlement. YOU just don't see it that way because you have surrounded yourself with similar people.

Many kids can not do EC's because they work 30 hours a week while going to high school full time. This helps keep food on the table for their family. Many could never in a million years get test prep or tutors, let alone a book to help them study on their own. Many go home to no heat or electricity. Many are fosters or homeless. Or basically parentless with drugged out families.

College admissions will never be even be close to even unless they took every kid to a boarding school away from their families (for better or worse) and teach them there. No money given. They apply on their own to colleges. But that will never happen.

So at the very least, they need to stop inflated grades. Stop allowing so many retakes of standardized tests. Stop making EC's such a big deal. Stop allowing donations and legacy to have any merit on a child's worth into a college. And for the love of God, get rid of the ED and ED2 that are also for only the rich. So corrupt.

This is so true, it is SCARY.

I am African-American and my parents paid for me to have private test prep. I am from an average family and I even had tutors in high school for math and science. Several, of my peers also had the same thing and are minorities.

Average in America is total income of $56,000. Are you saying your parents made that or less and still paid thousands for test prep and a hundred dollars an hour for tutors? And why are you mentioning race? No on here is.

DP: not everyone is as dumb as you are. You can do perfectly fine test prep in much cheaper ways, even for free.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sure the kids will get to stay.

They didn't do anything illegal.

Doesn’t matter whether they knew or not....if they were admitted fraudulently they should be expelled.

Loughlin's kid did and knew it was illegal.

I doubt she comes back at all for second semester. Her hated college experience is finito.



The fall semester at her school began on Aug. 20; a day later, Ms. Jade announced on Twitter that she had just arrived in Fiji. In a YouTube video, she said that she had gone for work.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/style/olivia-jade-giannulli-college-admissions-scandal.html

I'm curious if she can be charged with misrepresentation in order to build a brand and accept payment for her company under false pretenses?

She got Amazon Prime and others to pay her thousands to market to a student population she was not entitled to be among and is no longer a part of.

Daddy better have those lawyers on retainer.

Wow, good point. Any college related sponsored post could sue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess I don’t understand why these people had to bribe their way into universities. If they have that much money and the contacts to go with it, then does it really matter where these kids attend college? Lori Laughlin’s daughter would follow the same career path (influencer or whatever) whether she attends ASU or USC. Let’s not pretend that where these kids go to college really matters because they’re set for life no matter what. How was this worth risking their reputations and getting into legal trouble? The risk truly wasn’t worth the reward. Is it for the parents’ bragging purposes? What was the point?

Is it possible the parents didn't know this was illegal?

I doubt they're that bright or with it. They may have thought they were just working with a really expensive college counselor with excellent results (hence why really expensive).

Like all the people who got suckered into Madoff's ponzi scheme. A lot of financial people knew something smelled wrong there but they didn't know what. And a lot more people had no clue whatsoever.

No, it's not possible, even for actresses. The only person who might get the benefit of the doubt is Chen (cheating is nothing unusual in China).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was some at my DD’s private that got recruited to play tennis at an ivy, took a gap year, & never even joined the team when she got to campus. I wonder if it was something like this USC crew incident or the Penn basketball scandal right now.

There is a family at my daughter's private who have sent 3 girls to Princeton lacrosse over the last 6 years. Only one of the three actually plays in games consistently, the other two are on the roster but dont get into games. The family is flashy rich (the tacky kind); I wouldnt put them above bribing their way in.

Perhaps but this is not unheard of. If one kid in the family is extremely talented and the other(s) are nothing special, a coach may very well recruit the less-skilled older siblings in order to get the super-talented sibling. I had a college classmate and friend who was well aware that he was on the basketball team with a scholarship so the school could attract his super star younger brother. My friend got his degree in 4 years, his brother played for 2 years and went to the NBA.

[Anonymous]

BREAKING NEWS : Felicity Huffmann is in federal custody