Feds uncover large-scale college entrance exam cheating plot

[Anonymous]

One of the other named parents is the co-chair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

[Anonymous]

Slightly off topic, but not entirely: Does felicity Huffman look like a completely different person to you? More like Sheryl Crow these days? What did she have done? Facelift?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Please enlighten me on where you can get private test prep for cheap or free? And tutors all thru high school.

[Anonymous]

What is the maximum time -- if any -- she's looking at?
Any lawyers here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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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.

Thank you!

It paid much better than slinging pizzas or folding clothes in retail. I have no regrets nor do I feel bad about it. Those people I pretended to be were set for life because of their family money and family influence. They just needed the degrees so they could graduate and join their family businesses.

Makes you wonder what could possibly make this dirtball feel bad. Nothing, it would seem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What will happen to the kids of the cheaters?

They'll be mercifully adopted by Teri Hatcher.

Or Bob Saget.

I hope not, he's a perv.

[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.

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

It was an off-shoot of doing their homework for them. I used to make money writing papers for people and doing their homework. I gave up the paper writing because I was in college around the time the automated plagiarism scanning became popular in use. It was too risky, but the loss in income was a hard one for someone who didn't have rich parents and was only able to hold a part time minimum wage job while in school. I just jokingly said "this would be a hell of a lot easier if I just started off pretending to be you at the start!" and it was a light bulb moment.

His major required Statistics to be taken and passed with a B and this Stats class was one of the hardest at our university. The homework to test average heavily leaned in favor of tests, which could only be taken in the classroom. The math coursework I was doing for him prior to Stats consisted of me completing his homework and the online quizzes for him while he struggled through the tests and it worked out well to earn him a B. So Spring semester he signed up for the Stats course when I had a free block open with an instructor I'd never had and I attended as him the whole semester. A few semesters later he brought his friend to me and I enrolled in an intro to legal studies course as him.

[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.

No time to read to your kid? Get real.

[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?

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.

I've tried but it's difficult because his last name is very common, like Smith or Jones. His dream after retiring from the NBA was to coach little league so I hope that's where he ended up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Welp!! Lori Loughlin just blocked me on Instagram, can’t tell you how proud I am

Can we just start with the fact that you follow her in IG.

I actually don’t FOLLOW her on IG . Her page was public and I decided to unload , guess I wasn’t the only one .

Sure... "she blocked me"... okay lady.

[Anonymous]

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.

Wait, are you actually arguing in favor of the people who got busted today for cheating? Are you saying this is just an order of magnitude type of thing?

Are you saying that, because I read to my public school Elementary kids at night, we are entitled and it's just the same as paying someone $500K to lie and say my teens are crew stars?

Can't convince me it's the same as outright fraud and bribery. But nice try! I'm guessing you've just been hired by Felicity Huffman's crisis management team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

No time to read to your kid? Get real.

+1.

[Anonymous]

And this is why colleges are businesses and no longer for advancing your education. Between athletics and the crazy money many professors get paid....it’s all about the money. Save your money and kids go to a tech school, learn a trade.....much more useful. You’ll come out with 20000 of debt vs 70000+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: One of the other named parents is the co-chair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

I saw that. Pretty bad optic. I'm not a lawyer but I was curious about the likely ramifications. I hate to say it does he lose his license or does he just buy himself out of this as well ?

[Anonymous]

I'm confused. Who is the mole that turned them in? Like in the case of the Wilkie Farr guy - there's a transcript with quotes between him and CW1. Where did those come from?