The college admissions scandal bell tolls for thee, Harvard

[Anonymous]

Interesting that an earlier thread that had STA in the title has already been taken down. This is why people hire these self important schools that have so much power. If it was bullis we’d have 20 pages by now.

[Anonymous]

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/4/5/editorial-no-auction-no-problem/

Apparently a Harvard official proposed just auctioning off a set number of seats per year as more transparent and efficient than all this side door madness, but got quickly shut down.

[Anonymous]

Why not have a lottery? Make it a transparent, no monies exchanged televised event. I’d love to watch the gentlemen from Inside the NBA call it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why not have a lottery? Make it a transparent, no monies exchanged televised event. I’d love to watch the gentlemen from Inside the NBA call it!

I agree. But I guess it's too crass for Harvard who prefers to maintain that it's a meritocracy despite the evidence to the contrary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remember that book about 'queenbee moms and kingpin dads'? What's fascinating about this scandal and the article that Caitlin Flanagan wrote in The Atlantic yesterday are that the kids are almost completely absent from the picture.

I just feel like a sucker. I thought the way to 'prep' my kid for the gifted test was to take them to museums and children's theater, kids concerts. Somebody else just bought the test online and fed it to their kids. I was so clueless!

And I stupidly thought we were supposed to take the kids to visit campuses and find which one 'fit' our kids. I thought they were supposed be involved in deciding what university to attend. Meanwhile, the kingpin dad did a backdoor deal and probably didn't even consider what the kid wanted, which university 'fit'.

I also stupidly thought that you were supposed to do Suzuki violin and piano with your kids without yelling and comparing them to other kids, and the object wasn't to make them hate music. Then I read Amy Tan's book on tiger parenting where she yelled so much during Suzuki that her kid was gnawing on the piano out of frustration. But so what! She won the piano competition! I was so clueless . . .

Lots of hypocrites out there.

Cut out the woe is me babe in the woods routine, Karen. Top high school -- public or private -- and all the upper middle class resources puts your tiger cubs in the top 1% of the nation. You're whining you're not in the top 0.01%. If your overachiever brat doesn't get into an Ivy, they go to UVA, Villanova, NYU, Vandy or Michigan. For shame!

Spoiler alert: Even if your kid got into an Ivy they'd be pigeon holed to striver and URM social circles -- the elites only hang with elites, of course. So your fantasies about them marrying "up" into some aristocrat family was desperate and deluded.

[Anonymous]

Your family's lives would be sooo different had Harvard and YPS not been rigged! You people sound like insufferable unfulfilled losers. A go-getting kid doesn't need to attend an Ivy. What you REALLY wanted was to juke your parenting. Instead of being fulfilled that you raised a normal overachiever, you wanted to be able to walk around acting as if you were the BEST parent. So much ego and insecurity in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way some folks are posting, you'd have us think that the whole Harvard undergraduate student body is comprised of kids from these so-called "gunner" families and that's the only way to get in.

What percentage of students actually fall under this development/wealth/shady sidedoor deal category? Obviously, in your minds, it should be zero percent. But are there really that many of them on campus?

IDK, parent of kid who applied from STA to Harvard the same year as one of the boys!

[Anonymous]

Ufff...St. Albans is getting no breaks. So is the St. Albans --> Harvard connection the most corrupt on East Coast?

Sexual predators and cheaters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why not have a lottery? Make it a transparent, no monies exchanged televised event. I’d love to watch the gentlemen from Inside the NBA call it!

I agree. But I guess it's too crass for Harvard who prefers to maintain that it's a meritocracy despite the evidence to the contrary.

I don't think Harvard markets itself as a meritocracy, but as the ultimate exclusive private club.

Which is fine, but then they and their members should stop receiving taxpayer money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:lol.. buyer said it was an "investment" but then sold it at a loss of over $300K.

I think this type of thing (side door) has been going on for decades and is a lot bigger than anyone realizes.

Yes, agreed. I think a lot of these degrees are going to start losing their value. It's not really a marker of anything when they can just be bought as commodities.

Wishful thinking of a parent whose kid couldn’t get in.

+1. Harvard has been Harvard for hundreds of years, although interestingly, at different points on time Princeton and Columbia were considered more prestigious. In any case, sour grapes on moms’ discussion boards only enhance the desirability, they don’t detract from it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that an earlier thread that had STA in the title has already been taken down. This is why people hire these self important schools that have so much power. If it was bullis we’d have 20 pages by now.

DOES ST ALBANS HAVE A FENCING TEAM?

[Anonymous]

Not surprising the dad was what we Chinese call a tuhao (nouveau riche, provincial tycoon). It is perfectly normal and acceptable and maybe even expected for folks like him to use their guanxi (connections) for college admissions. Having two boys at Harvard is a major bragging right that provides even more social status than just having sold an $80m business.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You pay to play. It's so wrong that Jared Kushner's entry is legitimate because his dad paid Harvard directly while Zhao will be investigated because he paid the fencing coach (by buying his house above market value). Both were buying entry into Harvard. It shows how corrupt the American system is once you scratch below the surface.

Are you really stupid enough to equate these two scenarios?

NP. I don’t think it’s stupid to draw a parallel. Both are morally corrupt. It’s just that one scenario is legal.

Don't like either scenario but his is how I see it. Donations like those made by Kushner's family typically benefit the university as a whole - perhaps a new building, expensive new science equipment, an endowed chair for a professor, etc. Perhaps it frees up money that the university was going to spend regardless on those things and that money can now go to a scholarship or renovating another building or something else. The only people that benefited from buying the house over market price were the fencing coach and perhaps the son.

There was also the charity donation when Zhao's older son was applying. Little hard to parse, but Zhao donated to a charity which then donated $100K the Harvard fencing coach's new foundation. He kept the foundation running a couple years, paying himself a $22K salary and spending administrative fees and covering travel expenses. The foundation then donated the remainder to some local charities and closed shop. There'd be some benefit to the final charities, but the bulk is money laundering.

So this definitely is a Harvard problem if there was so little oversight of the coach.

It's their tough luck that the whole college/recruiting investigation is being run out of the US Attorney's office in Boston. Boo hoo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You pay to play. It's so wrong that Jared Kushner's entry is legitimate because his dad paid Harvard directly while Zhao will be investigated because he paid the fencing coach (by buying his house above market value). Both were buying entry into Harvard. It shows how corrupt the American system is once you scratch below the surface.

It is different. I have no love for Kushner, but if big donations go directly the university it then basically pays for so-called "merit" students with financial need to get substantial aid. Nothing is free.

[Anonymous]

What a waste and a shame as it sounds like he would have gotten in anyway. He had almost perfect SAT scores, all A’s except one B at STA, which is very difficult, plus his mother and brother went there so he had legacy and sibling affiliations. Not condoning it. Also STA has nothing to do with this except that he attended the school.