Springfield Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Quote The Justice Department on Tuesday charged more than 30 wealthy people — including two television stars — with being part of a long-running scheme to bribe and cheat to get their kids into big-name colleges and universities. The alleged crimes included cheating on entrance exams, as well as bribing college officials to say certain students were coming to compete on athletic teams when those students were not in fact athletes. The criminal complaint paints an ugly picture of high-powered individuals committing crimes to get their children into selective schools. Among those charged are actresses Felicity Huffman, best known for her role on the television show “Desperate Housewives,” and Lori Loughlin, who appeared on “Full House,” according to court documents. Authorities said the crimes date back to 2011, and the defendants used “bribery and other forms of fraud to facilitate their children’s admission” to numerous college and universities,” including Georgetown, Yale University, Stanford University, the University of Texas, the University of Southern California and UCLA, among others. One of the cooperating witnesses, according to the court documents, is a former head coach of Yale’s women’s soccer team, who pleaded guilty in the case nearly a year ago and has since been helping FBI agents gather evidence. Some of the 32 defendants are accused of bribing college entrance exam administrators to facilitate cheating on tests — by having a smarter student take the test, providing students with answers to exams or correcting their answers after they had completed the exams, according to the criminal complaint filed in federal court. Others allegedly bribed university athletic coaches and administrators to designate applicants as “purported athletic recruits — regardless of their athletic abilities, and in some cases, even though they did not play the sport they were purportedly recruited to play — thereby facilitating their admission to universities in place of more qualified applicants,” the complaint charges. More at link... https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-accuses-wealthy-parents-including-celebrities-in-college-entrance-bribery-scheme/2019/03/12/d91c9942-44d1-11e9-8aab-95b8d80a1e4f_story.html?utm_term=.eea112b95392 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatBuzz Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 I always knew Aunt Becky was a lyin, cheatin ****! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redskinss Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Honestly I always thought it was unnecessary for celebrities to do any of this stuff. I just assumed their celebrity status was enough to get their kids pretty much anywhere they wanted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Not surprised. Aunt Becky, still a 10 in my book. 2 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Just now, redskinss said: Honestly I always thought it was unnecessary for celebrities to do any of this stuff. I just assumed their celebrity status was enough to get their kids pretty much anywhere they wanted. That is a pretty expansive definition of the word "celebrity." Not sure USC is like "Aunt Becky's kid? Get that letter in the mail NOW." 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Ugh...just one more time the rich are leveraging their money and privilege over the poor. Here I am working with my son to get him into college and this is what's going on behind the scenes. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 3 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said: That is a pretty expansive definition of the word "celebrity." Not sure USC is like "Aunt Becky's kid? Get that letter in the mail NOW." "Whoa, wait. Did you mail it out? That check hasn't cleared just yet." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 I'd always just assumed that rich people's kids got in to college through the back door. No cheating involved. Make a multimillion dollar donation, your kid gets in, and they name a building after you. Not really sure I even think of it as immoral. The university gets big bucks out of it. 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozo the kKklown Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 How stupid do those kids have to be in order them to do this? If you know even a little bit about the college admissions process and how it benefits kids who goto elite private high schools, and how those private high schools game the system, and how it is all institutionalized, then you know their children have to be idiots. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 2 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said: How stupid do those kids have to be in order them to do this? If you know even a little bit about the college admissions process and how it benefits kids who goto elite private high schools, and how those private high schools game the system, and how it is all institutionalized, then you know their children have to be idiots. Right. I always assumed that the children of wealthy parents already had a clear path to the best colleges due to going to the best private preparatory schools in the first place. They are basically groomed from birth with the best opportunities. Maybe this is a way for wealthy parents of the kids who screw up and don't take K-12 seriously, to still get them into the elite colleges? 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozo the kKklown Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 1 minute ago, NoCalMike said: Right. I always assumed that the children of wealthy parents already had a clear path to the best colleges due to going to the best private preparatory schools in the first place. They are basically groomed from birth with the best opportunities. Maybe this is a way for wealthy parents of the kids who screw up and don't take K-12 seriously, to still get them into the elite colleges? Elite private high schools also inflate grades and other stuff to get those kids into elite colleges. Thats why I am so dumbfounded that they did something like this. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 If they had just got them all enrolled into Trump University, it'd have been all good. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozo the kKklown Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 It is behind the Chronicle of Higher Ed's paywall, and I do not want to share the entire article but this is about how the college admission system is rigged for elite schools: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Confessions-of-an-Admissions/241919?cid=RCPACKAGE I will share some excerpts: Quote Many of the top private schools manipulate their school profiles, a fact sheet provided by high schools that puts the applicant in context (percent of student body that goes to college, number of students, GPA range, details of curriculum, etc.). An admissions dean will know who ranks in the top 5-10 percent of the class, but the bulk of students will be grouped in one broad block. I often couldn’t tell if an applicant was just outside the top 10 percent or closer to the middle of the class. Some private schools provided no grades at all, just substituting platitudinous fluff for any indication of measurable achievement in the classroom. And that’s the rub. Private schools create applicants who are difficult to reject: The candidate is "prepared" (the assumption is the courses at private schools are more rigorous), has a relatively high SAT score (a reflection of parents’ incomes and education levels), and is touted by carefully crafted letters of recommendation from counselors who have many fewer students and far more resources than their public-school counterparts. After a while you could predict the hyperbole and buzzwords in each letter from a private-school counselor, some of which ran three pages; public-school applicants often got a paragraph that made it clear their recommender barely knew them. Neither recommendation told me much about what the student might contribute to the campus, but both provided a clear lesson in how expensive it is to not be wealthy.... Wrestle with that question long enough, and you get a terrifying glimpse into the soul of our self-congratulatory, self-satisfied, self-appointed American elite. As a society, we’ve abided the creation of a system of credentials that keeps the wealthy in place. It is the wealthy who teach the middle class the checklist for success in college admissions and whom to blame when they can’t attain those things, engendering a deep suspicion that some aspect of their birthright is being curtailed for the gain of an underserving "other." In this way, the politics of fear informs the politics of fair. The majority of white Americans are, in fact, right to be afraid. But those justifiable fears are perpetually exploited to serve the aims of the very people holding them back. The definition of "fair" now belongs to those who reshape it to ensure their self-interests are disguised as the greater good. 5 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warhead36 Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 Not really shocked at all. Well, I am surprised they were dumb enough to get caught. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 It does raise the question though for private schools & charter schools at large, how much better are the students performing than public schools? How blatantly are private schools getting away with "cooking the books" on student's profiles in order to aid them getting them into colleges? Aren't there issues right now with a lack of transparency when it comes to Private/Charter schools? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redskinss Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 23 minutes ago, BenningRoadSkin said: How stupid do those kids have to be in order them to do this? If you know even a little bit about the college admissions process and how it benefits kids who goto elite private high schools, and how those private high schools game the system, and how it is all institutionalized, then you know their children have to be idiots. Yeah, kinda what I was thinking. We know trump is a complete moron and yet he still graduated from a prestigious college. I guess I just always assumed this was the norm and not neccessary to break any laws to get it done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bozo the kKklown Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 (edited) 5 minutes ago, NoCalMike said: It does raise the question though for private schools & charter schools at large, how much better are the students performing than public schools? How blatantly are private schools getting away with "cooking the books" on student's profiles in order to aid them getting them into colleges? Aren't there issues right now with a lack of transparency when it comes to Private/Charter schools? Charter Schools, since they receive state funding, they have to share their data. You can find the data, charter schools do not outperform public schools at all and in many instances hurt their students. Charter schools are a cash grab for rich and wealthy people. 3 minutes ago, redskinss said: I guess I just always assumed this was the norm and not neccessary to break any laws to get it done. the way the elite private school system is devised to get kids to attend elite colleges is all institutionalized. This was different. Edited March 12, 2019 by BenningRoadSkin 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 This is something could potentially shake up the entire private vs public school debate if it is looked into properly. Are elite private schools actually offering a better education/better results or is your "tuition" more going towards creating a fudged version of a college admissions packet, regardless of what your actual performance at the school was? Then again, because we are largely dealing with the wealthy elite, it will likely go nowhere beyond the arrests that have already been made. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
visionary Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 I don't care what school you go to, you get out of it what you put into it. Some schools are better then others, but its certainly not because they are labeled public, private, or charter. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 13 minutes ago, NoCalMike said: It does raise the question though for private schools & charter schools at large, how much better are the students performing than public schools? How blatantly are private schools getting away with "cooking the books" on student's profiles in order to aid them getting them into colleges? Aren't there issues right now with a lack of transparency when it comes to Private/Charter schools? Maybe I read the article too quickly, but this doesn't seem to be a case of a private (or other) school cooking the books. It seems to be a case of for-profit "college admissions advisors" and parents committing straight up fraud. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoCalMike Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 4 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said: Maybe I read the article too quickly, but this doesn't seem to be a case of a private (or other) school cooking the books. It seems to be a case of for-profit "college admissions advisors" and parents committing straight up fraud. I used "cook the books" in a non-traditional way. Since that is essentially fraud. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted March 12, 2019 Share Posted March 12, 2019 (edited) 9 minutes ago, Renegade7 said: I don't care what school you go to, you get out of it what you put into it. Some schools are better then others, but its certainly not because they are labeled public, private, or charter. I think this is right, with the caveat that, generally speaking, private schools will provide much greater opportunity to put more in to it. This comes from the things money can buy: more experienced/credentialed teachers, smaller class sizes, educational resources (e.g., better facitlities, lab equipment, newer books, etc). The private schools that I've looked at also have a very robust focus on college admissions, which is a huge advantage. 1 minute ago, NoCalMike said: I used "cook the books" in a non-traditional way. Since that is essentially fraud. I still don't think it applies to what happened with this FBI investigation, but maybe I am not understanding. Edited March 12, 2019 by PleaseBlitz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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