Massive Cheating Scandal to Get Children Admitted to Elite Colleges

off topic wrote:

folks are now ranting about colleges letting in Kennedys, Bushes and Trumps, but that's not what this thread is about

This thread is about "not quite rich enough folks" who couldn't buy their way in through the school, who found a third party consultant offering a plan to get around the system by cheating on test scores, and faking athletic profiles. The universities are mad because someone gamed the system, and the bribes paid did not end up in the university coffers.

The Feds have no issue with "the standard shakedown for donations", that policy will continue unimpeded.

Actually these people were rich enough - A-list actors, CEOs, casino magnates - they just wanted the discount rate.

Libs are cheaters wrote:

Everyone involved is a rich liberal. This is how liberals live their lives. They don’t give money to the poor or try to conserve in order to save the planet. They just want everyone else to do those things.

Why do you think President Trump hasn't commented on this? Think very carefully.

side door wrote:

off topic wrote:

folks are now ranting about colleges letting in Kennedys, Bushes and Trumps, but that's not what this thread is about

This thread is about "not quite rich enough folks" who couldn't buy their way in through the school, who found a third party consultant offering a plan to get around the system by cheating on test scores, and faking athletic profiles. The universities are mad because someone gamed the system, and the bribes paid did not end up in the university coffers.

The Feds have no issue with "the standard shakedown for donations", that policy will continue unimpeded.

Actually these people were rich enough - A-list actors, CEOs, casino magnates - they just wanted the discount rate.

A few might have been rich enough to do it the old fashioned way - donate $10 million plus to build a new wing on the library or endow a professorship - but it would appear most of them were not at that level. Just because you are “worth” $50 or $75 million doesn’t mean you can (or would want to, even if you could) write a check for $10+ million. I doubt very few people would be willing to spend 15-20% of their entire net worth just to get their kid accepted at a school.

And then some.

LIS (laughing in silence). Only a 997 SAT score and I got through a good university just fine with a lot of hard work.

My sympathy to those who have it so easy. Unfortunately those folks won't ever have good values or ethics. But then maybe unearned wealth is a good substitute.

This. Ivy league colleges, and the other "prestigious " universities tuition might be increasing a little bit in the near future. Lol

I think you are confusing this with legacy admissions, which are legal. It basically means admissions officers take into consideration that your parents are alumni because alumni tend to be big donors. It's like affirmative action for the rich and well connected. In any cases, that is legal. But if you're taking bribes, that's different. But there is no law against simply saying: X is wealthy and well connected and popular, so X gets the nod.

joedirt wrote:

This has been going on at every Ivy League school basically since they have opened. Of course the reverse happens at a lot of top athletic schools where the universities pay money to get kids with SAT scores 200+ points below the rest of the student body. And even at that, a large number of them have others take the tests for them so that they don't have to attend junior college. Colleges are corrupt. This is nothing new. College endowment funds are built off of corruption. All of the top universities have spots for sale.

The most absurd part of this, or one of the more absurd ones, is that Lori wasted $500,000 on USC...of all schools. I assume the tuition was covered in that as well.

No waitlist wrote:

A few might have been rich enough to do it the old fashioned way - donate $10 million plus to build a new wing on the library or endow a professorship - but it would appear most of them were not at that level. Just because you are “worth” $50 or $75 million doesn’t mean you can (or would want to, even if you could) write a check for $10+ million. I doubt very few people would be willing to spend 15-20% of their entire net worth just to get their kid accepted at a school.

Ha, that's quite true. It's not just paper wealth that matters. Some are super rich in terms of their stock value, but not rich enough to simply give 10% of their wealth to build a new wing of the school.

I know a girl who went to Georgia Tech whose mother made some large donations to the computer science program while the daughter attended the school. Bet she didn't have much difficulty finishing out her degree...

Nobody has commented that this is how wejo and rojo got into the Ivy leagues?

It wasn't their spelling and grammer

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

I'm beginning to think that the powerful and wealthy in this country are all corrupt. That they constantly use bribery and graft to game the systems to work exclusively for them and their progeny.

So, how do we fix this? Meaningful social, economic, and, political reforms to level the playing field or something akin to what those Bolsheviks did in 1917? Trouble is brewing...

No, it’s capitalism unchecked and under regulated. Obviously a whole industry for finding ways to get kids into college was allowed to form. People tend to use whatever power (money, status, etc..) they have to grow their way. If you put restrictions on that, they run the show. Are you really shocked that wealthy people would participate in this? If it cost $100 to do it instead of $100k, trust me, everyone else would be diving in too. But we love everything unchecked in this country so don’t be surprised.

the obvious point wrote:

Nobody has commented that this is how wejo and rojo got into the Ivy leagues?

It wasn't their spelling and grammer

They didn’t get into Ivy League

Everywhere I go, there's not a single pitchfork in stock. What's up with that?

tarckstar wrote:

Libs are cheaters wrote:

Everyone involved is a rich liberal. This is how liberals live their lives. They don’t give money to the poor or try to conserve in order to save the planet. They just want everyone else to do those things.

Why do you think President Trump hasn't commented on this? Think very carefully.

Kellyanne Conway did but she’s not the sharpest knife in the shed.

whatschool wrote:

the obvious point wrote:

Nobody has commented that this is how wejo and rojo got into the Ivy leagues?

It wasn't their spelling and [grammar]

They didn’t get into [the] Ivy League

Of course they did. Princeton (Robert) and Yale (Weldon) both are members of the Ivy League, an eight-school athletic conference.

And I think there was at least one oblique reference to their Ivy-ness in this thread already.

The BrosJo (or at least Robert) have addressed this topic in the past. The twins were good students in high school (but Robert, *everyone* got 800 on SAT Math) and it was not a particular "stretch" to get them in. Was family influence/prestige a factor in their admissions? Likely, but so what? There are "hooks" for pretty much anyone who succeeds in being admitted.

[This resonates with me because for many years I thought that *I* was admitted to Caltech and Stanford "strictly on merit": top of my high school class, top (top) SAT score, Presidential Scholar, yadda. But in fact I was poorly educated (which showed up on my CEEB subject tests), had never heard of Advanced Placement (much less taken an AP course or exam), and realistically was top of the class only because my working-class high school's courses were conducted in English and most of my classmates spoke something else at home. My hook was that I went to school in the middle of nowhere, and I received *geographic* affirmative action.]

In any case, there's a big difference between a hook and outright fraud. There's no suggestion that the BrosJo's admissions were fraudulent. Frankly, they would not have needed that.

Everyone involved in this is NOT a liberal. I realize people on the Right just toss out statements like that all the time, but it isn't even nearly true in this case.