College entrance cheating scandal

katie01

DIS Veteran
Joined
Nov 16, 2014
Edited with correct link

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admission-cheating-scheme/index.html?utm_term=link&utm_medium=social&utm_source=fbCNN&utm_content=2019-03-12T15:50:32&fbclid=IwAR3xMNZakv-pxfdI1Dl36fhegr5a5plhoPTezQhz9fAU0zyadke5tIB24Pc&fbclid=IwAR2vgjtd4X8dhsTvWeNS4fdWY0UrcnwD0UEoQfwhYIJ7L4IhyD91zUSwUfE

Wealthy and famous parents have always had an advantage when it comes to getting their kids into college to begin with, and heaven knows they can afford tuition if they can afford these bribes. So it's even more upsetting to think they'd actually stoop to faking their children's test scores or having them "recruited" for a sport they don't even play
 
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This is mind boggling. If you have to pay for your kid to get into these Ivy League schools, they are not smart enough!

It really makes me curious how much more challenging the actual class material is at a school like Harvard, vs your average state school. Do you really need a perfect ACT score to handle the workload? Are the parents buying good grades for these kids if they can't keep up with the classes? Or is the difficulty level about the same at all colleges, and they earn their "elite" status based on other factors?
 


This really upsets me. I have always said that there is a lot of cheating going on in the academic world and I bet this indictment only caught a portion of those cheating. I scanned through the complaint and there was everything from proctors actually changing answers on exams to fake athletic resumes including photoshopped images of the fake athletes. I saw mentions of tennis, soccer and water polo teams at elite schools being involved.

I guess this makes me so mad because I have two daughters who did it the right way. They did not cheat and had to work very hard to get into college and accomplish hard degrees. It feels like everyone who does it honestly is a victim of these crimes.
 
This doesn't really surprise me. I'd imagine it's much more common and not really unusual at all considering the financial aspect of attending certain colleges.

I'm not surprised that wealth and name automatically gives these families an advantage. I'm thinking it's perfectly legal to "donate" large sums of money to the school after the child attends and that this makes the kids of celebrities automatically more desirable (isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong if that would be considered illegal). What I'm surprised about is that they'd have to take it one step beyond that and go into illegal territory by actually faking test scores or pretending they are playing a sport that they have never played. They just threw away their reputations and that of their children when I'm sure they could have done just fine in life if their kids went to "normal" colleges (again, it's not like they have to scrimp and save for tuition like the rest of us do)
 
It really makes me curious how much more challenging the actual class material is at a school like Harvard, vs your average state school. Do you really need a perfect ACT score to handle the workload? Are the parents buying good grades for these kids if they can't keep up with the classes? Or is the difficulty level about the same at all colleges, and they earn their "elite" status based on other factors?
I think in many cases that once you are in an “elite” school the education is the same. It is all about the name recognition and contacts from the school. So much of what you get from education is what effort the student puts into the learning. A smart, hard working student at any school can learn as much as one from an elite school.
 
This really upsets me. I have always said that there is a lot of cheating going on in the academic world and I bet this indictment only caught a portion of those cheating. I scanned through the complaint and there was everything from proctors actually changing answers on exams to fake athletic resumes including photoshopped images of the fake athletes. I saw mentions of tennis, soccer and water polo teams at elite schools being involved.

I guess this makes me so mad because I have two daughters who did it the right way. They did not cheat and had to work very hard to get into college and accomplish hard degrees. It feels like everyone who does it honestly is a victim of these crimes.

I agree, and I sound like a broken record here lol, but that's exactly what I mean. They paid a boat load of money on bribes, so you KNOW they can afford to send their kids to college. If they don't get into Harvard, surely they can get into SOME college and their parents will have no trouble footing the bill. Plus their celebrity status will put them in touch with the "right" people when they are looking for jobs. Why on earth would you risk jail time and reputation and morality to take it a step beyond and cheat in these ridiculous ways? Then you have honest, hardworking kids out there who have worked their butts off and have earned admission, but can't afford to go even if they get accepted, at an elite school or otherwise.
 
I'm not surprised that wealth and name automatically gives these families an advantage. I'm thinking it's perfectly legal to "donate" large sums of money to the school after the child attends and that this makes the kids of celebrities automatically more desirable (isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong if that would be considered illegal). What I'm surprised about is that they'd have to take it one step beyond that and go into illegal territory by actually faking test scores or pretending they are playing a sport that they have never played. They just threw away their reputations and that of their children when I'm sure they could have done just fine in life if their kids went to "normal" colleges (again, it's not like they have to scrimp and save for tuition like the rest of us do)
I certainly don't think it's right and I agree that it's difficult that they would go through illegal activity to gain even more advantages. Even so, it doesn't surprise me at all. They live in a world where money talks. They got caught, but I bet there's many, many that have done the same, or worse, and haven't.
 
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It really makes me curious how much more challenging the actual class material is at a school like Harvard, vs your average state school. Do you really need a perfect ACT score to handle the workload? Are the parents buying good grades for these kids if they can't keep up with the classes? Or is the difficulty level about the same at all colleges, and they earn their "elite" status based on other factors?
I’ve said this for some time. Locally, Tulane is not any better than the the big state schools. I’ve always known it to be if you can pay you can go.
 
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I agree, and I sound like a broken record here lol, but that's exactly what I mean. They paid a boat load of money on bribes, so you KNOW they can afford to send their kids to college. If they don't get into Harvard, surely they can get into SOME college and their parents will have no trouble footing the bill. Plus their celebrity status will put them in touch with the "right" people when they are looking for jobs. Why on earth would you risk jail time and reputation and morality to take it a step beyond and cheat in these ridiculous ways? Then you have honest, hardworking kids out there who have worked their butts off and have earned admission, but can't afford to go even if they get accepted, at an elite school or otherwise.
Not to mention that the children had every advantage growing up. The celebrity parents could have afforded enough private tutors and private sports coaches to make a relatively average to slightly below average child be good enough to get into a respected state school or not elite private school.
 

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