For sure. Plus, what this scam/ruse lays bare is that the bar to get into some of these schools is much higher than the bar to graduation. You basically need to be an A student to get in, but you don't need to do A-grade work to graduate.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 13:31 (five years ago) link
this is what i was getting at yesterday:https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/college-cheating-scandal-an-admissions-officer-speaks-out.html
Not infrequently, I would pull up a student’s file, see my “Defer” or “Deny” recommendation, and then a second reviewer recommending the same thing, and then a high-ranking admissions staff member would flip the decision to admit. Usually, the justification would be a brief couple of sentences with purposefully vague language, like “Student has struggled with math sequence but should be fine with on campus tutoring resources, ADMIT.” I saw these decisions flipped frequently for students from affluent backgrounds, and rarely for students who’d applied for financial aid. Once, I saw a student who fell far below our clearly outlined admissions requirements admitted — this student was heir to a popular processed-meat company’s fortune.Although our school advertised our “holistic” review process, our director typically used test scores to screen applicants. His rationale was that these were “riskier” students. The only time he didn’t? If the student could pay full price to attend our institution, or a “full pay” student. He was not coy about this fact, and would frequently make comments about how students from Silicon Valley could “afford” to come here. When I planned my recruitment trip in California, I was given an Excel spreadsheet that listed high schools by average household income.
Although our school advertised our “holistic” review process, our director typically used test scores to screen applicants. His rationale was that these were “riskier” students. The only time he didn’t? If the student could pay full price to attend our institution, or a “full pay” student. He was not coy about this fact, and would frequently make comments about how students from Silicon Valley could “afford” to come here. When I planned my recruitment trip in California, I was given an Excel spreadsheet that listed high schools by average household income.
― John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 14:39 (five years ago) link
processed meat scion tyler hormel
― j., Wednesday, 13 March 2019 14:48 (five years ago) link
yeah, another article I was reading was saying that full pay, white men were highly sought after since demographics of colleges had been skewing more female.
― Yerac, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 15:05 (five years ago) link
Eh, full pay, full stop more like. Up until maybe very recently University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign had something like 6000 Chinese students, over 10% of the student body, because reportedly students from China were more likely to pay full price.
Isn't Tucker Carlson literally an heir to a processed meat fortune?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 15:27 (five years ago) link
It means nothing but the difference between Laughlin and Luke Perry struck me. They were both on foolish programs but Laughlin seemed content to cash the check while Perry wanted to be an actor.— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 13, 2019
― Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 16:52 (five years ago) link
my other main thought about this is that people are still shocked that the millennial generation is having fewer children. having children means subjecting them to this shit
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:10 (five years ago) link
(well, not *always*, but for people who want their children to attend college)
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:11 (five years ago) link
i thought it was because millenials have an absurd amount of student loan debt compared to the relative value of their college educations
― sarahell, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:31 (five years ago) link
like, if you compare the inflation of college tuition to the housing market 10 yrs ago, and how the subprime mortgage industry contributed to it ... you can't just abandon your college degree for the bank to take back, or even, refi your student loan debt based on the increased value of your degree ... I feel like it's in this context -- average adults with 6 figures of education debt -- that rich people paying tens of thousands of dollars so that they can pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kids' college education is grotesque
― sarahell, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:35 (five years ago) link
but back to defending the Ivy League -- the main reason I went to an Ivy League school is that they had the money to give me a scholarship for 1/3 - 1/2 of the tuition whereas my 1st choice school waitlisted me for financial aid.
― sarahell, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:38 (five years ago) link
Can't help but hear Brett Kavanaugh's voice ringing out -- "When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School. I've worked my a... tail off"
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:39 (five years ago) link
I do kind of wonder just how widespread this sort of out and out bribery is. I never assumed merit, but I usually assumed it was more "playing the game the right way" that got affluent kids into these schools -- juicing up your extracurriculars with stuff that you were half-hearted about, getting an essay coach to heavily edit your essay, tons of SAT tutoring, subject tutoring to get grades up etc. I didn't imagine merit but I imagined there was still some degree of effort and shrewdness involved, not just your parents literally writing a check (outside of a handful of ultra-wealthy donors like Jared Kushner's dad).
― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:43 (five years ago) link
It means nothing but the difference between Laughlin and Luke Perry struck me. They were both on foolish programs but Laughlin seemed content to cash the check while Perry wanted to be an actor.— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) March 13, 2019― Let's have sensible centrist armageddon (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 13, 2019 12:52 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I feel dumber after having read that.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:43 (five years ago) link
ya also i'm pretty sure Richard Nixon is dead
― sarahell, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 17:48 (five years ago) link
― sarahell, Wednesday, March 13, 2019 1:31 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
well, yeah, there are a lot of factors (an oft-cited one is climate change) but this certainly does not help
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 18:44 (five years ago) link
could you link to a data supporting the climate change argument? that strikes me as unlikely
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 13 March 2019 18:51 (five years ago) link
not sure how useful that data would be, i mean if you're relying on people to just tell you why they're not having kids i would imagine a certain percentage are going to default to the most noble/tragic explanation.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:12 (five years ago) link
that's not to say some people don't genuinely feel that way, I just mean it's a good easy answer if the real answer (as it often is) is something much more complicated and personal.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:15 (five years ago) link
it's a bit too early for there to be any actual studies, but it has been written about: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/climate/climate-change-children.html
AOC also mentioned it earlier this year: "Our planet is going to hit disaster if we don’t turn this ship around. There’s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead, I think, young people to have a legitimate question: Is it okay to still have children?"
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:21 (five years ago) link
I heard there were celebrity parents involved here, but turns out it was Lori Loughlin and Forgotten Whoozis.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:33 (five years ago) link
if they had died you would still post about them (and the 70s film shorts they were in) in the obit thread
― mookieproof, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:38 (five years ago) link
William H Macy also apparently involved though not named in the complaint.
― o. nate, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:08 (five years ago) link
typical Frank Gallagher
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:28 (five years ago) link
Also, if you're a well-connected person at a school like Yale, you are going to have the opportunity to ride the coattails of other well-connected people into ventures with a possible upside of well over six to seven figures.
fuck all these schools and their connections, burn them shits to the ground
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:31 (five years ago) link
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2017/04/12/subsidizing_the_ivy_league.html
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:41 (five years ago) link
lol
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:42 (five years ago) link
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Wednesday, March 13, 2019 3:21 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
thanks. I’m not very convinced this has much to do with the trends we’ve been seeing over the past couple of decades, at least compared to things like widespread access to birth control, student loan debt, and people marrying later (which of course could be related to the above)also as evol alludes to, philosophical opposition to having kids has a long history, and this may just be the latest reason for it
― k3vin k., Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:52 (five years ago) link
Uh
OMG: “My daughter and a group of students left for spring break prior to the government's announcement yesterday. Once we became aware of the investigation, the young woman decided it would be in her best interests to return home.” https://t.co/1GHMMlKABA— Matt Pearce 🦅 (@mattdpearce) March 13, 2019
― Mario Meatwagon (Moodles), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 23:37 (five years ago) link
sprang braaaaaaaaaake
― j., Wednesday, 13 March 2019 23:56 (five years ago) link
Given that Lori Loughlin's most prestigious credit was Full House, you may be lil bit off there mook
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 14 March 2019 01:22 (five years ago) link
― nathom, Thursday, 14 March 2019 07:21 (five years ago) link
That seems a very favorable reading of the evidence. But yeah they didn’t have enough to charge him.
― o. nate, Thursday, 14 March 2019 14:17 (five years ago) link
when I was a TA at a uni famous for football I taught a class of football players & one guy who literally was "heir to a popular processed-meat company’s fortune" was in the class. he'd been given a football scholarship at this uni, & I don't think he ever played a down in his 4 years. always figured it was this kind of bullshit. one weekend during the class (it was during the summer) this guy flew the whole football team to his dad's mansion in arizona or whatever for a giant party. I think they ate a ton of canned chili.
― L'assie (Euler), Thursday, 14 March 2019 16:21 (five years ago) link
one thing that's pretty fucked up is it seems like most of these kids had no idea what their parents were doing, so now they have to deal with the possibility that they'll be expelled from the schools they were accepted to, and the ones who aren't at least have to deal with public humiliation at having been accepted illegitimately. And they'll be labeled as cheaters even though with few exceptions they were not privy to the cheating done on their behalf. I do feel bad for most of them. Though not super bad for the Loughlin/Mossimo scion, tbh.
― omar little, Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:02 (five years ago) link
I do think the reporting around this has done a good job of painting the parents as the monsters over the students, with the glaring and well-deserved exception of Loughlin's daughter
― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:37 (five years ago) link
well them and this guy:
Son defends parents caught in college admissions scandal while smoking blunt https://t.co/4zD4EdKM5q pic.twitter.com/rYC05uGRdt— New York Post (@nypost) March 14, 2019
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:38 (five years ago) link
"no idea" is a stretch. many of the shady activities required the kids' participation.
to the extent that they'd have "no idea" that e.g. collaborating with friendly doctors to support a disability diagnosis allowing for extra time or unorthodox proctoring it's bc so many privileged families are doing this already but stopping sort of changing answers or submitting someone else's test.
― Larry Elleison (rogermexico.), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:39 (five years ago) link
"son, we need to have a talk. our family has been implicated in a massive college admissions cheating scandal the likes of which have not been publicized in decades, but one where it's theoretically possible the kids can mostly escape blame. so, what I need you to do is go out and be as unsympathetic as humanly possible. do you think you can do that for us?"
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:39 (five years ago) link
omg lol at that dude, wow
― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:41 (five years ago) link
xp -- at least for the cases where the proctors changed the kids' scores, I've seen a couple of arguments along the lines of "of course the kids knew when they got a SAT score 400 points higher than the last one," which doesn't make sense to me at all. have people never taken an exam, walked out of the room being utterly convinced they flunked it, and then found out they got an A? or have people never just straight-up guessed on a multiple-choice test and found out they guessed correctly?
― theorizing your yells (katherine), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:42 (five years ago) link
The toker, who sports a ponytail and raps under the name “Billa,” then shamelessly plugged his music. “Check out my CD, ‘Cheese and Crackers,’ ” he said of his 2018 five-track record that includes a song titled “If I Lost My Money.”
― jmm, Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:43 (five years ago) link
xp: Agreed, also some of these kids seem to have been actively studying for these tests, so an improvement in scores would have been interpreted by them as validation that their studying paid off.
― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:44 (five years ago) link
I will freely admit that I don't really understand the world of 'connections' but I was figuring that:
i) the kids of wealthy celebrities already have a lot of connections by virtue of being the children of celebrities and
ii) the kinds of Yale connections that would lead to starting up or being invited to join seven-figure ventures would still require you to be, idk, pretty good at what you were studying at Yale.
But yeah, clearly not a world I get.
― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:53 (five years ago) link
Although now, when I put i) and ii) together, I realize you probably mean that competent go-getters at Ivies may well want to associate themselves with children of the rich and famous because of their names.
― All along there is the sound of feedback (Sund4r), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:55 (five years ago) link
I think there are probably very few kids who were not in on it, and I am not going to feel bad about these Richie Riches when this will likely have exactly zero effect on their future life prospects.
― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Thursday, 14 March 2019 18:58 (five years ago) link
xp: ding ding ding
― GDPR vs GAPDY (DJP), Thursday, 14 March 2019 19:01 (five years ago) link
I think they ate a ton of canned chili
thank you for this
― j., Thursday, 14 March 2019 19:05 (five years ago) link
i used this story in a class today to talk about financial fraud, it was wild, students have all kinds of shit to say about it
― j., Thursday, 14 March 2019 19:07 (five years ago) link
― nathom, Thursday, 14 March 2019 20:46 (five years ago) link