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Actresses, Business Leaders, and Other Wealthy Parents Charged in Massive College Admissions Scandal (npr.org)
Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people on Tuesday in a major college admission scandal that involved wealthy parents, including Hollywood celebrities and prominent business leaders, paying bribes to get their children into elite American universities. From a report: Federal officials have charged dozens of well-heeled parents, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, in what the Justice Department says was a multimillion-dollar scheme to cheat college admissions standards. The parents allegedly paid a consultant who then fabricated academic and athletic credentials and arranged bribes to help get their children into prestigious universities. "We're talking about deception and fraud -- fake test scores, fake credentials, fake photographs, bribed college officials," said Andrew Lelling, the U.S. attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
Lelling said 33 parents "paid enormous sums" to ensure their children got into schools such as Stanford and Yale, sending money to entities controlled by a man named William Rick Singer in return for falsifying records and obtaining false scores on important tests such as the SAT and ACT. Describing how Singer worked to present his clients' children as elite athletes, Lelling said, "In many instances, Singer helped parents take staged photographs of their children engaged in particular sports. Other times, Singer and his associates used stock photos that they pulled off the Internet -- sometimes Photoshopping the face of the child onto the picture of the athlete" and submitting it to desirable schools.
Lelling said 33 parents "paid enormous sums" to ensure their children got into schools such as Stanford and Yale, sending money to entities controlled by a man named William Rick Singer in return for falsifying records and obtaining false scores on important tests such as the SAT and ACT. Describing how Singer worked to present his clients' children as elite athletes, Lelling said, "In many instances, Singer helped parents take staged photographs of their children engaged in particular sports. Other times, Singer and his associates used stock photos that they pulled off the Internet -- sometimes Photoshopping the face of the child onto the picture of the athlete" and submitting it to desirable schools.
I am, however, disappointed. Angry, even. Irrationally so.
All my life I was taught to be good. To not steal, not cheat, to not lie. I live my life like that. I stay out of the way. I don't steal, I try not to cheat (my little cheats are leaving a tiny bit earlier, to get a jump on the other commuters, I have a heavy right foot so I tend to take off from lights like a scalded cat and go around corners like a cat on carpet, etc.) I have lied, and I feel bloody awful when I do. I have done bad things, and I feel truly awful.
These people don't, I guess? They just take what they want.
I always suspected that the cheaters are the ones that truly get ahead. The ones who make the big bank. (BIG bank, not get-by-and-put-some-away-for-a-rainy-day bank). They can't do it without cheating.
This just confirms it in a way that's visceral, palpable.
Think on that next time you see that what's driving that Ferrari 458 next to you is a bleached, tanned, perfect specimen and you, who has yearned for a prancing pony since childhood will likely never have one.. and if you do, it'll be a 50-year old 308. (Nothing wrong with that, but I hope you see my point. We have to earn it, they just walk in and buy one. The one who earned it will savor every tick of the valvetrain, every rrrp of the exhaust.. they who walked in and bought it will probably spill their latte all over the leather and worse, far worse.)
Once, I was leaving work, 2 jobs ago.. the wife of the CEO drove a RR Wraith, a car I'd love to just even look after, never you mind drive.. she cut to the right of all of us waiting on the left-turn light, dragged that beautiful yacht of a car all over wet concrete mud and slurry, then gunned it and went into traffic on a red light. And she gets away with it. Cunt. Her husband was no better, he drove a RR Phantom and was unable to park it without a 20-point turn.
Fuck the rich. I really do hope karma is a thing. Imagine being reincarnated from rich asshole to possum?
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Similarly, the salesperson here probably said something like, "I can get your kid into X University for Y grand. But I can't reveal our proprietary methods."
One person paid $6.5 million. They had to known it was a shady deal. $6.5 million would pay for a team of full time tutors to follow the student around all day for 4 years.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
What ever happened to getting your kid into college the good old fashioned way? Donating enough money to get a building named after you and guaranteed admission to any descendants.
According to TFA, most of these parents paid the consultant $250k to $450k. A donation that size is not going to get your kid admitted automatically. It would take millions.
But the moral/ethical/legal difference is that those millions would go to the university to help fund its operations and scholarships, rather than into the pocket of some slimebag consultant.
This is exactly right. Tuition increases and loan increases are totally a feedback mechanism. As soon as tuition goes up, loan amounts go up to match. As soon as more money is available, schools increase tuition.
The slop gets used as exactly as you describe -- what were once totally acceptable "dorm rooms" now need to be 2 bedroom condos. It would not surprise me at all if there were "dorms" on college campuses touting their in-room hot tubs.
Depends on the school and just how dumb the kid is.
Paying the full price for tuition will get most, only moderately dumb rich kids, accepted to most 'elite' schools. Less than useful if they only flunk out, but many liberal arts programs are just four year parties. Almost everybody at Harvard/Yale/Sanford gets a 4.0, the story is 'they're all that smart'...Bullshit all day long. The ones that didn't (e.g. Bush, Gore) just completely 'phoned it in' and got 'gentlemen's Bs'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
There is another important detail. Donating a building and getting special accommodation etc was an open secret. There was no "fraud" about it. Recall the issue with fraud is that the misinformation causes someone or some entity to act against their own interests. Legal definitions aside its about not eroding the trust in society. If I donate a few million to put up the "DarkOx Center for Information Science" with a nod and wink that DarkOx Jr will get accepted next year; the school has a choice they decide its worth accepting a possibly inferior candidate to get the building or they can refuse my donation.
In this case though the schools were getting nothing the consultants were pocketing the money and the schools in a lot of cases were being mislead. They were given faked test scores, faked photos of athletic achievements, told the students in question were going to play this or that sport (usually used to raise the public image of the school) when they had no intention and maybe no ability to do so. So it was pure fraud. The institutions were arguably harmed here, and the sleazy consultants made off with the cash. Also some of the bribes were funneled thru fake charities as well for what appears to be tax evasion.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Well, not exactly. These people were actually committing fraud by cheating on tests and bribing officials.
Take Jared Kushner; he was admitted to Harvard after his father pledged 2.5 million dollars in donations. But that's not so bad. Sure, it means he probably displaced a more academically qualified candidate. But *the practice* of preferential treatment of big donors has allowed Harvard to amass wealth the enables it to offer poorer but gifted students a leg up they wouldn't have been able to afford. Harvard waves tuition for students whose families make less than $65K, and allows families making between 65k and 150k to pay on a sliding scale from 0 to 10% of their income.
The people who were named for cheating displaced more qualified students too, but they contributed *nothing* to the system in return.
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Because no Conservative or Republican was ever a famous actor that went into politics, say as Governor. I can barely name three off the top of my head...
Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Ventura...
If the Republicans had any candidates under fifty there might be more.
The big lie they tell us is that getting in is a sign of merit, and using the connections facilitated by those universities to jump start your career also means you earned what you got. They market themselves as the apex of progressive enlightened intellectualism, but in reality, they act as the regulators of institutionalized classism and elitism. The issue in this case isn't that these people cheated. It is that they cheated the wrong way. There will be some faux outrage, then back to business as usual.
Oh, and this doozy of a quote from TFA:
"There will not be a separate admissions system for the wealthy," he added. "And there will not be a separate criminal justice system either."
Legacy admissions begs to differ. What a joke. How could anyone say that with a straight face?
... If you're playing sports at the collegiate level, it's because you're actually fucking good at it. The world knows this. Exactly how long did stupid celebrities think they were going to get away with pimping their fake elite athletes?
The coaches were in on it. The kids weren't actually getting recruited by the team, but the coach said the were to get them preferential admission.
Exactly. They weren't getting athletic scholarships, they were just getting an endorsement from the head coach that they were "prospects" for the team. That bumps them up the admission scale.
Once they're admitted, they don't have to join the team. Nobody will even know that they were labelled a prospect; that's all in the confidential admissions paperwork.
Almost everybody at Harvard/Yale/Sanford gets a 4.0, the story is 'they're all that smart'...Bullshit all day long.
When I was in grad school, I met a few fellow grad students who did their undergrad at those 'elite' sorts of universities. They were smart, no doubt, but no more so than the rest of us public state school people. They just had nicer clothes, cars, and more expensive hobbies.
I hate that myth that the elite schools are for smarter people. They're for wealthier people's kids, so that when those kids become wealthy/inherit that wealth, the ruling class has some faux meritocratic justification for it's own position in society. And unfortunately, so many of us buy it hook, line, and sinker.
That's a good summary and then the icing on top is that the bribes were done as charitable contributions. Not only did they attempt bribery they were defrauding the United States and state governments of tax revenues.
"Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
You guys keep saying that like it's supposed to mean something. This is probably going to trigger your wingnut lizard brain, but Gore was prescient on both the internet and climate change. Whereas Bush was always dumb as sack of hammers, taking his private and public sector positions and running their respective organizations into the ground. Positions he was handed, solely based on his last name.