Oh dear God. Reading into the indictments, it seems that a lot of the kids never had a clue that they were complicit in the schemes:<p>>... and it was like, the kids though, and it was funny 'cause the kids will call me and say, "Maybe I should do that again. I did pretty well and if I took it again, I'll do better even" Right? And they just have no idea that they didn't even get the score that they thought they got.<p>Can you even imagine what those people are going through?<p>One day you are a USC/Harvard/Stanford grad. The next day you are a fraud. And not only that, you are revealed to the entire world to be dumb as a box of rocks, just totally naked and shamed. And you had <i>no clue</i>. Your closest family members spent tens of thousands of dollars fooling you, committing very serious crimes on your behalf, and all the while, lying to you about your intelligence and work ethic.<p>For those people, it must feel like <i>The Truman Show</i> or an episode of <i>The Twilight Zone</i>. It's totally unreal.
This might be more overt than the usual form, but how does this differ from donating a new building, department, or scholarship fund and subsequently getting your kid in?<p>My mother did well in the Masters program at Stanford and I would have likely gotten in if she donated a couple million dollars but she didn’t and I didn’t (despite getting an invitation a year after accepting enrollment at another university).<p>It’s not like we ever had that type of money, but if we did I wouldn’t have wanted that.<p>It seems like they’re targeting this more obvious version of bribery but not digging in and targeting the systemic issue of affluent people buying their children’s spot in college.<p>I really don’t think it’s much harder to prove that an underperforming student who got in because their parents donated a couple million (or tens of millions of) dollars took the place of a more qualified candidate. Maybe I’m wrong...
US high school senior here. Made a throwaway for this.<p>Seeing this makes my blood boil. Not only is it essentially an open secret that the admissions process actively discriminates against Asians and other high-achieving ethnic groups--and gives a massive leg up to legacies, children of donors, etc.--these people thought they were good enough, by virtue of their wealth, to bribe and cheat their way into these top universities (and some of them, honestly, shouldn't even need cheating to get into!)<p>I've worked my tail off for the past four years (if not more) to weasel my way past the racially biased admissions office, and now I see this--brazen corruption from the elite whose egos ride on their trust-fund children's college acceptances.<p>After my personal experience and now this, I've come to a conclusion: the college admissions process in the US is fundamentally broken. This case isn't just an aberration--it's a pattern.<p>I shudder to imagine just what my children will have to go through.<p></rant>
A tweet from Yashar Ali:<p>US Attorney re the Huffman/Loughlin (among others) college scam: "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud."<p><a href="https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1105493852578697217" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1105493852578697217</a><p>Says quite a lot, doesn’t it.
general sentiment of many here is,<p>A) a private university can set any criteria they want for admissions.<p>B) a private, federally accredited, university can set different criteria of admission for different people<p>C) If a parent donates large amount of money directly to the school, and their children get accept with lower criteria -- it is perfectly ok.<p>---<p>Are there conditions, that would not make this line of thinking not ok ?<p>Is donating 'sexual favors' ok ?<p>Should the same principles be applied for job promotions in private corporations ?<p>Is it ok to do similar differential treatment, for different students, for their grades throughout the study, and not just initial admission?<p>What does it mean to be an 'accredited university'? Does accreditation implies any form of fairness?
Is that legally enforceable ?<p>Will the deans of those universities be responsible for lax rules, eg.. looking the other way?<p>… aren't those kinds of behaviors, that are then breading the 'financial services execs that 'look the other way' and caused financial crisis of '08?
This is pretty wild. Seeing the FBI tackle something like this is so far outside of the legal and cultural norms of society that it's difficult to even really comment on.
"<i>Investigators allege the scheme was run largely through Key Worldwide Foundation, which ostensibly was a nonprofit but, according to the FBI, was really a conduit for bribing college employees to get rich kids into elite schools.</i>"<p>Well, it's not like there's truth in advertising:<p>"<i>We partner with your son or daughter to identify their strengths, unlock their potential, choose the right college, position themselves for admission, and outline a course of study and extracurricular experiences to lead to a life of success."</i> -- <a href="http://www.thekeyworldwide.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.thekeyworldwide.com/</a>
I wonder if these parents will be punished as much as parents who get caught cheating on government assistance programs so that their kids have housing or food or health care.<p>Probably not. They can afford lawyers to defend them and negotiate plea deals and settlements.
This is a really good reason why college should be free and more accessible. Take away the opportunity for money to play a part in the exclusivity or stature of admission. If the studies themselves were valued more than the names of the schools it wouldn't matter as much which school was chosen. The funding sources could be bonded (that's what Freddie and Fannie are- agency bonds) and go directly to the institutions. The schools would be there to provide and not take advantage of students or put a lien on their future earnings. The money that the parents provide should go to the living expenses and study supplies of their children. For those who don't have that kind of support- the same colleges should be able to offer courses to them even if they have to get a job and have less free time or continuing education. Academics have become too rigid and this is the inflection point.
<a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme" rel="nofollow">https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admis...</a>
Has a list of people and indictments/etc that have been filed so far.
There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life?<p>If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents.<p>The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole. If you're in the GPA/SAT range to get into Stanford, but end up attending UC Irvine instead, you'll be just fine. You might even graduate with less debt and at the top of your class. On the other hand, if your parents bail you out and buy your way into Stanford when you're not qualified, it sets you up for a life of disappointment. You'll likely struggle to keep up with classmates, and won't know what it feels like to achieve on your own. It teaches reliance on mommy and daddy rather than reliance on yourself, which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world.
Those with money can always find a way to gain advantage.<p>So if you have Private universities, those with means will find ways to game the system. And they will gain opportunity inequality over those that do not have the means.<p>Stated differently, having unequal education institutions means that those that are richer will always be at an advantage to getting in the better institutions and long term contribute to opportunity inequality.
What really vexes me about stuff like this is that the rich parent's kids already have all the advantages they could possibly wish for. Why would they take away the one thing that might level the playing field a bit: education for those who worked very hard to get admitted and then get pre-empted by someone else who won the birthday lottery?
A friend of mine, from high school (~1994), had the experience of being in a family that won the state lottery. He skipped high school a lot after that, driving around in his new car. Later, I heard his parents bought him a degree from USC. USC has had a reputation in California of corruption for decades. This story should not be a surprise for many.
The FBI must be extremely bored to waste their time with that trivial day-to-day bribery that everyone takes for granted. The cultural shock to those poor rich parents must be debilitating. How is the country supposed to work if you can't grease the wheels? On the plus side, any actual crime must obviously have been extinguished.
The caption to the video currently says this:<p>"Authorities charged more than people, like actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, March 12 with being part of a long-running college admittance scam. (Allie Caren, Justin Scuiletti/The Washington Post)"<p>It seems to be saying that actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin are more than people.<p>One of the HN comments quotes "The Justice Department on Tuesday charged more than 30 wealthy people — including two television stars". The article currently begins with "The Justice Department on Tuesday charged 50 people — including two television stars". I suppose it must have been edited—and, based on the caption I see, there must be less scrutiny that goes into edits than into the original.
It doesn't seem fare that it's okay to donate millions of dollars to the university without a hope you get something like you kid in and it's not a crime (I don't care that it's an institution and not a person, you can get something).<p>Most programmers think we are in a meritocratic society and we all got to our positions based solely on raw ability, including me. Probably we are full of it. :-) I'm from a small town in the south, but my dad worked as an engineer at IBM. No doubt I was helped because I was around engineers, we talked about the world, and I knew I could probably make it there too. And he had money to help me in college.
I wonder how the points of view vary on admission based on:<p>1) financial compensation (ranging from bribes as described in the article all the way to large donations)<p>2) affirmative action<p>both of those approaches result in the admissions process deviating from being 100% meritocratic, and yet both of those approaches can be argued to help the educational institution and society overall (better facilities, more research, adding different perspectives, helping a disadvantaged group etc). I thought about this topic and this comparison in particular on my own over the weekend, so the coincidence of this being posted so soon feels a bit uncanny to me.
Anyone seen any information about what's expected to happen to the kids of these lowlife scum? I'm assuming they'll be expelled, just haven't seen it actually mentioned explicitly anywhere.
What I find interesting is that when my kid got into a UC via a semi-sport yes, it helped her, but only a tiny bit -- the overall average GPA for these students is only slightly lower (by two points -- 4.0 vs 4.2) than the overall average of who get in, but you still HAVE to make the requirements, and the SAT requirements and other requirements stay exactly the same. Why is it different at other schools like UCLA? That would seem to be an easy fix for this.
So you let in people with dubious qualification that wouldn’t have met the entry requirements. Yet they seem to graduate from these schools. Therefore curriculum must be simple enough that even less qualified|gifted|hardworking can pass. How does that make those graduates feel that got in legit, and worked hard for their degrees?<p>As a side note - somehow this topic and the wrong it represents to me makes me want to cry for mob justice.
This is why they should make it law that your kids can't attend a university if you've donated there. This and the legacy admissions nonsense is beyond absurd.<p>It's why I roll my eyes so hard when investors say that attending a top school is a "signal" that makes you a better bet to invest in as a founder. That signal is pretty damn weak if those top schools so rampantly accept bribes.
Certainly, people do at least some times give money to universities thinking they will get something out of it, like a kid being admitted. You know in closed doors it is discussed explicitly, and the fund raisers at the universities must be trying to skirt the legal limits. A bunch of them must be wandering if they are next or were wiretapped talking to the guilty ones here.
The underlying problem is that a college only needs a smattering of renowned alumni in order to maintain its academic prestige; graduating a whole lot of dummies who paid their way in doesn't detract from the cherry-picked examples of academic achievement. The remaining bulk of its prestige can be rooted in money and social position. That seems to be the formula.
It's understandable that every parent wants the best for their children and wants to give them a leg up in life and will do almost anything help their children. It's human nature that every parent appreciates and you can't fault them for that. But bribing and cheating isn't fair to other parents and their children.<p>But then neither is legacy preference of alumni's children. Or giving special treatment to large donors. Or a slew of other preferential admission policies.<p>How does one even start to fix this? It's structural and natural. The longer you live, the more you realize life isn't ideal. Meritocracy and fairness are wonderful ideals but ultimately impractical and unrealistic. Or maybe we just haven't evolved to that stage in human development?<p>I recently watched Forrest Gump and this story reminded me of Gump's mother trading sexual favors for school admission for her son. Was that ethical or even legal? I imagine we could argue about it forever and never come to a satisfactory conclusion.
I wonder if the applicants bumped by the bribed admissions would be able to bring legal action against all parties in this case? The amount of income lost by rejection to a prestigious school would seem to be a large number.
The real scandal is how many kid of congress people get into good schools, not because they're deserving nor because of bribes, but b/c the schools figure they might mifgt need a favor sometime so will take a moron
I for one am COMPLETELY SHOCKED that rich parents are able to get their kids into top colleges using their money and influence. Wow, how long has this been going on without anyone realizing it? Wow.
Why is this illegal while underfunding the schools and paying $35K to a "college counselor" not equally corrupt? Because the results of the latter are less certain?
I understand why it is unethical, but what law did they break?<p>The coach is not a government employee, so aren't you legally permitted to bribe them?
So, I want to see some data on these kids. This could be some great research, what are these kids doing now? How do they stack up against their graduating class, with career etc. Could you find some correlations, hard to see if everything was a product of their parents cash, but I would be interested in seeing some of this Data
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" --Einstein
Apparently there are no more drug cartels to go after? We’re now worried about a has-been actress who paid $15,000 so her kid could cheat on the SAT?<p>I’m skeptical of the FBI’s investigative priorities. Wall Street is suddenly squeaky-clean? No more insider trading? Ponzi schemes have all gone away? Municipal governments across the land are staffed by honest and dedicated civil servants? All defense contractors are scrupulously precise about their billing and would never ever bribe a DOD procurement official?<p>I’m not saying it’s right to engage in cheating on the SAT or bribing someone to get into a university. But inarguably there are many more crimes that are far more serious.