defend the indefensible: THE IVY LEAGUE

http://www.quickanded.com/2010/11/why-not-yale.html

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/8/30/academic-dishonesty-ad-board/

yeah I have been boggling at that on Facebook

the most intersting comment was "was this rampant cheating or a really terrible teacher creating confusion" and the sad thing is that I could easily see either or some combination of both being true

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/29/opinion/elite-colleges-are-as-foreign-as-mars.html

Until then, is it any wonder that students in Pahrump and throughout rural America are more likely to end up in Afghanistan than at N.Y.U.?

you are less likely to end up dead at nyu but it's def ruined some lives

For deans of admissions brainstorming what they can do to remedy this, might I suggest: anything.

niiice

Most parents like mine, who had never gone to college, were either intimidated or oblivious (and sometimes outright hostile) to the intricacies of college admissions and financial aid.

I didn't even know how to go about financial aid or where to start - my school expected parents to step in and offer guidance, I suppose.

OTOH, I don't think the problem is "rural kids underserved by Harvard and Stanford," I think the problem is that Directional State U is treated as little more than a waystation for handing out Bachelors of Business Administration by society/the state/etc..

http://gawker.com/this-personal-essay-will-get-you-into-columbia-478217730

Is there anything that I can do, a lot of young people have written to ask me, to avoid becoming an out-of-touch, entitled little shit?

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118747/ivy-league-schools-are-overrated-send-your-kids-elsewhere

Counterpoint: http://doctorcleveland.blogspot.co.il/2014/07/snobs-vs-ivy-league-or-question-of-bill.html?m=1

That counterpoint seemed a bit wide of the mark to me. I didn't get the impression that the piece was really suggesting that underprivileged youth who are lucky enough to win the lottery and get into an Ivy should turn it down for a state school where they'd have to struggle. That would be crazy. Also, I doubt the author wrote the title himself. Seems like it was cooked up by an editor angling for page-views.

Here's another take:

Mr. Deriesiewicz seems shocked, shocked to discover that 250+-year-old institutions charging rack rates north of $60,000 per year to convey some tangled Latin prose on sheepskin to spotty youngsters at the end of four or more years--institutions for which the combined endowments exceed the gross national products of several small countries--should be complicit in the perpetuation and justification of entrenched socioeconomic power structures. Whence, exactly, did Mr. D think these universities' wealth, status, and prestige come from? Whence the demand for their services? From whom?

http://epicureandealmaker.blogspot.ae/2014/07/improve-yourself.html

https://tvline.com/2019/03/12/felicity-huffman-indicted-lori-loughlin-ivy-league-bribe/

Desperate Housewives vet Felicity Huffman and Fuller House‘s Lori Loughlin have been indicted for allegedly taking part in a large scheme involving parents who paid bribes of up to $6 million to get their kids into elite colleges, including Harvard and Yale, ABC News is reporting.

The indictment was filed by the United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts; the documents were unsealed early Tuesday.

More: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/feds-uncover-massive-college-entrance-exam-cheating-plot-n982136

US Attorney re the Huffman/Loughlin (among others) college scam: "We're not talking about donating a building...we're talking about fraud."

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) March 12, 2019

As Gabriel Malor said in response: "Ew, new money. How gauche."

As someone who grew up near San Diego, this is easily the funniest detail so far:

Feds dunking on USD pic.twitter.com/45RbCKy8sx

— Jon Sarlin (@jonsarlin) March 12, 2019

Hoo boy

Here you can see Lori Laughlin's daughter's "college dorm room tour," in which she says pretty much everything in the room was comped by Amazon (presumably so she'd mention that repeatedly to the 1.1 million people who've watched the video) https://t.co/YlWrIUa0PW

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) March 12, 2019

The good thing about William H. Macy being involved in a scandal is that his middle initial is readily available for me to express my astonished disappointment in him.

Oh, this is illegal?

Per the indictment, Huffman and husband William H. Macy (who is not referenced by name) paid $15,000 to have someone take the SAT in place of their older daughter, which ultimately resulted in a 1420 SAT score for her. They also allegedly pursued doing the same for their younger daughter, but eventually decided against repeating their involvement in the scheme.

Loughlin and Giannulli allegedly paid a total of $500,000 so that their two daughters would be designated as recruits to the USC crew team. Neither girl participated in the sport. Athletic recruits have a much better chance of admission than students who are not recruited.

damn

i was under the impression that donating was more common than
they're making it sound. i'm assuming what's not common is
having another person take the SAT exam in your place. it seems
like a clumsy way to try to get into a college, though.

also, while ucla has a couple of pretty good programs, for the most
part, the main reason it's "highly selective" is because they have
over 110,000 applicants a year.

there are transfer programs at community colleges that can pretty
much guarantee your admission to ucla and berkeley.

I see that maybe they "donated" the stupid way.

legit shitty parenting

Oh here's something fun.

What are your best “hacks” for the back-to-school season?

— Felicity Huffman (@FelicityHuffman) August 25, 2016

I think I'd want a higher score for $15,000.

la times article, which doesn't provide a whole
lot of details:
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-college-admissions-scale-elite-schools-20190312-story.html

so apparently it's north of 40 people and this was since 2011.
growing up, i definitely met a few people and parents that did
this. it's weird that all of a sudden they're busting people for it.

it's not that weird. this isn't the "donating to the school" thing, it's a fraudulent scheme

yeah they paid off athletic staff and coaches to accept their students as athletes when they weren't. This is above and beyond donating money. It's complete fraud and bribery. Fuck these people.

there were two options in the scheme. it was always some
type of "purchase." i'm sure they had to change it up
a bit from time to time (i'm talking in the past 20 years)
to avoid anyone not in on it to discover what was
going on.

Until then could you focus on your finals!😜 https://t.co/CtrtdIGR9f

— Lori Loughlin (@LoriLoughlin) May 13, 2015

The above was a lot cheaper than the legal 2.5mil that Kushner's criminal dad donated to Harvard before his acceptance.

This thread!

In March 2008, @brianstelter wrote a story for @nytimes about how young people were getting news online. It's a pretty straightforward story — but there's one quote in it that still has an impact on debates about digital journalism today. 1/x https://t.co/3iQoWNHEzf

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) March 12, 2019

Whoops!

Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy's bribe to the guy who fixed their daughter's SAT scores was disguised as a charitable donation for "educational programs [for] disadvantaged youth." Charming. pic.twitter.com/HVJYnwqGRU

— Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) March 12, 2019

I think I'd want a higher score for $15,000.

― jmm, Tuesday, March 12, 2019 9:49 AM (twenty-four minutes ago)

hahaha considering this is the Ivy League thread ... I mean, I got that score when I took the test when I was 13. ... I could definitely use $15,000 rn, they should contact me

haha that's how you do a humblebrag, well played.

c'mon, this is the Ivy League thread ... it would be like going on a thread for "defending rich people" and saying your family had a yacht when you were a kid

and then another poster who is also "defending rich ppl" would say, "yes! my family also had a yacht! did you vacation in the hamptons or on martha's vineyard?"

i'm assuming what's not common is
having another person take the SAT exam in your place.

I’m not sure why this wouldn’t be common when you can make $15k a time and there is barely anything to stop you.

because it is easier to get caught? this type of
corruption has been going on since i was a kid.

if you get higher than a specific score (not a high,
though), but the board sees potential in you, they
can interview you and re-assess your qualifications
based on other factors. the problem is the board
changes every year or so, i believe?

I’m assuming this will lead to a crackdown on SAT administrators and low-level admissions staff at universities, and not on the upper echelons of university executives who have known about stuff like this going on for centuries

Like, Donald Trump got into the Wharton school at UPenn and did “very very well” even though though he’s clearly one of the dumbest people in North America

Ivy League = elaborate scam to make Dartmouth, Cornell and Brown seem like impressive places to have gone to school

yeah, there was talk of this when george w. bush was
elected president.

I’m not sure it is that easy to get caught if you know what you’re doing, tbh. The College Board aiui has two main security mechanisms - ID check on the day and access to test-taker photographs in the event of any post-test query about identity. They’re both easily circumvented if you just find someone who looks sufficiently similar to you. Xps

hahaha considering this is the Ivy League thread ...

ha, sorry, I wasn't being serious. ftr, I didn't take the SAT or go to a fancy school.

According to his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, Trump threatened to sue Wharton and UPenn if they released his grades, so "very very well" rests upon the word of a serial liar. However, I am willing to believe Trump is regressing and is measurably dumber now than when he was a young man.

Okay so here's a good story on the goon who founded/ran this whole scam:

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article227457069.html

Among other things:

Singer in 1988 was fired as boys basketball coach of Encina High School, with a district spokesman at the time only referring to it as a“personnel matter.” The Bee reported at the time that parents said Singer had an abusive nature toward referees.

In the early 90s, Sacramento Bee archives show Singer was an assistant coach for Sacramento State’s men’s basketball team.

And of course though he's from Sacramento the scam was based out of Newport Beach. Why WOULDN'T it be based out of Newport Beach?

Also, the dude looks like this:

https://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/n6py9w/picture227458594/alternates/FREE_768/Rick-Singer.jpg

He looks like sherbet.

burt bacharach, no!

This is extremely depressing. The kid wants to keep testing until she scores well, but the mom is like ‘let’s cheat so I don’t have to deal with that.' pic.twitter.com/CqxT4BrdRT

— Barry Petchesky (@barry) March 12, 2019