defend the indefensible: THE IVY LEAGUE

itt Aimless fundamentally misunderstands school rivalries

I went to Berkeley and even I know Yale is the school of celebrities and rich kids and Harvard is a real university.

here's my quick ranking of the ivy leagues from most to least comprehensively objectionable

Yale
Princeton
Harvard
Dartmouth
Penn
Columbia
Cornell
Brown

caveat is if I lived in Providence I would probably object to Brown a whole lot

my main reaction was being afraid this was done for me on my behalf and I didn't actually earn the scores on the SAT I thought I did; it would certainly explain a lot

A true winner today:

If only there was a succinct turn of phrase these kids could have used to inform their parents they were not desirous of their life path... https://t.co/cxOTDI5J1B

— James Van Der Beek (@vanderjames) March 12, 2019

itt Aimless fundamentally misunderstands school rivalries

nah. you arrived at "lol Yale" decades before this story broke, so your professed "takeaway" was not taken from, but brought to the whole thing.

here's my quick ranking of the ivy leagues from most to least comprehensively objectionable

Yale
Princeton
Harvard
Dartmouth
Penn
Columbia
Cornell
Brown

― moose; squirrel (silby), Tuesday, March 12, 2019 1:28 PM (four hours ago

lol so proud to be an alumna of the least objectionable Ivy

ty for using 'alumna' correctly. even the ivy league schools' branded and trademarked gift shop items (bumper stickers, sweatshirts, etc.) tend to use "alumnus" for both men and women and for both singular and plural.

If you still have to learn Latin, then what's the point of paying someone off?

The whole story is so nuts to me. They didn't buy degrees; they just bought admission, which doesn't seem like it guarantees much. Presumably, they would keep paying that kind of money for good grades? And to what end? The kids of millionaire celebrities and businessmen are not lacking for money and connections. Just to be able to say your kid got into Yale? That's worth six to seven figures?

"Just to be able to say your kid got into Yale? That's worth six to seven figures?"

I mean, yeah, the root of this is vanity more than anything

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.

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.

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.

processed meat scion tyler hormel

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.

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?

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

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

(well, not *always*, but for people who want their children to attend college)

i thought it was because millenials have an absurd amount of student loan debt compared to the relative value of their college educations

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

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.

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"

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).

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.

ya also i'm pretty sure Richard Nixon is dead

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, 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

could you link to a data supporting the climate change argument? that strikes me as unlikely

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.

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.

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?"

I heard there were celebrity parents involved here, but turns out it was Lori Loughlin and Forgotten Whoozis.

if they had died you would still post about them (and the 70s film shorts they were in) in the obit thread

William H Macy also apparently involved though not named in the complaint.

typical Frank Gallagher

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

https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2017/04/12/subsidizing_the_ivy_league.html

lol

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, 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

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

sprang braaaaaaaaaake

if they had died you would still post about them (and the 70s film shorts they were in) in the obit thread

Given that Lori Loughlin's most prestigious credit was Full House, you may be lil bit off there mook

William H Macy also apparently involved though not named in the complaint.

That seems a very favorable reading of the evidence. But yeah they didn’t have enough to charge him.

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.

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.

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

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