College entrance scandal

[Sooner or later]

Feds allege coaches bribed for school admission


The FBI and federal prosecutors have uncovered a massive bribery scheme to get students admitted to elite universities as recruited athletes and help them cheat on college entrance exams to gain admission.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston says the scheme, which it dubbed "Operation Varsity Blues," includes 50 people, including college coaches, actresses and CEOs who collectively paid $25 million to get their children into schools such as Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, Texas, Wake Forest and Yale....

Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman ("Desperate Housewives") and Lori Loughlin ("Full House") were among those who paid bribes to help their children gain admission into the universities, according to the indictment. Huffman was among 13 people taken into custody Tuesday in Los Angeles. Both actresses face one charge each of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

Parents spent anywhere from $200,000 to $6.5 million to guarantee their children's admission, officials said. Authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S. Justice Department....


More at link

[legion]

If you're going to spend $6.5 million, why not just do it the "legal" way and "donate" it to the university (and probably get your name on a building in the process)?

[ckelly78z]

You can't fix stupid.

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by legion

If you're going to spend $6.5 million, why not just do it the "legal" way and "donate" it to the university (and probably get your name on a building in the process)?

No kidding.

There was also cheating n SAT scores. One kid went from around a 1000 to 1400.

[sammyg2]

This does not surprise me at all, even the UCLA part.
They DO NOT accept the most qualified students, seen that first hand.

[Rick Lee]

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

[GH85Carrera]

Ok, so the cheating to get in, and the fake the SAT scores. That does not make the kid smarter. Does he not have to pass the tests and learn the subject? Did they bribe the professors to give them better grades?

And yea, if you have 6.5 million to "donate" do it up front and get some season tickets to games and some invites to some parties withe the other big spenders. That what I did.

[Sooner or later]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

The money went to falsify info. Paid to cheat on ACT. Money to coaches so a scholarship was taken, some by students that had never participated in the sport. And they apparently used US mail in some capacity.

[Crowbob]

Originally Posted by legion

If you're going to spend $6.5 million, why not just do it the "legal" way and "donate" it to the university (and probably get your name on a building in the process)?

Why don’t you just give the kid $6.5M and be done with It?

[varmint]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

Ok, so the cheating to get in, and the fake the SAT scores. That does not make the kid smarter. Does he not have to pass the tests and learn the subject? Did they bribe the professors to give them better grades?

And yea, if you have 6.5 million to "donate" do it up front and get some season tickets to games and some invites to some parties withe the other big spenders. That what I did.

Doubt these kids are majoring in engineering or medicine. I’ve been told repeatedly that an Ivy League liberal arts degree is a cakewalk. Once they’re in they’re made.

[Neilk]

Originally Posted by legion

If you're going to spend $6.5 million, why not just do it the "legal" way and "donate" it to the university (and probably get your name on a building in the process)?

Inflation sucks, it only cost $2.5 million to get Jared Kushner into Harvard, but that was in the 90's.

[CurtEgerer]

These aren't universities. They're 4-year all-inclusive resorts.

[jyl]

I agree, money went to more than falsifying test scores and athletic records.

[Arizona_928]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

Especially private university.
For an undergraduate degree at that?!



ASU was connected to a scandal of chinese paying 3-5 grand for someone else to take the english proficiency exam... But I guess that's small fries.

[1990C4S]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

Bribery is a federal crime. Wire fraud or mail fraud may also apply.

[Sooner or later]

Lori's kid is a class act.


https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/style/olivia-jade-giannulli-college-admissions-scandal.amp.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1#amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2019%2F03 %2F12%2Fstyle%2Folivia-jade-giannulli-college-admissions-scandal.html


After Ms. Giannulli arrived on campus, she began to incorporate college into her personal brand.

In a paid post for Prime Student, Amazon’s paid membership program for college students, Ms. Giannulli posed sitting on a bed, with the caption “Officially a college student! It’s been a few weeks since I moved into my dorm and I absolutely love it. I got everything I needed from Amazon with @primestudent and had it all shipped to me in just two-days.” (In a YouTube video posted in early September, Ms. Giannulli said that Amazon had “hooked me up with like, everything in my dorm.”)

In another post, an advertisement for Smile Direct Club, a company that sells dental aligners, Ms. Giannulli wrote: “For back-to-school season, I’ve been using a doctor-directed, at-home invisible aligner treatment.”

The fall semester at her school began on Aug. 20; a day later, Ms. Giannulli announced on Twitter that she had just arrived in Fiji. In a YouTube video, she said that she had gone for work.

Ms. Giannulli has been a public presence for several years, thanks to her frequent social media posting. She was criticized in August after posting a video with the title “basically all the tea you need to know about me (boys, college, youtubers)” in which she said that she was only going to college for “gamedays, partying.”

“I don’t really care about school, as you guys all know,” she said.

[widgeon13]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

Taking the tests for someone else, called cheating.

[Jim Richards]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme

[jamesnmlaw]

Originally Posted by Crowbob

Why don’t you just give the kid $6.5M and be done with It?

So true, so true.

[Bill Douglas]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

While this all sounds pretty bad, how is it illegal to pay someone to help your kid get into a school? What crime is that?

Sadly it means a deserving kid misses out because the available space was taken up by a cheat.