L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal • Hacker News Board

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#91

Post by dls2016 » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

mochomocha wrote: post #86

darawk wrote: post #57

The actual problem here is not the bribery. The problem is that those bribes are being captured by random 3rd parties, rather than by the school itself. The correct way to implement college admissions is this: Charge a sliding scale fee based on application quality, and then use the excess revenue generated to subsidize poor kids tuition. Your kid has a 2.5 GPA and wants to go to Harvard? Great, that'll be a million…

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really elite if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution. The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

> if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution

Do you really think this isn't already the case?

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#92

Post by munk-a » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

madengr wrote: post #58

munk-a wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back a while high school was the sort of "standard education" things have changed and now college is considered the default level people should have in the workforce, back when college was rare I think private colleges made sense, they were more of a final specialty training step at the end of your education - now that has shifted over to PhDs - let PhD programs remain privatized for whatever reasons, but we should e…

I don’t want the USA to turn into India or China, where your academic fate is decided by some cruddy standardized test given in 5th grade.

I don't either - but neither do I want it to be determined on the even more absurd basis of who your parents are.

There should be a fair evaluation of students, designing that fair evaluation isn't trivial, but it's something we can work toward.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#93

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:33 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #38

olliej wrote: post #29

I feel like the solution here is to not bribe your children's way into school. If your children aren't academically talented and you don't have the money to publicly buy a building for the school you should accept that and just let them live off your money and power as is traditional.

I don't think building purchasing should even be allowed, remove all of the slippery slope and put students on equal footing.

[deleted]

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#94

Post by darawk » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

mochomocha wrote: post #86

darawk wrote: post #57

The actual problem here is not the bribery. The problem is that those bribes are being captured by random 3rd parties, rather than by the school itself. The correct way to implement college admissions is this: Charge a sliding scale fee based on application quality, and then use the excess revenue generated to subsidize poor kids tuition. Your kid has a 2.5 GPA and wants to go to Harvard? Great, that'll be a million…

No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it. Unless we're ready to admit that these schools aren't really elite if any billionaire's dumb dumb kid can get in with enough money thrown at the institution. The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

> No. No amount of money should get you a way to get into an "elite" school if you don't deserve it.

Why? What's so precious about elite schooling that you're willing to sacrifice 10 kids getting a free education just to prevent one billionaire's kid from going to an elite school?

> The issue with trying to solve every single problem with money is that capitalism isn't designed to solve problems where a moral compass is needed.

Except that capitalism will give more people an elite education, and your moral compass will give fewer of them one. There's a reason we don't guide economies by moral compass - it doesn't work very well.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#95

Post by slg » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

pasquinelli wrote: post #73

slg wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I feel like the solution here is to not bribe your children's way into school. Or maybe the solution should be to stop accepting bribes. I really am surprised that almost all of the public outrage is being directed at the parents and more of it isn't being directed at the people who actually received the cash. I think lots of parents are willing to stretch their morals in order to give their kid every possible advan…

What if the people accepting bribes have mouths to feed at home? They're just stretching their morals for their kids too.

Coaches and administrators of D1 sports programs are already well compensated. Plus no one needs $400k payments to feed their kids unless they have made some horrible financial mistakes.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#96

Post by sgustard » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

olliej wrote: post #29

I feel like the solution here is to not bribe your children's way into school. If your children aren't academically talented and you don't have the money to publicly buy a building for the school you should accept that and just let them live off your money and power as is traditional.

Stanford has explicitly said they do not accept donations in return for admission, for what that's worth.

Source: https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/14/admission-case-info/

"A donation does not purchase a place at Stanford, and we work very hard to ensure that prospective donors understand this. Stanford does not accept gifts if it knows a gift is being made with the intention of influencing the admission process."

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#97

Post by sologoub » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:34 AM UTC

shams93 wrote: post #85

dvt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USC is definitely a status symbol on the West Coast ( especially in Southern California). It's obviously not on the same academic level as UCLA/Berkeley/Stanford/Caltech, but it's still very much an exclusive brand. You don't get it because you don't live here and aren't surrounded by wealthy 16-year olds that yearn to go to USC (often times over UCLA/Berkeley/Stanford). (Disclaimer: I'm a UCLA alum.)

On average us students make far higher incomes than the average call tech grad.

Source?

Edit: sorry that was rushed. Source of my skepticism - worked with grads from both, tech-wise CalTech is way better and therefore comp follows.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#98

Post by azeotropic » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

azeotropic wrote: post #37

beenBoutIT wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US the public universities are the only schools that can't be bought into at any cost.

Huh? UCLA is a public university. Or am I missing the joke?

You did miss something. The first guilty plea was from a couple who paid to get their eldest daughter into UCLA and their next daughter into USC.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-01/first-par...

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#99

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #21

baggy_trough wrote: post #8

2 years in jail for this is absurd. A week would be more than enough.

A week?! If I was interested in this kind of scheme, a week wouldn't deter me at all.

If I were interested in this kind of scheme, I'd be in it for my own ego - my image of myself would be better if my kids went to a big name college, and other peoples' image of me would also be better. Well, my image of myself (and others' image of me) would take a hit from even a week in jail.

Mind you, I'm not saying a week is the right answer. Just saying that, to those kind of people, it's embarrassing, and that's a deterrent.

Re: L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

#100

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Thu, May 02, 2019, 12:35 AM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #89

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a massive amount of daylight between wanting admissions to be completely oligarchic and recognizing that at some point a seat should have a price. For example, suppose it was worth it to Bezos to fund the entire Harvard class of '23, and the price is that his child ought to be a member of that class. It would be absurd for Harvard to turn this down. There is no victim of this trade, except perhaps Bezos' heir…

Why should Bezos, poor billionaire that he is, need to pay such a ridiculous price for his child's education. Wouldn't it make more sense to just publicly fund the creation of these seats and have people pay their fair share? I think the scenario you set up for Bezos is actually unjust against him - maybe people should pay admission costs to support the education of society's children in a manner that fairly spreads…

It's not up to me, or any of us. It's up to Harvard, and specifically its board of trustees. Presumably Harvard doesn't want just anyone to be able to donate the accounting cost of a seat, because the cost doesn't scale linearly. Just like with company culture, it's hard to scale up. And putting the machinery in place to facilitate such transactions would be difficult.

It's much easier to say that they'll give a spot only when the donation far exceeds the cost of a seat. That way you don't need any complicated machinery. The exact limit may not even be written down anywhere. It might just be a sort of "I'll know it when I see it," sort of deal, since the number of seats given this way per year should be fairly small, even at a university as famed as Harvard.

Of course, we don't actually know that any of this is happening at all. It's just a cynical presumption, as far as I can tell. All I'm saying is that it would be reasonable if it were done this way, at least from the perspective of all stakeholders who have a say in the matter.