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

nytimes.com

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

#111

Post by mochomocha »

darawk wrote: post #94
mochomocha wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In the country I come from (France), all the top schools are publicly funded and you get in by taking exams where the whole country students compete once a year. Based on how you rank, you get in or not. Most of them have really low annual tuitions. In some of them, you're even paid! Hard to imagine anything remotely close here when there's always a way to throw money at something (your congressman, dean...) to get the outcome you want.

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

#112

Post by cycrutchfield »

HighValuation wrote: post #102
cletus wrote: post #56

Honestly, I really don't understand the motivations for some of these parents. Take Lori Loughlin. $500,000? For USC? For two daughters, one of whom clearly isn't that interested, isn't particularly academic and isn't particularly athletic? Like... why? I can understand if someone bribes their kid into, say, Harvard or Yale Law School. There's a career where going to a good school matters. But this? It just makes no…

If you aren’t familiar with the US education system, it’s a school ranked in the top 20 with an 11% acceptance rate, only twice as high as Stanford’s with a body 4x as large. It's a large school with a massively beneficial and incestuous network. Based on LinkedIn numbers, 1 out of 4 people in SV that didn't graduate from Stanford went to USC. Go around talking misinformation about that school in particular and see w…

Top 20 in letting applicants bribe coaches to get them in, maybe. Any rag with USC as a top 20 university isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

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

#113

Post by bradleyjg »

prawn wrote: post #75
bradleyjg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? A private university has no obligation to run its admissions program they way you think it should. The reason there is a crime here is because the universities were the victims of fraud, not because the law mandates fairness in admissions.

Do US universities receive public funding? If they did, would that influence the discussion?

We have public and private universities. Private universities get public funds through a variety of means, mostly scientific grants, but not public funding in the sense of unconditional grants to the general university fisc.

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

#114

Post by HighValuation »

electricslpnsld wrote: post #106
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.)

> USC is definitely a status symbol on the West Coast (especially in Southern California). > it's still very much an exclusive brand I would say weirdly exclusively in Southern California. I can’t think of a school with more regional status and less national status than USC. Maybe some of the bespoke NYC schools? Hell, I’ve worked with folks in Oregon and Washington who have thrown out resumes because they went to US…

I went to Berkeley, it’s a far better public school than Washington or Oregon, who appear to be oddly insecure of their schools’ >40% acceptance rates. Surely our graduates would never make discriminatory hiring decisions that may deprive their company of talent.

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

#115

Post by cycrutchfield »

sgustard wrote: post #96
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."

That's a hilarious joke!

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

#116

Post by leftyted »

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…

I'd urge you to think more about this. You can imagine the same thing for murder trials: 10 million per victim or you go to jail. You can use the money to make the world better!

I'm not so sure. These institutions have an embedded narrative. For universities it's that they are meritocracies, where class/race/gender/etc do not matter. For the justice system it's that everyone is equal before the law and the guilty will be punished.

I don't think these institutional narratives are superfluous. While it's naive to expect the institutions to live up to the narratives, the narratives end up serving as ideals. And I don't think the institutions can exist without those ideals.

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

#117

Post by notyourday »

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…

When the news first broke there was an article where the some of the admissions officers were asked about it by journalist. Unfortunately I do not remember where the article was published. The gist of it was that the bribe devalued the schools -- the rate for "you will admit so and so" is north of $10 million.

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

#118

Post by stale2002 »

darpa_escapee wrote: post #80
phil21 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you need the funding of the super rich guy with the dumb kid who takes up a single student slot in order to offer free school to the dozen kids who "deserve" it academically? Without the first (in aggregate, over generations), the others don't even have the option.

Plenty of people make donations for reasons of prestige, legacy and even genuine care, which have nothing to do with making sure their kid gets into a certain school.

But there would still be less of those donations. There would be some, yes. But significantly less. And less money means that these school are unable to let in as many poor people as they did before.

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

#119

Post by cycrutchfield »

rhegart wrote: post #49

Affirmative action on one side, cheaters on the other. At least a dozen people cheated on the SAT in my school and had the audacity to brag about it. Financial aid if you poor, paid for if you rich. Middle class honest kids hurt the most. Had top 1% scores, no ivies or UCLA for me (got UCB at least) and I’m Asian. My little cousin, same scores and rejected from UCSC 10 years later...much worse now than before

And whiners in the middle, apparently. Maybe you weren't as competitive of an applicant as you thought you were?

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

#120

Post by AbdulMohammad »

dvt wrote: post #68
cletus wrote: post #56

Honestly, I really don't understand the motivations for some of these parents. Take Lori Loughlin. $500,000? For USC? For two daughters, one of whom clearly isn't that interested, isn't particularly academic and isn't particularly athletic? Like... why? I can understand if someone bribes their kid into, say, Harvard or Yale Law School. There's a career where going to a good school matters. But this? It just makes no…

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.)

I’m from the Bay Area and I can tell you that as far as “status” goes, USC and UCLA don’t carry much status at all, if any. Berkeley is considered far more prestigious here. And of course, Stanford.
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