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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

#131

Post by twinkletwinkle_ »

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."

I would love to meet the author of that line. I have a bridge to donate to them!

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

#132

Post by cycrutchfield »

HighValuation wrote: post #114
electricslpnsld wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nothing says oddly insecure like creating a new account and repeatedly shilling for your alma mater when you are aggrieved because people happen to be criticizing it obliquely.

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

#133

Post by lotsofpulp »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #78
lotsofpulp wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing wrong with giving, but there is something wrong with giving and calling it a donation, when in reality it's a quid pro quo transaction. Which is illegal, but unprovable. Matt Levine's comment quoted elsewhere in this thread is describes the only difference in the scenarios.

What law is broken by an explicit quid pro quo for admission? I'm pretty sure there's nothing illegal about that, it just is avoided because it doesn't look good.

There isn't, but there is against a "donation" being quid pro quo. They're free to call it what it is, tuition to bypass admissions requirements.

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

#134

Post by michaelbuckbee »

leftyted wrote: post #116
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 wil…

How about with traffic laws? Finland applies a sliding scale to them based on income:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

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

#135

Post by leftyted »

opportune wrote: post #127
leftyted wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wil…

I would really like universities to be meritocracies. However I went to a highly ranked school for undergrad and I can assure you it was nowhere close to a meritocracy, nor did it really try to pretend that it was. That narrative may exist for you and others, but it's entirely accidental.

I also went to a highly ranked school.

It wasn't a perfect meritocracy but it was at least oriented towards merit. But my initial point remains: the idea of the meritocracy is necessary.

I don't think universities can exist without it, at least not in this form.

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

#136

Post by glangdale »

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…

The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. This deal has always been bent at the high end ('buy us a new library wing and we'll ignore that little Timmy has a room temp IQ') but not overtly broken, which is what this proposal (and the behavior that people are being prosecuted for) amounts to.

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

#137

Post by darawk »

chaostheory wrote: post #71
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 feel that your idea is already reality. It's just not official. The issue is that the people caught up in this scandal aren't wealthy enough to fund a building or even a building wing, or they would just go through the more acceptable route.

Ya, it is partially reality you're right. I just think it ought to be more explicit.

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

#138

Post by wahern »

mochomocha wrote: post #111
darawk wrote: post #94

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. 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 t…

All the top schools are publicly funded because all the top schools were nationalized. And the rich have always been free to go to England, America, or elsewhere.

Many of the premiere U.S. schools are also public, and in general I think it's implied that pay-to-play college admission proposals would be limited to private institutions.

One reason the American university system is usually ranked so highly is because it's such a global destination for the world's rich. Not only does their tuition fund much of the system, but the demand drives the elite status, which in turn helps to attract real talent. And even smart people know that, all else being equal, it's better to sit in a classroom with the rich and elite. I don't think it's a coincidence that Stanford is a private university. Of the startups I've personally been involved with, directly or indirectly, I can't think of one that didn't successfully cash out where one of the founders didn't also have "connections", such as a rich uncle who made introductions.

The fact that the rich and elite drive eduction in the U.S. creates problems of its own, but there's no getting around the inherent funding dilemmas. Especially in a culture like in the U.S. where t-a-x is a four-letter word (i.e. unspeakable), it's better to view these proposals as alternative taxation schemes.

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

#139

Post by stale2002 »

munk-a wrote: post #126
stale2002 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In general terms regarding systems in our society - If the system is dependent on charity to support it... it isn't supported, if the system is valued by society then society should support it up to the cost of it's value. Education is absolutely worth the cost and the need to charity is highlighting the underfunding here[1]. [1] Also, the inefficient use of money, higher education is absolutely guilty of inefficient…

> If the system is dependent on charity to support it... it isn't supported

This could apply to literally everything in the world, forever.

Unless 1,000 trillion dollars per year is being spent on education, then that educational system would benefit from more charity.

More charity is basically always good.

Nobody at all loses from this. More money gets spent on the university, and this money more than pays for the cost of the student. This allows even more students to benefit from this.

Why should we sacrifice the education of 10 kids, just to stop 1 rich kid from going to a top college?

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

#140

Post by dvt »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #122
dvt wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, no one takes USNWR rankings seriously -- it's well-known that public schools are dinged due to lower endowments and higher student counts. To wit, the idea that Berkeley is academically comparable to USC is a joke.

Feel free to share whatever ranking validates you.

Regardless of rankings, I'm definitely jealous of USC's alumni network. It's leagues above UCLA/Berkeley (rivaled probably only by Stanford).
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