FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme • Hacker News Board

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#131

Post by umvi » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:31 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #114

peteradio wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all technically the same. This case involves paying off people to commit fraud. How hard is that to understand the difference.

Receiving admissions in exchange for tax deductible donations is also fraud, and just as severe.

I'm not familiar with tax deductible donation related law, but in that case, universities need to make sure they aren't breaking the law. Is that what's happening?

As far as I can tell, saying "get really good test scores or pay us a million dollars to get in" is not illegal.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#132

Post by logfromblammo » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #111

XCabbage wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Donating a building is a payment to the university . The university then gets to decide to admit your child in return. It may not be meritocratic, but it's not corrupt (except perhaps insofar as by pretending the exchange is a donation, the university and donor manage to cheat the taxman). The donor is simply paying the university to provide a service that they have every right to offer for money. It also benefits ot…

Anecdata: In my extended family, we have some members with a fair bit of 'bread'. These family members met at a somewhat known (yet small-ish) college and really loved the place and all the memories they had there. They donated a lot of money over the years and, yes, had a building named after them. When it came time for their daughter to apply to college, the choice was obvious. However, the daughter was rejected ou…

I never quite understood why people donate to colleges in such a way that it is the legal entity of the university that benefits.

They provide a service, and they charge money for it. The university operates as a business. I don't donate to Wal-Mart, so why would I donate to University X?

Why wouldn't you instead endow a scholarship for students of your favorite college? Instead of giving cash to Wal-Mart, buy prepaid Wal-Mart gift cards, and pass them out to fellow customers. The university doesn't need your donations. It is fully capable of building its own buildings outright, begging for state funding, or at least issuing bonds backed by future tuition. If someone is so keen on having a building with their name on it, perhaps they should instead construct some off-campus student apartments, and make some nice signs in the same general style as the university signage.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#133

Post by jedberg » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:32 PM UTC

aliston wrote: post #120

There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life? If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. The reality is that the college…

> The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole.

In most cases yes. But when we're talking about elite colleges, it has significant bearing. Living in the dorm with a future CEO may be helpful in your future job search, and if you go to an elite college, you have a much better chance of having done that.

Going to Stanford or Berkeley or MIT or UW and doing CS there will mean that when you graduate, a whole lot of hiring managers will see that you attended the same college they did and give you an automatic boost.

And if you go to USC film school, you're pretty much guaranteed to know someone who will one day be very successful in the film industry and will help you get jobs or connections to have your own projects produced. Heck, the school does that for you.

So yeah, in most cases it doesn't matter, but in some very specific cases it does.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#134

Post by chatmasta » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

KingFelix wrote: post #113

So, I want to see some data on these kids. This could be some great research, what are these kids doing now? How do they stack up against their graduating class, with career etc. Could you find some correlations, hard to see if everything was a product of their parents cash, but I would be interested in seeing some of this Data

It only started 2011 at the earliest, and seems like the bulk of it was 2015-2017, so you won't have much data yet; most of those kids are still in college. You could look at the GPA I suppose. It's also an interesting ethical question; what do the universities do with the kids? Were any of them unaware of the scheme? I read that the test-taker would take the test "with" the kid... so presumably they do some kind of paper mixup at the end. It's conceivable that the kid might not even realize their parents have paid somebody to take their test at the same time as them.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#135

Post by gonehome » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

auntienomen wrote: post #70

wyldfire wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is no secret It sounds like you agree, then? It should be public.

It is public. Universities almost always include the donation size when they put out press releases about the new building.

It isn't public - none of these universities publicly say, "You can donate 2 million and we'll let your kid in". Which was the amount at Stanford in 2012 (at least based on what someone I met working in admissions told me).

It's left unsaid because it's better for the brand to pretend that this isn't a thing and that just because your parents gave money or because your parents are famous doesn't mean they'll let you in.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#136

Post by mark212 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #107

mark212 wrote: post #63

Apparently there are no more drug cartels to go after? We’re now worried about a has-been actress who paid $15,000 so her kid could cheat on the SAT? I’m skeptical of the FBI’s investigative priorities. Wall Street is suddenly squeaky-clean? No more insider trading? Ponzi schemes have all gone away? Municipal governments across the land are staffed by honest and dedicated civil servants? All defense contractors are s…

Are you suggesting law enforcement for anything less than the most serious crimes should cease for as long as the more serious crimes continue?

I’m suggesting that in a world of finite resources, one should prioritize the most serious over the picayune

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#137

Post by mark212 » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

wyldfire wrote: post #67

mark212 wrote: post #63

Apparently there are no more drug cartels to go after? We’re now worried about a has-been actress who paid $15,000 so her kid could cheat on the SAT? I’m skeptical of the FBI’s investigative priorities. Wall Street is suddenly squeaky-clean? No more insider trading? Ponzi schemes have all gone away? Municipal governments across the land are staffed by honest and dedicated civil servants? All defense contractors are s…

> Apparently there are no more drug cartels to go after? We’re now worried about a has-been actress who paid $15,000 so her kid could cheat on the SAT? This is a false dichotomy.

So you live in a world where the FBI has unlimited resources to prosecute all crimes? Sounds fabulous, what’s that like?

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#138

Post by dexterdog » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #80

save_ferris wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think OP means that weren't wealthy enough to make a large public donation through the appropriate channels and instead resorted to bribery. Their legal bills could easily surpass the amount of money exchanged to get their kids into these schools.

The numbers $15,000 and $50,000 were mentioned in the article.

That's the kind of money poor people who think they're rich donate to schools.

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#139

Post by 75dvtwin » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

general sentiment of many here is,

A) a private university can set any criteria they want for admissions.

B) a private, federally accredited, university can set different criteria of admission for different people

C) If a parent donates large amount of money directly to the school, and their children get accept with lower criteria -- it is perfectly ok.

---

Are there conditions, that would not make this line of thinking not ok ?

Is donating 'sexual favors' ok ?

Should the same principles be applied for job promotions in private corporations ?

Is it ok to do similar differential treatment, for different students, for their grades throughout the study, and not just initial admission?

What does it mean to be an 'accredited university'? Does accreditation implies any form of fairness? Is that legally enforceable ?

Will the deans of those universities be responsible for lax rules, eg.. looking the other way?

… aren't those kinds of behaviors, that are then breading the 'financial services execs that 'look the other way' and caused financial crisis of '08?

Re: FBI accuses wealthy parents in college-entrance bribery scheme

#140

Post by NavyNuke » Tue, Mar 12, 2019, 6:47 PM UTC

aliston wrote: post #120

There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life? If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. The reality is that the college…

> If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents.

Many people are happy to take advantage of these unfair "bumps" that happen to be in their favor. Simply look at elite school admission rates by race and LSAT/GMAT/SAT/ACT scores [1]...you'll notice that it is a lot easier to get in if you're Black or Latino compared to Asian or White...Maybe they feel like they don't deserve it, maybe they do, who really knows?

> ...which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world.

The real world if full of unfair advantages metered out by race/gender/alma matter/cultural background/etc...Some people are fine taking advantage of it and some aren't...In the Navy they have something informally called the "Filipino Mafia" which basically means that there is an overrepresentation of Filipinos that kind of control things and give out good deals to fellow Filipinos...as a Filipino I sure as hell took advantage of this...I got the good assignments and the poor White kid with no racial support system in the Navy got stuck swabbing the deck...that is just how it goes...There are "good old boys" clubs, there are "diversity hires", as well as many other kinds of unfair, unjust, and undeserved rewards. That is the real world, racial groups sticking together, genders sticking together, rich people sticking together, etc...

[1] https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sa...