Operation 'Varsity Blues' - FBI uncover massive fraud in college entry exam scam

[Vigilant]

Southbend as a whole, explodes in 3...2..1..

I’ve witnessed the current crop of ND students, both undergrad, and graduate students, along with MANY of the parents/alum. If there isn’t graft and corruption going on, then any severely profound hospital bed ridden IPS student has a chance to get a prestigious degree.

 

[rob63]

I think Ms. Loughlin should be punished by living with me for a week.

Come on, her crime wasn't THAT bad!

 

[KittySlayer]

Stanford?

Wonder if Bill and Hillary got Chelsea in through the backdoor. Knowing the Clintons they probably made Stanford donate to the Clinton Foundation (slush fund) for the honor of having a Clinton attend.

 

[HoughMade]

I’m pretty sure that colleges were competing for the honor of hosting a Clinton.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Wonder if Bill and Hillary got Chelsea in through the backdoor.

can you promise to never utter this line again thanks

 

[T.Lex]

Southbend as a whole, explodes in 3...2..1..

I’ve witnessed the current crop of ND students, both undergrad, and graduate students, along with MANY of the parents/alum. If there isn’t graft and corruption going on, then any severely profound hospital bed ridden IPS student has a chance to get a prestigious degree.

From what I can tell, Felicity Huffman may have a decent defense. Her $15k sounds like it got her student a "clean" environment, but the kid still had to take the test, without distractions, and maybe with more time. Advantage? Absolutely. But, if the consultant was telling her it was fine, then I'm not sure there's enough there to put someone on notice that it was against the rules.

There's also allegations that the proctor helped correct answers or helped her on the test. That's cheating, obviously, but if Huffman can credibly claim that that's not what she wanted or paid for, then that might go away, too. From what I can tell, the charges against her are among the weakest.

Loughlin's in deeper legal mud than that.

ETA:
Dangit, the reason I was referring to this post is that based on my experience with 2 kids going through the college selection process, ND doesn't look to kids from Indiana much at all. Domer kids, and ideally double-domer kids, can still get in, but most Indiana students, even if they are really good students, aren't even really considered. ND is more about the international students and nationally-acclaimed high achievers.

 

[HoughMade]

Friend of mine in law school has 2 bachelor degrees from ND with honors. Couldn't get into ND law. He graduated 3d in our class at VU. He is a non-article 3 federal judge now. The guy who graduated 4th in our class was turned down by ND law as well. Having experienced many a ND law grad in the courtroom, he has some real questions about their admissions policies circa 1995.

 

[ArcadiaGP]

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) Director of National Candidate Services deleted this tweet. I guess they realized there may be more than one "Greg Abbott" in the world.

 

[HoughMade]

As to Elisabeth Kimmel (TV exec), and a closer look into the allegations about this whole mess, take a look at this:

Wealthy Exec Bribed Two Kids Into College | The Smoking Gun

According to a U.S. District Court complaint, Kimmel illegally schemed to get her daughter and son admitted to Georgetown and USC, respectively. In both instances, federal prosecutors allege, Kimmel conspired with others to grease acceptance to the schools by falsely portraying her children as Division I athletic recruits.
As part of the scheme, Kimmel used her family’s charitable foundation to pay more than $500,000 in bribes, prosecutors charge…

…With the help of intermediaries and a corrupt Georgetown coach, Kimmel conspired to “use bribery” to facilitate her daughter’s admission to the Washington, D.C. school. Kimmel and her cohorts falsely portrayed her daughter as a “ranked player” and a “purported tennis recruit,” investigators allege. In return for her daughter’s admittance to Georgetown, Kimmel paid $275,000. The money came from her family’s charitable foundation. The Georgetown tennis coach, prosecutors allege, eventually received a total of $244,000 in bribe payments...

…In 2017, as Kimmel’s son Thomas was applying to USC, his mother and several coconspirators falsely claimed that the teen was an “elite high school pole vaulter.” In an athletic profile prepared by one of Kimmel’s alleged cohorts, a photo of a young pole vaulter clearing the bar at 14’ was included. However, the boy in the photo was not Kimmel’s son, who never participated in track and field while enrolled at The Bishop’s School, a private La Jolla prep school. Additionally, Thomas’s application to USC falsely claimed that he was a “3 year Varsity Letterman” in track and was “one of the top pole vaulters in the state of California.”

After Thomas Kimmel was admitted to USC, the family’s charitable foundation made a $50,000 payment to the school’s Women’s Athletics Board. A second payment, for $200,000, went from the foundation to a group controlled by William Rick Singer, the mastermind of the nationwide cheating ring who has been cooperating with federal prosecutors and has agreed to plead guilty to felony charges.

 

[miguel]

They should have just:

1. Given their kids the cash instead of bribing an administrator. If the kids had any sense, starting with a pile of cash that large, they wouldn't need a degree.

2. Donated half of the bribe to the school in question, met with who ever is in charge of the endowment and hinted there is more to come should their little precious become a student there.

 

[JettaKnight]

They should have just:

1. Given their kids the cash instead of bribing an administrator. If the kids had any sense, starting with a pile of cash that large, they wouldn't need a degree.

2. Donated half of the bribe to the school in question, met with who ever is in charge of the endowment and hinted there is more to come should their little precious become a student there.

It's not about the kids and their future earnings - these are rich kids who already have everything. It's the about (A) the parent and their own reputation, and (B) the child's self-esteem.


To the latter, there are cases where the original, low SAT scores were hidden from the child.

 

[actaeon277]

can you promise to never utter this line again thanks

 

[ArcadiaGP]

More than 750 families benefited from college cheating scheme, ringleader says

 

[T.Lex]

So here's the thing. This guy basically turned into a conman and brought others into it. Now, he takes a plea, and flips on all these other people.

Yeah, sure, they are responsible for their own actions. But, it seems like this is an area that not all of his cheaters would've necessarily known they were cheating, at least at first.

With all the Individual Education Plans and Reasonable Accommodations, if a consultant came along and said, "Hey, I can get your kid more time for the SAT, in his or her own room, with a programmable calculator and an understanding proctor...." Well, that may seem like rule-breaking, but maybe not criminal.

These parents have to suffer consequences of their own, but I'm also kinda left wondering what level of federal resources were dedicated to THIS particular priority rather than certain others. This is more important than terrorism and immigration and opioid interdiction?

 

[BigRed]

I think Ms. Loughlin should be punished by living with me for a week.

I would punish her.... with a good spanking.

 

[Kutnupe14]

Stanford?

Wonder if Bill and Hillary got Chelsea in through the backdoor. Knowing the Clintons they probably made Stanford donate to the Clinton Foundation (slush fund) for the honor of having a Clinton attend.

Odd are she was smart enough to get in on her own. Daddy was a Rhodes Scholar. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the Clintons, I don't think their intelligence is pedestrian.... Oh, and ugly people sometimes have to fall back on their brains.

 

[KittySlayer]

Odd are she was smart enough to get in on her own. Daddy was a Rhodes Scholar. Regardless of what anyone thinks of the Clintons, I don't think their intelligence is pedestrian.... Oh, and ugly people sometimes have to fall back on their brains.

I have trouble applying purple when I post from my phone. Totally agree, Chelsea always struck me as intelligent, I just disagreed with her family's opinions on issues.

 

[HoughMade]

I understand the whole cleaning up the fraud aspect of this....but I'm hoping that the prosecutors aren't insistent on jail time for anyone. This kind of thing is why monetary fines were invented.

...'course, I never understood why we spent federal taxpayer money to jail people over dog fighting either, so...

 

[Trigger Time]

I understand the whole cleaning up the fraud aspect of this....but I'm hoping that the prosecutors aren't insistent on jail time for anyone. This kind of thing is why monetary fines were invented.

...'course, I never understood why we spent federal taxpayer money to jail to jail people over dog fighting either, so...

I dont understand jail time for lots of stuff. But thats not my realm of work.

 

[Ingomike]

Ben Shaprio had some interesting thoughts on this topic.

The question is why. Both these families are wealthy. The children of these families weren’t going to lack for opportunity in life. Furthermore, isn’t college designed to train people for the real world? Wouldn’t admission under false pretenses result in the kids flunking out? Wouldn’t their lack of merit be revealed by the simple pressure of the schooling?

The answer is obvious: no, it wouldn’t. Colleges aren’t about training kids for the real world, or teaching them significant modes of thinking, or examining timeless truths. Universities aren’t about skill sets, either – at least in the humanities. They’re about two things: credentialism and social connections.

Here’s the problem: neither of these priorities actually demands that universities teach anything. Credentialism occurs upon admission, so long as you aren’t thrown out of school; social capital begins to accrue with presence, not with performance. Hence colleges watering down curricula and grades in order to make it easier to credential, and to generate less friction. That’s what students and parents demand: not skills, not education, but credentialism and social capital.

That’s why rich and famous people would spend oodles of money just to get their kids into top universities: not because their kids won’t have jobs or will go hungry, but because they want their kids credentialed and admitted into the social club. This story, then, is less about people committing a crime, and more about a system that fails the tests of meritocratic education so badly that people can buy their way past the merit and the education.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/44571/famous-actresses-paid-bundles-money-bribe-their-ben-shapiro

The whole article is very interesting.