I guess I am in the minority, but I don’t think kids should have their life ruined if they didn’t know.
15
Advocating benefits for cheating is wrong, and, I might add, sonewhat suspicious begavior...
9
The next semester is the Fall. USC’s actions of disallowing registrations and sending transcripts are a farce.
3
Let's see if colleges are really as fair as they should have been. Then again, if they have been on the up and up, they would - and should - have abolished the legacy advantages from having a parent who is alum. As to sports recruits, students should have been expelled if they cannot keep up with the sports involvement. Afterall if a student who's meant to be a sports recruit can't even play the sports or stay on the school team, he or she should be kicked out. Period.
7
Oops...someone fraudulently gets into a prestigious school, does passing work, and graduates. Embarrassed by the proof that even undeserving applicants can succeed at their universities, what do administrations do? Punish the successful graduates for having exposed the supposedly highly rigorous course of study as perhaps not so rigorous, after all.
12
The universities, whose reputations are stained by this scandal and face threatened Congressional action, have to act and should expel students who falsified their applications, regardless of whether the students were implicated or had knowledge of the falsification of their application. While it is difficult to imagine how an applicant, who is supposed to review and sign her application would not know that it contained false or misleading details, a false application is a false application. As an aside, I fielded a call at home form my wife's alma mater USC which was soliciting an alumni donation. i was tempted to tell the caller that they should shake down Aunt Becky and Felicity Huffman for more money.
8
No parent will go to jail, most of their children will quietly remain at their schools and as usual only a few of those involved will face trials. Once again money will talk and the poor will walk.
11
To believe that ANY of these students were completely unaware of the deceit and fraud involved is to be credulous.
For they had to have known—if not before enrollment, then surely during or shortly thereafter. Whether it was a 400-point jump in their SATs or some other impossible-to-miss irregularity, they had to have known. And having knowledge before or during enrollment, or while still enrolled, makes them complicit and culpable regarding their parents’ misdeeds—not unlike someone who has knowledge about the commission of a crime and does not report it.
Lest we forget, these students are not mere “kids.” They are young adults, and as such should be held accountable according to what is fair and just within the boundaries of our laws.
16
What to do about the students? Maybe they knew, maybe they didn't know. So how do the colleges know the difference and distinguish between the two? The fact is that they were all admitted under"false pretense"; that is the real issue, regardless if they knew or not. There is a easy solution for for the students who at this point have to be embarrassed and surely harbor self doubts if they were actually worthy of admission, and the universities who have to protect their reputations. Let the tainted students finish the year then if they are interested in continuing at that school, make them reapply for admissions at whatever level they are at the end of this year. Let them carry the credits they have already earned to another school if necessary, but if they want to continue at the college they are enrolled in, let them re-take whatever tests are required for admission or transfer at the level they are at, and re-submit new test scores and letters of recommendations etc. Each will be judged on an individual basis. For seniors make them apply for and complete and an additional semester in order to graduate from that college. I am not sure what you can do about people who already have graduated under false circumstances... maybe attach to their records some indication of the circumstances of their admission.
8
This whole scheme brings up a feeling of disgust for the ultra rich and those who cheat the system. Selecting colleges and applying to colleges is a fraught experience that all HS seniors go through. To not participate in your own application process and know what is going on is to play dumb. Of course these students had to know what was going on. They have a B average and manage a perfect SAT score and didn't even sit for the test. Or, they managed a 504 accomodation for extended time and didn't willfully participate in cheating on the exam. What I am trying to say, it is hard to believe these students didn't know exactly what was going on. I can hear them now, begging, in the kitchen, "but Mommy, I want to go to Yale." Didn't the track runner get a congratulatory letter of acceptance on his track scholarship? They are frauds and what is worse is that they took a seat away from someone else. They lied on their applications which is grounds for dismissal. They must be embarrassed as hell.
As for the parents, charge them with as many crimes as you can. No sympathy. Put all their names in print, so everyone knows who they are.
18
If universities do not have the resources or ethical reach to vet applicants properly then their entire admissions process is completely flawed and unfair. Yet another reason we need free undergraduate college tuition for all and do away with the admissions process altogether.
7
When I put in my college application, I never even showed it to my parents. Have "things" changed that much?
12
Considering how many of the students had no knowledge of what schemes were implemented on their behalf, I don't think they should be punished or shamed in any way. However, the other students at these top schools were at the top of their classes and presumably sacrificed and learned a lot on their way to being accepted to these universities.
The students of these parents should be pulled out of these schools not simply to be punished, but to recognize they did not get there of their own merit and another school out there will be a much better fit for their academic level and other pursuits.
If I personally had been admitted to one of these schools unfairly, I would immediately drop out because I would constantly feel inadequate and questioning whether I could better flourish at a different school that accepted me for me.
4
If the student is there on a false athleticism other
False scholarship, that should be easily determine. Those with suspect SAT scores can be retested on campus.
5
I find it difficult to believe that these students didn't have some idea of how they got into schools. Surely they are aware of their own high school grades and how that might translate to them gaining admission to say Yale.
If someone was fraudulently admitted but managed to stay in school, I'm not sure how the universities can retroactively yank the diploma.
6
Students who were admitted to USC or any other school under this scheme should be expelled even if they did not know what their parents did (which I find hard to believe) and those who have graduated should have their degrees revoked.
11
I worked at a airline where a aircraft mechanic was found to be using the A&P certificate number of a deceased person. The guy was a excellent mechanic and worked there for five years. He was immediately fired for lying on his employment application.
That this major airline that still exists and you have probably flown on did no due diligence when hiring this person, the certificate didn’t match his SS number (this was before you could request a different A&P number that didn’t use your SS number) is how lax the airlines are.
4
All of the students who were fraudulently admitted and currently enrolled should be forced to leave. Any of them who are not smart enough to realize that they should not have been admitted (I.e., didn’t know diddly about their application) are not smart enough to be attending the ‘elite’ college that they are in. Perhaps not any college. Any student truly interested in a school looks to see where their data falls on graphs readily available that show where you fall on the college’s admission data points.
The fraud student should be replaced by a low-income candidate with tuition paid by the fraudulent parents.
13
I do feel for the children who were completely unwitting in this fraud. Not only have they been shamed due to their parents grossly irresponsible actions, but have had their relationship with the parents perhaps irreversibly harmed.
However, I disagree with you, and agree wholeheartedly with the professor at the U of Chicago that universities have an ethical duty to disenroll ANY student admitted through fraudulent means.
13
Perhaps the schools should come up with a new degree for these students. A degree in partying. It will open up doors for them when they show it to the bouncer at a club with a long line to get in.
5
It does not matter if the students were doing well while attending college. If they cheated to get admitted, they probably also cheated to get good grades! Someone should investigate their college career as well and those who graduated should be looked at also!
14
All of these students should be kicked out, and those who received diplomas should have them revoked. Ignorance of the law is no defense. I find it highly suspect that any of these kids who feigned disabilities for extra time, or so they could take specially located exams did not know what they were doing. Further, those with low SAT scores who magically increased 400 points is clear evidence of fraud. This does not just happen.
These people could have paid for the best tutors and prep classes money could buy, but chose the easy way out, they all need to pay. These students were not qualified to be admitted to these schools in the first place, and stole placements from qualified students. Throw the book at them and their parents.
13
I am a retired professor and I believe that the students involved should be kicked out of the schools. Anybody who has graduated should have their diplomas revoked. Who would want these cheats in their classrooms? If they cheated their way into school, I guarantee you they are cheating in school too. Our society is too lenient with cheaters in university. How could you ever trust these cheats to do legitimate scientific research, economics or engineering? You can't. People can die when cheats fudge data and lie. Hold the line. Believe in something.
23
Pull the accreditations. You know they are complicit. But no, you'll punish the kids, not the big corrupt multi-billion dollar scams called universities.
1
This article failed to mention the simple fact that the only reason those parents committed the fraud is that they knew their children wouldn’t have gotten in on their own merits. Those are unqualified students in the first place. Of course they should be expelled. Why is it even an issue? Whether they knew the fraud is irrelevant.
17
Aren't these kids analogous to Dreamers?
3
NYT how about using a photo of a right wing banker type instead of a “Hollywood liberal” for a change in these stories?
13
Cheating is a taught culture. Honesty is also a taught culture. It seems as though these students of parents who cheated had to know they where snookering the system. That the priviledged position of their parents have gotten them to where they are. Spoiled beyond reason.
I can’t believe the didn’t review their own applications, on which they signed off.
65
The article says "it was adults who played the dominant roles," but some of these applicants would have been 18, which makes them adults, and the others would have been close. Also, the applications state that the applicant is responsible for the accuracy of the information. The only way the kids whose applications were fraudulent could have remained ignorant is if they allowed or hired others to fill out their applications and didn't even check. The tests also would have made the expectations of academic integrity very clear. So it may be compassionate for Wake Forest to let that particular student remain enrolled, but that decision means that she and her parents, and everyone else, now know for a fact that at least at some schools, cheating to get in not only works, but it pays. Doesn't that incentivize nervous parents. paid college "counselors" and worried students to actually ramp it up? Playing by the rules put you at a disadvantage if it looks like the game is rigged and the colleges don't even pretend to care. I think that's a terrible message.
67
Remember that with the rare exception college students are all over 18 years old. They are not innocent children, they are adults and should bear the responsibilities that comes with adulthood.
11
There are a few facts citizens should know about these Ivy league colleges. Their enrollment for the last 30-40 years have stayed flat, the prestigious-ness of a Harvard or Yale is more profitable then quantity of those enrolled. They do not care about how many amazingly talented young minds come to their school, just as long as it is a must have for the very elites who are willing to pay. This is legal if your a club, not if your a federal regulated higher education institution in the USA.
'But elite schools are so much harder then the rest" Definitely not true. Just look up the number of people who pass the New York, Massechuesettes legal bar for lawyers. Some of the highest rates % of those graduated to past the state bar the first time is not elite schools. These colleges are all the same. But the amount of resources: toturs, test preps, guidance counselors is enormous compared to others.
4
Universities need to take responsibility, and deserve every repercussion, for implementing the ridiculous admissions standards that have created this monster.
Today it is not enough to be a normal, hard-working kid with good grades and scores. Instead admissions committees place ridiculous undue weight on perfection, extraordinary activities, and hardship. My kids are college application age and I know that some of their peers falsified or greatly exaggerated their accomplishments in their applications. They know they won't get caught.
Are these universities really that naive? What about that University of Pennsylvania student admitted after writing an essay about the death of his mother? Penn happened to call his home and his mother answered the phone. Of course his admission was revoked, but I have no doubt his essay is what won him the spot vs. another student with otherwise comparable stats. If admissions committees are going to value these claims, they have an ethical obligation to conduct due diligence. By blithely ignoring this responsibility, they are disadvantaging every honest kid and family out there and have made a mockery of their admissions process.
6
How could these kids not know that their college application materials were fraudulent? How could you not know that you did not take the SAT on the date that your score report says you did? How could you not know that you are not an athlete when your application materials say that you are? I cannot conceive of a situation where they would have zero complicity in the fraud. USC is probably just making sure that that their legal i's and t's are properly dotted and crossed.
17
Now might be a good time for U.S.C. to take O.J. Simpson's diploma away.
My guess is he never earned it except by scoring touchdowns.
4
I'm waiting for the second scandal regarding cheating on tests as a student taking classes. If you aren't qualified to attend and parents will spend mega-bucks to get a kid in - wouldn't they spend mega-bucks to keep them there?
4
The schools are victims of fraud. The fraud was to gain admission to the school. The schools have a HUGE interest in discouraging fraudulent applications.
Should the intended beneficiaries of the fraud benefit from the fraud? No.
Does already attending lessen the fraud?
No.
Already graduated...successfully completed the work...probably let the graduate keep the degree.
2
From the article: "The federal investigation found that a Yale coach gave bogus athletic endorsements to two students, one of whom was admitted to the college..."
I look forward to a follow up article in which we will learn the name of this coach, as well as the names of others, the conditions of their dismissals, and the lengths of their prison sentences.
4
I worked with a graduate of our state university who got a free ride with football scholarship. Four years left not owing a cent. My daughter went to same school left with nursing degree. It has taken her over 10 years to pay her loans amounting to over $ 20,000. He had no visible knowledge of his so called degree, which he struggled to explain when asked. What a waste of time and space.
14
Why is it just “either they’re in or they’re out?” Why not require the students to prove their worthiness, without the falsified test scores or fictitious sports prowess. Give them the requisite testing; if they can cut it on academic merit, they can stay.
4
It seems odd that the schools, who allegedly accepted large sums of money to enroll these students, are now the ones deciding their punishment.....seems a little hypocritical - we have finger pointed at the parents who made the bride, the students who benefited from the bribe, but not the university who took the money? There was more going on here than falsified test scores. Also seems weird that they took kids on allegedly as athletes, but had never seen them play, and then did not follow up on if the new students signed up for, and performed adequately on the sport teams they were slated for. Before demanding the students take responsibility for any part they might have played, these schools need to demonstrate this behavior themselves.
3
Whether students knew or not, they should not remain in these schools. Their presence took a seat away from someone qualified to sit there. Those are the true victims of this fraud. The progeny of these dishonest parents could not have been taught to understand that given their parents' deeds. If they did know, that makes it worse. I would look at their grades with suspicion wondering if they cheated on exams or submitted term papers that were written by others for them. It may be necessary not only to expel current such students but also to rescind the diplomas of those already graduated.
I suspect that many of these students had no interest in an education, just as Laughlin's daughter boldly stated. These are entitled young people used to being coddled. Their ambitions are to party and be famous, social media kind of fame, not for anything that requires work or effort like being a great writer or doctor or scientist or anything else. Appearances are what matters, not reality, not honesty nor responsibility for your actions. I have zero sympathy for them.
10
A school like Yale receives nearly 40,000 applications for about 2,000 admission letters. So 38,000 others are "rejects." Every student at Yale... Every. Single. One. ... Has 38,000 other people out there who "could have" had that slot, depending on circumstances. My view is to take a hard line towards anyone who's not there based on fundamental honesty in the application process; let alone based on grades, SATs, sports, other activities.
9
"Some of the students implicated in the case unearthed by federal prosecutors last week appear to have been knowing participants in the fraud."
If these students are 18 years old (old enough to vote and serve in the military, by the way), they should be criminally charged along with their parents.
8
There is a “teachable moment” in rescinding the acceptance offers and/or immediately expelling any student whose parents participated in this fraud. Perhaps the children will, many for the first time in their privileged young lives, learn that in the real world, one's actions have consequences and that character counts.
11
Either the students deserved to be there on their own merits, or did not. If they were even unknowing victims of this racket, that means that their parents cheated for them to gain acceptance. Their enrollments need to be rescinded.
6
How could there be a defence that the kids did not know? If they did not know they didn't deserve their seat they should take another career path. Pretending that these children of Privilege live in such a bubble is disingenuous. If the institutions that allowed this to happen want to give them a pass so be it but don't play on our intelligence. God forbid these kids may have to go to a lower ranked school? What do we tell the kids who played by the rules but where denied because their parents were just ordinary people?
6
Seems that the title “school “ is used rather loosely these days. The more accurate one being Athletics , Inc. or Playground U. And please don’t give us they need the sports programs or they couldn’t survive. Another part of this society going in the wrong direction. No wonder other countries education systems far surpass ours. How many come out of college no more knowledgeable than when they went in? And who cares?
2
My kid went to college and all I got was this orange jumpsuit...
8
I feel badly for these kids, even the ones that knew that their parents were helping them to cheat. I used to be an educator and I can tell you that most teenagers wouldn't have stood in the way of their parents if those parents wanted to do something like this.
I feel particularly bad for Lori Loughlin's kids. Say what you will about their supposed lack of interest in school but those two girls are now branded with their parents' poor decisions. They are public face of this scandal. Putting myself in their shoes, I couldn't imagine showing my face around campus after this.
5
@Lionel Hutz - From the little that I know about Lori Loughlin's daughter, it seems she has made enough of her own bad decisions.
4
It's fine for Harvard Westlake's spokesperson to say they don't recommend using independent college counselors. For their $35,000 tuition, they offer 11 staff for 300 upper school students. That's 1:10 roughly. The average California school has a ratio of about 1 counselor to 200-500 students depending on the district and year. Private schools also offer classroom time for essay writing, college admissions case studies and workshops, and Naviance which is expensive and not affordable for most public high schools.
If you think it's unethical for anyone to use an independent, then vote accordingly--for more taxes so school districts can afford the staff to provide the time for much-needed guidance and mentoring. For the vast majority of students filling out their state school's online application form, minimal help is needed. But for the other apps with essays required, etc., it helps to have support.
To level the playing field for families with juniors in high school, here is Harvard Westlake's--apparently very public--handbook on the college process found just now on their website:
https://students.hw.com/Portals/44/Handbook2019.pdf
3
Since the high school GPA, test scores and extracurricular activities from the affected students are suspect, there is really no basis for keeping any of these students or redoing their freshman admissions application. They are damaged goods and need to be expelled/dismissed permanently with no possibility of readmission. I would let them keep any college credits they earned. That's the most I would let these students keep.
2
The kerning on that USC sign is just awful.
3
Some of these students are clearly unqualified to attend an academically challenging university. Are they flunking out? If not, why not. Olivia Jade is an intellectually unfit student. Is she flunking out of USC?
3
A school that would accept Olivia Jade as a student (USC) should lose their credentials. Let the cheating students stay but make their diplomas worthless.
2
If the students were admitted through deceit or fraud, be it known or unknown to them, they should be expelled.
These students come from wealth families who will make sure their child is cared for and given every opportunity that is available for them.
The young adults who are expelled can always reapply for admittance to the college of their choosing - by meeting the required academic levels. If they cannot meet those levels, then like so many other young adults in the same boat, they will need to consider a junior college.
For the elite colleges this is tricky - because they need the wealthy donors to contribute to their purse. Only now, with the public watching their every move, they're in the spot light. Very tricky in deed.
4
In graduate school, I had the unfortunate experience of being a TA for the pre-med sequence in physics. (None of us wanted to be there!)
I received any number of thinly veiled requests for 'help.' Sometimes this involved money, other times more personal services were dangled before me.
One pretty young lady who'd been struggling to pass her exams came to my office, rather provocatively dressed. The conversation went something like this:
"Oh, I'm willing to do anything for an A. Anything!"
Intrigued, I took the bait.
"Really? So what are doing this Friday night?"
"Nothing!"
"What about Saturday night?"
"Nothing at all!"
"Good!" I said. "Then you'll have a lot of time to study!"
14
I think you would know whether you played water polo or not. And it might raise a red flag when you're getting special accommodations for testing because of a learning disability you previously didn't know you had.
11
The schools need to tread very carefully. The public is demanding justice, without really considering that the students might be victims. If they had no knowledge of the cheating, then it would be an injustice for them to be expelled or even have their identities revealed, which could lead to bullying and other distractions that harm their college experience. The schools have done enough damage to their reputations, the last thing they need is the students filing a lawsuit.
6
@Mark: "We should NEVER harm victims in the world." -- Guess you're not in favor of Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002, requiring CFOs to attest to accuracy of their company's annual report financial data, under penalty of felony "even if they didn't know that someone else cooked the numbers".
So make initial position "student attested to fraudulent application data" as reason to de-enroll. Let them re-apply for admission, with de novo test data and personal essay (hint: it better include some mea culpas).
1
SOX has been harshly criticized by some academics and lawmakers for the reasons you mentioned. But, we should consider that the CFO is at the top of the heap. He's in charge of the people who supply him with the data. He's not a lowly student.
1
Letting the kids of the parents who cheated stay in the schools that they got into as a result of the cheating, is not just, regardless of whether the kids knew about it or not. It's the fact that a crime had been committed that is the overriding factor.
It would be the equivalent of not charging a bank robber because he gave the money to charity. The crime was committed and it doesn't matter what happens after that fact.
12
The article mentions that some of these students have already graduated. If these students had to cheat to get in this implies they were not good enough to get into the university on their own. But this is proven false if they actually graduated after getting in. Perhaps degrees from these universities aren't that special after all.
I understand there are limited seats at these universities and so they have to be selective when admitting students, but it appears their coursework isn't particularly challenging, if people who have to cheat to get in can earn degrees there.
3
I'm not understanding where the child's complicity comes into it. If the test scores and talent were falsified, it doesn't really matter if the student knew about it or not, they're still a false candidate with unacceptable test scores and talent.
14
Access to college admissions is bought in many ways. First of all I agree that students, unwitting ones, who benefit from their parent's subversion of the college app process should be expelled. To do otherwise would be to keep the system pretty much as it is, with just a few parents and college coaches, admissions personnel, getting caught and prosecuted.
But this does nothing to close the education gap between the well-off in the US, and those who do not have access to quality secondary education. Plus, the 100s of millions of dollars being spent on college app help, SAT and ACT classes, tutors hired to write college app essays (who in many, if not most cases, actually write the entire essay) and pay for interview coaching.
So in many of these cases we had kids who went to premiere high schools, and got all of those extra classes and tutors and still couldn't make the grade, despite the fact that it's a game that's entirely tilted towards the wealthy. And if those wealthy families cannot produce adolescents who are not qualified to get into college without bribery and graft, then they shouldn't go, and if caught, suffer the consequences. Kids far more bright have been suffering the crime of being poor in America all their lives. The entitled kids deserve no pity if the silver spoon suddenly disappears - welcome back to earth.
4
Expulsion seems harsh....but for the students it might be a blessing. Leave Yale, Harvard or USC and enroll in the local junior college. Learn how to study. Move on. The schools could require a voluntary withdrawal so if queried by future employers or graduate schools could simply say the student withdrew voluntarily. Another option would be a two year suspension. That way the students are rewarded for rehabilitation.
2
Let the students reapply on their own merit. Except for Olivia Jade. Unfortunately for her, that chickadee has made her merit all too plain to see already.
3
It is past time to reevaluate the preferential treatment of athletes in college admissions.
Many of these cheaters slid in through exploitation of the privileged consideration of athletes coupled with the monetization of athletic competition. Coaches of non-revenue sports seemed to feel that they should be compensated for their power to boost certain students over others , just as coaches salaries and benefits bear no relationship to faculty norms for teaching classes.
College athletics are all about money, status and privilege. A coach who brings in "donations" is a coach with job security and bonuses. Teams that bring notice to a school are teams that receive funding. Students who can't keep up academically are shuttled into fake classes like the UNC "African American studies" classes that were only open to athletes, never met, were 'taught' by a department secretary and everyone got As.
These motivations and outcomes are antithetical to the mission of universities. Sports are a business and should be treated as such. Schools can lease their names in return for revenue, but the businesses should be taxed and athletes paid. If they want to take a few classes, fine, but they don't get 'admitted' and thus take a seat from a 'real' student.
Colleges should be limited to a very small percentage of admits given to 'special' students, including legacies. A national lottery similar to medical residency 'matches' should determine the majority of entering classes.
3
@Shar: Intriguing idea, a national lottery for special admits. However, you'd have to concede that the possibility of playing athletics, and achieving skills and exposure for a potential professional sports career, motivates those students to attend college at all.
It appears that actresses can expect less latitude in wrongdoing that businessmen. I didn't realize this until now. Where are the photographs of all the cheaters who aren't actresses? This is really blatant discrimination.
12
Basic justice demands that each and every one of the students who gained admission or degrees by fraudulent means be expelled or have their degrees revoked.
This is the only fair course. Taking no action says that the universities are not all that troubled by the cheating.
I find it impossible to believe that some students were completely in the dark about the fraudulent acts that occurred. High school seniors typically have a pretty good idea of their chances of being accepted to elite universities. Certainly they know if someone takes a test for them or bolsters their application with sport participation.
Students would review their application before submission and would easily spot the lies.
The media seem to have bought into the fib that students were themselves victims and not at all complicit.
5
Not sure why this is such a big story except for the glamour angle. It's another 1% tempest in a teapot.
99% of families couldn't pay to get their kids into college if they wanted to.
6
OUT! They are expelled and lose their diplomas. Fraudulent behaviour should not be rewarded. Even if they "didn't know", they signed the paperwork, they are responsible.
3
I think if they're already there it's a little harsh to kick them up. The systematic humiliation they will experience from people who know the story, i.e. everyone, seems punishment enough to me. (Yes, I do think this would be true of people who weren't wealthy, as well.)
1
It's the entitlement that people find disgusting.
These kids could have gone to UC Santa Barbara or UC Santa Cruz, or plenty of other accredited schools and had a great time and probably learned some useful things. They HAD to go to USC, or Yale, or Stanford despite their own personal short comings. They had to keep up the appearances in their college life so that reality would match their phony identities online where they are always brilliant and beautiful. Heaven forbid that people find out that Lori Loughlin's daughter, the "style influencer," isn't actually brilliant but just a privileged and pretty person with probably little to offer academia. I wonder whose vanity started them on this bad path, the parents or the children?
6
@Tom
She should have applied to Brown. Isn't it their mission to enroll children of famous people.
Understandable that disciplinary action shouldn't be taken against 'students' who may have cheated on tests until those legal proceedings are finished. But what's to prevent taking action against specially recruited 'student athletes' who faked their way into schools? Their lies should be easily provable and they almost certainly can't be living up to their reputed abilities. Shouldn't they be expelled immediately?
1
Olivia Jade should be allowed to stay enrolled at USC provided that she joins the crew team as that is why she was admitted. Having seen clips of her YouTube videos, I have to believe she is just the kind of person willing to wake up for those back-breaking 6:00 a.m. practice sessions before going to class.
14
@Charles L.
Great idea! She might actually learn something from the crew team too. (Hard work, sacrifice, putting the team before herself, how to lose sometimes...)
3
I wonder what genius solution trump, graduate of the Wharton School of Finance, would have to propose? Maybe ask his Harvard educated son-in-law, too?
1
If the students are making the grades and paying the tuition I think they should finish their degrees. While the deception is disgusting I think ruining their academic records is too harsh a punishment for what is fundamentally their parents' doing.
2
OK .. We can stop kicking the dead horse.. The wealthy parents did with a candle stick in the billiards room .. mystery solved
What we need to do is campaign against our nations universities who allowed this to happen!
A few apology press releases of "We deeply regret" .. Is just a cut and paste version of their applicant rejection letters.
3
why is this scandal any different then the knowingly padded use of native american ancestry by ms. warren to advance her career? has she been held accountable?
3
Is this a joke?
If they posed for a photo with a boat knowing it was a college application, they were complicit.
Kick them out and let more deserving kids get an overpriced education.
5
Letting the unqualified students stay in just devalues the brand for the other students more than it has already. The students in question should step aside because they were fraudulently admitted if they want to employ ethics when they learned about what was done in their name. Re-apply after re-testing. Qualify on your own rights. Life goes on... (The schools are doing the students a disservice if continuing an education there is even an option for them.)
4
It's really simple: have these students go through the same grueling application process same as the rest of the 99% of perspective students do with the exception of requiring them to take the SAT, write their college essay and complete the application process in a room without the benefit of any outside assistance.
2
The college application is a from of contract, certified as true by the signed applicant, so if any part of it is based on lies, it should absolutely be dissolved and the students expelled. They should, however, be allowed to reapply.
I think it's a good lesson for the students - about signing contracts and being associated with shady people who can get you into trouble.
3
There is no hand-wringing required here. All academic institutions have clear rules and procedures in place to handle cheating on admissions applications. Knowledge of course is required. Discipline committees/administrators in universities unfortunately deal with things of this nature far too frequently and so are fully equipped, despite the implications of this article. These committees should handle these cases with the same rigor they would any other. To spend time speculating otherwise is to continue the privilege.
3
I watched all five of our children sweat the details and work their tails off to get into college. (on their own!!) During the fall of their high school junior year, each of them knew, pretty much down to a cellular level, where they stood in the winnowing process.
The idea that the students involved in this scam had no idea is either laughable, or a further indictment of the ultimate form of helicoptering, where parents are leading a process long after they should have stepped aside.
7
What about the other guilty partner - the admissions offices of the Ivies and other privileged schools themselves? It is their hypocrisy and their completely lack of transparency that encouraged the cheating and the fraud.
I also agree with the other reader about using the pictures of the girls. They may be guilty but they are not the main villains here, event the parents are not. The targets should be on those making money out of this desperate situation, and yes - on the admission conduct and the policies of those organisations that enable the cheating, by money or by gaming the affirmative action or both.
The Ivy admissions (and their board) should stop pretend they care about the upward momentum or disadvantaged students. To regain the trust of the public, they should start from abandoning the policy of reserve ~ 30% of their admissions for students from prep schools which serves only the very top of the rich.
I graduated from one of these schools, and now teach at a university. More importantly though, I have one son who recently graduated from college and another who is now taking classes. With them in mind, to dis-enroll them because they were unwittingly caught in this scheme is simply wrong. The (justice) system has identified a flaw in its admissions process and schools seem to be taking decisive action to sanction the people responsible. Those kids who unwittingly participated, and yes benefited, will be coming to terms with what happened but it wasn't their fault. And falling back on the "I certify that the above is..." clause should be invoked, well how many of us in similar situations where we had no reason to suspect wrongdoing would have asked if our SAT scores had been manipulated? Keep the kids enrolled and move forward having learned a hard lesson.
24
@PJM
You cannot allow someone to benefit from a crime, whether they knew about it or not.
If the parents stole money to give to their children and then got caught, should the kids be allowed to keep the stolen money just because they didn't know it was stolen? This is no different. And those kids are taking up spots in these schools that were denied to others who did not cheat.
68
@PJM
It IS wrong. Simply. I steal a car, give it to my son, he is not charged with stealing the car, but he doesn't get to keep it. It belongs to someone else. That slot at the university belongs to another. It is not even the university's responsibility to explain this self-evident truth to the student. Let the lying parent explain it to their child. There is the lesson.
62
If these children didn’t know what was going on they were not smart enough for schools to begin with. My daughter knew her standing in her education after 4 years and she certainly knew what was going on with the schools she applied to. If these students were diligent and wanted to get proper educations I would sympathize. It doesn’t look like that’s what is going on here.
44
Yes, my guess is their legal advice will be to continue the lie. For example I m sure the Giannulli sister didn’t know why their father spent time photographing their athletic prowess so they could be on a sports team at USC. One sister professes her dislike for education yet she was chosen over other students because of her parents money.
So let’s see if these sister get expelled for lying. If not we can just assume it’s affirmative action by rich, white people and SOP in the land of make believe for the very few at the top.
7
@William Try to keep up--the girls dropped out of USC many days ago. They were aware of the scheme. It's gross. They are gross.
2
Even if some of these students had no knowledge or not directly implicated in any wrongdoing, I think there is still a need to be held ethically accountable as being beneficiaries of crime.
If a student is admitted through illegal activity, they have a moral responsibility to voluntarily withdraw and re-apply to a different school through legitimate and honest means.
14
Agreed,especially if they have signed the application attesting to the truth of it, because that assumes they have read the application and seen the false information (for example, that they are a track team athlete or water polo player). if they did not read the application, they should not have signed it.
4
The kids are of course culpable. They saw the false descriptions on the team’s website. One fake recipient boasted that her biggest athletic accomplishment was not in her recruited sport of soccer but from horseback riding. Another fake recipient was asked to pose as a waterpolo player to take misleading photos as part of the scheme.
On these facts, you’d have to ignore reality to conclude that these kids did not participate in the scams that got them in schools they knew they weren’t qualified to obtain admission on their own merits like the less financially well-equipped applicants.
5
Looks like they should have said they will become cheerleaders to become admitted at usc, and then follow through. then there would be no problem. my guess there is "assisted" admissions for cheerleading at usc
1
I find it interesting the article mentions the students culpability but their capability. Are these people capable of passing retests?
3
I am sure these kids knew. Once these kids are in the colleges who is going to write their term papers and get them through exams? Mommy and her connections will pay someone to get them through that process. Make the kids retake the SAT or ACT tests and lets see how they score.
1
"If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits"
That should end any debate about this.
10
Just kick them out now. Anyone with parents wealthy enough to buy or bribe their way into college will also do just fine without the college education.
5
Money speaks everywhere, not just schools. I've noted that boards of directors (of every place- schools, churches, libraries- you name it) consist mostly of rich people who donate the most money; and the chairman of the board is usually the richest person (and the biggest donor). They are the ones who decide policy.
4
I think revoking graduation and the diploma that goes with it is an easier said than done proposition. FERPA will protect the identities of graduates who may have used a side door for admission.
However, I think currently enrolled students might be a different issue, and USC’s recent action to place account holds (blocking registration and transcript release) on them allows officials time to review before making recommendations.
There are several very different ways the people who are involved in this admissions scandal can handle it. They can allow themselves to feel crushed by the public shaming they are undergoing, the loss of relationships, jobs, and opportunities.
They can isolate themselves and permit this to be the negative defining moment of their lives, a life-ruining event.
Or they can let themselves become angry and defiant about the shame, falling into what-aboutisms, blaming everyone else and then wallowing in the If Onlys. After all, college admissions IS a largely corrupt game. Many people cheat to get what they want. What about those you KNOW who cheated and didn't get caught? If only that guy hadn't been investigated by the FBI and then given up Singer. If only I hadn't applied to THIS school. If only my parents weren't my parents. If only my kids had had better grades and scores, I wouldn't have been driven to do this. Why me? Why did this have to happen to me?
Or they could take true responsibility for what they did. Yes, they
deserve a public shaming and they should allow themselves to feel it. But then they could decide to turn this very public reckoning into a personal reckoning for their own good - and possibly the good of others. Face up to it, own it, tell your family and friends and the public that you are deeply sorry.
Then go out and do some real good in the world. Get off of social media and stop obsessing about yourself. Make your lives meaningful.
93
If these colleges do not "pull the parchment", the lesson to wealthy would-be-cheater parents will be -- cheat, but keep your children in the dark.
12
New lesson for cheating rich parents: Made sure you maintain plausible deniability for your children so that if you're caught they can still reap the rewards of your cheating.
The "I had no idea what they did!" defense. It works for presidents and corporate CEOs, now it works for students too!
15
I think everyone who went to college or grad school can point to a few of their fellow students who just seemed totally out of their depth. Perhaps they don't speak any English at all, despite presumably having taken an English proficiency exam (cheating is rampant). Perhaps they spent all of their time in class sleeping, or stoned, or goofing off. Perhaps they were just really dumb - someone in my graduate program could not deduce the probability for getting heads on a coin toss; another did not know that the 20th century refers to the 1900s. (I have no clue how you make it to the age of 25 and absorb these basic facts of our reality.)
I don't know how these students managed to get into the school (the supposedly prestigious NYU!!!), but the point is that they were present at the same time I was. Their presence degrades the quality of classroom education and really makes me question the perceived value of a degree from my universities. If these schools let in fools like that, what does that say about me?
Undeserving, cheating slackers from this recent case should be expelled from their schools wherever they can be found. I have no sympathy.
14
@Nick
Correction - meant to say - "I have no clue how you make it to the age 25 and NOT absorb these basic facts about our reality."
2
Who cares what was "in the hearts" of these fraudulent students? They were admitted to the schools through gaming the system. They took slots deserving students should have gotten on their merits. Kick them out now. That's the only just solution. Let them get in wherever their grades can take them.
10
The tragedy is that there is no way to repair this. You can’t find the student who was cheated. There is no way to undo the injustice.
That is one of the reasons jail time is appropriate.
4
@SG - Ask the person was next on the waiting list whether they'd like to transfer to Yale for their second year?
1
Unwittingly receiving stolen goods does not entitle one to keep those goods, even if they unfortunately paid for them. Students who did not earn their way into these schools, regardless of whether they were aware of the cheating do not deserve to benefit from the cheating. They can always reapply on their own merit or apply to schools they are suited for.
9
The students enmeshed in this controversy are in a similar situation to the "Dreamers" -- people brought illegally to the US as children. Both groups have benefited from someone else's illegal/unethical behavior. Both are now stuck with the consequences of others' actions.
3
@Katrin: No, they’re not. The Dreamers were babies/minors and had no idea of, or control over, what happened to them. The college-age children of the cheaters must have known that there was, at least, something not quite right about being admitted to those universities with their less-than-admirable grades/test scores. Then there were those who posed for pictures in sports equipment. Come on...let’s not be naive.
8
Funny how we see teh two actresses in every single article. I want to see the people in business and tech that did this. Why are they being protected from the public? We are being told forever how they got to where they are through hard work and talent. The public gets to know how this really works.
22
While certainly the actions of the parents, the admissions "consultant" and in some cases, the children are deplorable, I can't help but feel that FBI resources could have been better spent.
The President is, in effect, a Russian agent. He has been in violation of the emoluments clause since his inauguration. His cabinet is engaged in shocking levels of corruption. He has interfered with the normal security function of government to the benefit of his son-in-law.
But wait! Wealthy parents have gamed college admissions system. *sigh*
5
As a retired college level educator, I too remember outstanding students. One young man from Africa could not speak English.
Experienced educators begin to recognize deceit and even if the students are understanding the materials and lectures.
One student from Africa who could not speak English, lacked cleanliness, and he struggled to learn keyboarding. I knew he was not understanding my lectures.
Because it was a hands on class, keyboarding, basic computer skills, I noticed as I lectured, he would look at others to see what they were doing. He would stay until 11:00 pm, the only student in the classroom and utilized every minute to make the wpm the class required.
The next class period, I noticed he had gone into the program, and spent hours to get to the level required. He continued until the end and received an A. I have never ever witnessed such a dedicated student.
In fact I had many international students struggling with the English language and looking back they were the most dedicated, hardworking, ethical students in my entire career. They worked during the day at labor intensive plants and came to school at night and the majority were A students.
They wanted an education and did everything they could to achieve it but with ethics and high standards.
And now we have cheating scandals that prevents those that work hard and want to learn from getting the opportunity.
137
@OpieTaylor Maybe those who oppose immigration are scared of competing with dedicated, hardworking, and ethical students.
17
@OpieTaylor
I, too, had many international students in my chemistry classes at a community college in the midwest. One had fled Eritrea illegally and nearly missed his plane. He ran, yelling and waving across the runway to catch a departing plane to the US. Two days later he was waiting at the classroom when I arrived to unlock the door at 8 a.m. He had a new calculator and all necessary classroom materials in his arms. Throughout the semester he sat in the front room and asked questions. Today he is a neurosurgeon. Immigrants make America great.
45
Unwittingly receiving stolen goods does not entitle one to keep those goods, even if they paid for them. These students who benefited from the cheating, even if they were unaware, cannot be allowed to keep that benefit. They can always reapply based on their own merit or a apply to a school for which their qualifications are more suitable.
10
Here is my take on the whole situation. Colleges and universities have it coming to them...big time. They lost interest in the Humanities a long time ago and instead pursued the path of athletics, making college basketball and football their hallmark. In other words, it was money and publicity that became their top concern. Consequently, administrative salaries went through the roof, and as a consequence, faculty salaries were left to stagnate. So if you constantly have your hand out for money, it is only natural that such bribery schemes were allowed to take root. Letter to all you high school juniors and seniors: there are a lot of fine educational institutions in this country which are not in the Top Ten. So start applying to them!
20
In the 1970s, state tax $revenue at major public universities paid about 60% of the operating expenses. Today, that figure is under 15%. These institutions rely on alumni and other donors far more today than they did in the era when public universities were actually funded by the public.
6
The benefit (diploma, admission, scholarship) is fruit from the poisoned tree, so to speak. However, where is the line on bribery? How much money did the Bush family give Yale to drag poor George W. over the finish line? How much money was given to U of Penn to admit and graduate the current head of the GOP? At some point, a diploma becomes a commodity without intellectual value.
19
@Katrin ----->
Right, like w/the nexus between Hillary Clinton and Yale.
Or, Elizabeth Warren at UT & Harvard.
Will HRC & LW be stripped of the parchment too?
3
The thought that these students were oblivious to any knowledge of their fraudulent sports-related admissions is ludicrous. I am quite sure Olivia Jade knew exactly how she got in.
13
The child is reaping the benefits of their parents money and wealth.
They have been afforded the best education at elite private K-12 schools, and will continue to be rewarded for an accident of birth.
So no, they should not now be allowed to stay in the university's they lied to. Let them feel the discrimination the majority of Americans have to face on a daily basis.
Builds character of which I'm betting they have none.
5
If the kids didn't know... they simply aren't yet sufficiently motivated to move up to higher education.
6
Two possible outcomes here, two possible lessons learned:
1) Cheating is okay—you just need enough money to get away with it.
2) Cheating is not okay—break the rules and you will likely be punished, regardless how much money you have.
My guess is the vast majority of us prefer the world of the second outcome, the one where we rightly assume the other person is not trying to cheat us, is not lying to us, and whatever rank or title they enjoy has been awarded on the basis of their hard work and achievement.
Regarding who is culpable in this scandal, the students involved are not “children.” Virtually everyone with normal mental capacity is able to discern right from wrong by age 17.
4
I'm tired of seeing pictures of the usual 2 celebrity parents involved in the college admissions scandal. How about disclosing and running pictures of the other parents involved to keep this on a fair level or are they too rich to fail?
36
@Wally Wolf
I agree. There were doctors, lawyers, and CEOs involved as well. It's getting tiring seeing them beat up on the Hollywood types here especially since, from what we have seen so far, they (the girls and their parents) have already lost plenty in this fiasco.
9
I find it hard to believe that those who got admitted fraudulently did not know what got them admitted to these prestigious universities. The correct punishment is expulsion. If this not meted out, what prevents applicants caught in a fraudulent situation in the future to claim ignorance? that they didn't know and their parents went behind their back. The universities need to send a zero tolerance message. Anything short will not suffice.
16
@Tej
90% had to know. The other 10% who say they did not, should not be in college.
6
Kids who enter an elite college through falsifying information or through bribery, whether by their actions or their parents, should be expelled. Students have a pretty good idea these days because of internet and a plethora of information sources about their standing relative to others applying to colleges. They can easily find out what schools they may be admitted to. So, I don't think many students are 'unwitting' or 'unknowing' that someone was cheating on their behalf.
9
I suppose one could argue either side regarding the culpability of students whose parents played this game. But those who say it is not possible that they were in the dark are wrong.
I was head of a school for years. In one case, a young women received an acceptance letter from a college to which she had not applied. Her mother had "applied" for her, submitting everything including the essay. Her mother was irritated that the daughter hadn't shown interest in her alma mater, so she took matters into her own hands.
3
I'm a strong supporter of immigration but that support does not translate to those who came here illegally. I know illegal immigrants are hard working and rarely commit crimes, but I wouldn't go so far as to offer a pathway to citizenship for them.
Similarly, I have little sympathy for those who got into colleges fraudulently. Presumably they didn't have the qualifications to make it in, so they should not be allowed to register for classes, and those that have graduated should be stripped of their diplomas. Anything less will encourage more wealthy parents to play the same fraudulent games.
3
All the students involved in the cheating scandal surely have been diishonorably expelled and had their diplomas withdrawn by NOW( with everything permanently recorded), haven't they -
Haven't they ?
5
A university's admissions process is mainly designed to predict who has the mental capacity and discipline to succeed at that university. If a university student is doing well in his studies, then he ought to have been admitted in the first place, so how can one really justify kicking him out?
@Ken - Because there were hundreds of other students who also could have done the work, but did not falsify their applications. Basically, the students lied their way to the front of the line, and should not be rewarded for doing so.
9
There are hundreds of others who MIGHT HAVE been able to do the work ... the admissions process is not a perfectly accurate prediction mechanism. Many students who might have done well are excluded from admission; many students who don't do well are admitted. On the other hand, after a student is already doing well, one is no longer predicting that the student will do well, one knows that they are doing well, so accuracy of the basis on which they were admitted is -- as a practical matter -- entirely moot.
1
Let the fraudulently admitted students be disenrolled and the already-graduated be deprived of their degrees. Then let those who were innocent victims of their parents' crimes sue those parents to recover their loses.
12
If you rob a bank and give the cash to your college age adult kids - they don't get to keep the cash when you are caught.
It should be the same here.
None of the colleges ever noticed the correlation with admissions and six figure "donations." No department ever
noticed that a whole bunch of "athletes" didn't exist.
The colleges should face criminal charges as well.
18
Wow! If this isn't proof about how useless these universities have become... Does any sane person actually believe these students had no idea what was going on? It defies belief! If this doesn't get them bounced out immediately, what will? This is part of the problem, it's become impossible to flunk out of college and the disciplinary process for anything has become a way to bury serious allegations in bureaucracy and convoluted process. These kids should have been gone the day charges were filed.
Additionally it appears that 100s of kids were involved in some level of nefarious activity, probably at many additional colleges. When do we hear about that? My guess is the universities aren't looking too hard...
4
Whether or not the children involved knew what their parents were up to, they ought to be kicked out.
How else will this deter future entitled rich parents from mocking the college admissions system and buying their kids way through life?
8
@I'mor
Obviously these kids were never given the opportunity to face "disappointments' in life.
So now is the time.
I didn't know is not an excuse. They signed the application with obvious misstatements about either their grades, their SAT scores or their "athletic" skills.
3
Whether or not the children of the rich and famous knew they were being bribed into universities, it is now clear: that despite every advantage (being rich and white), they are still too mediocre to achieve any level of success without mommy's help. Perhaps Mom can now help them fill out an application for sales associate at Lulu Lemon, a job for which they be qualified.
4
@Karen - I'm sure there are many able salespeople at Lulu Lemon who just didn't have the connections or money to get into a great college. How about we arrange a trade, and admit the salesperson in lieu of the rich kid?
2
As a teacher I saw the joy students displayed when they were accepted to the school of their choice. I also saw the heartbreak of a few students who decided they were done with school, elected to blow off their senior year in high school, and let their grades fall. Colleges monitor senior grades. They saw those low grades and rejected those students in favor of others who didn't let their grades slip. It was a hash but real lesson. I saw kids get rejected from schools because their transcript indicated they had been suspended from school for plagiarism. Nobody likes a cheater. On the other hand, I read college admission essays that were priceless examples of amazing work. My favorite was the story of a young woman who came to the United States from Viet Nam at the age of 9. She didn't understand English, but went to a library, got books and a dictionary, and taught herself how to read and speak English. She became a top student who got into a top school. Dozens of young people, who work hard, who know the value of learning, and who don't take anything for granted deserve the reward of a top tier education. Those families who cheated to get in should be taken to trial, and those students should be removed from those schools. Believe me, there are dozens of others who work hard and deserve those treasured positions. Those good students were pushed aside by cheaters. Well, fix it. Take away the cheaters and put the good ones in their place. They will not let you down.
172
The students involved should have to retake admissions tests, SAT’s etc over under strict supervision, and re submit all their application data with supporting verification. If their revised credentials make the cut against all other applicants, then they can be readmitted.
17
This is VERY simple...if the degree was earned then keep it, otherwise it goes in the shredder along with all transcripts!
7
If your parents steal a car and they give it to you to drive, you don't get the keep it when it's discovered to be stolen.
22
Yale, USC, Wake Forest? These universities struggle to determine the appropriate response to academic fraud? And they suggest that they cannot easily investigate because of the tissue of trust? Who we these people?
Contrast that with the response to student athlete Maiori Davenport’s honest but accidental receipt of $827 for representing the US in actual competition. These same people would throw Maiori Davenport and her parents to the curb - simply to protect the flow of cash to the Universities from the media and the athletics sponsors.
Higher education at these august institutions is a dirty and quite feckless business.
20
Tip for affected students:
Step up.
Whether or not you knew that your parents were cheating on your behalf, you are now permanently affected. This is as it should be, because other, more worthy candidates than you were adversely affected. Show compassion for them.
Drop out immediately, address the issue publicly, then reapply.
16
I see a clear double standard being applied by those screaming for the wealthy kids’ scalps. Where were the cries to unenroll the African American students from T.M. Landry High School in Louisiana, where entire transcripts and essays were forged and designed to push all the right buttons of admissions councilors? These kids are mostly victims of adults who pressured them or did corrupt actions on their behalf.
3
The difference is that those who succeed by greed think themselves superior to begin with and, owning the system, exempt themselves from justice, preferring to wag their fingers at "other people" who "get away with it."
4
They caught 1 college advisor. The advisor they caught worked with thousands of parents and students. What about the rest???
What about misstating the ethnicity which was part of the scam? This also is part of many other college advisors scams.
If you carefully analyze the data from elite colleges in terms of race/Ethnicity their is a disconnect between reality and what some students have said on their admissions application. I would guess 10-15% in some cases.
Do you backtrack and find the students that falsified ethnicity? Do you go back and figure out what else was misstated on admissions applications?
Colleges have some complicity in the scams as they know they are happening but when pushed say they don't have time to fact check.
4
Money talks the rest walks. So I’m betting the rich kids will land on their feet with silver spoon in hand.
10
@J Clark
Yikes, and more narcissistic presidential candidates.
How could the applicants not know what their parents were up to? Could they be that dumb? Didn’t they read and sign the application? Didn’t they have a suspicion that with their grades they wouldn’t have been accepted?
And I also don’t buy that the universities were also unaware, in fact, also victims.
They created the environment that encouraged the parents and scammers to find the side door, the loopholes, any way to game the system. And the university hired the weak links, the coaches, the admissions people.
Get rid of the legacies, the back door for rich kids. Get rid of the fancy gyms and athletic facilities and they won’t miss the money (bribes?) of the favored.
Go back to what they are there for, to educate.
It will be a simpler and more just system.
14
Somewhere out there are a batch of students who should have been in the slots given to such winners as Loughlin's daughter, who openly admits to not being into things academic, and is using college to brand herself and get merchandising deals.
The students should be re-evaluated, and if they can prove they are actually doing work at the level the schools require, let them stay. If not, kick them out promptly.
And the parents should be required to fund 4 years of school at these schools for a deserving student for each child they slid in falsely. Funding to include room, board and everything else a student would need to be on an equal footing with these kids.
13
@Elizabeth
Their acceptance was based on fraud and no caveats should be applied.
1
@Elizabeth
Terrific idea- to make part of the cheating parent's sentence be to fund scholarships for poorer students more qualified than their own kids.
2
Have them go through the application process again. It's common practice when matriculated students transfer within a university and would be a good exercise for the admissions office.
6
A useful punishment might be substantial fines of the parents with the proceeds going to those private colleges in the US that do educate financially disadvantaged students tuition free, like Berea College in Kentucky. All Berea students have to work 10 hours each week too. USC, Yale and Stanford could stand a little Kentucky wisdom and the kids could well stand a real work assignment too.
4
Ah, America . . . focus on the illegality of specific individuals and elide systemic problems.
The combination of legal and illegal gaming of the college admissions system for elite institutions is a blaring signal that the system is broken. With affirmative action for legacies, trading large donations for admissions, burnishing of student resumes with unpaid internships, hiring of costly admissions counselors, enrollment in prep courses, and the use of elite high schools to fast track admits, its clear that buying increased access is a routine part of higher education.
The main problem isn't a few bad apples that did illegal things. The capture of higher education by the privileged 10% enforces systemic inequality, and there's so far no evidence of any change that would move our higher education system more toward the meritocracy we love to pretend it is.
8
It would be interesting to know how the young woman who used her dorm room as a prop in her profitable "influencer" business performed in her single semester (to date) at USC. She made it painfully clear she had no interest in acquiring knowledge. Did she show up for classes and take examinations? Did she receive "help" satisfying such course requirements? These factors will likely play a part in USC's decision as to her continuing status.
10
@Pete Christianson
Had she enrolled in an ethics class?
1
“A college is not in a great position to investigate,” said Theodore O’Neill, who was dean of admissions at the University of Chicago for two decades. “The admissions process is held together by a tissue of trust.”
Oh, academia. That trust is now shattered and will be impossible to regain without vigorous, impartial investigation. Throw open the ivory towers.
And, Mr. (Dr.?) O'Neill, as you feel that colleges may not be good investigators, there are many organizations who are. A university who wishes to rebuild trust in its admissions process could hire a well reputed investigative firm - or as fraud is generally illegal (though perhaps not in academe) law enforcement could undertake these investigations.
if a model is needed of how to and how not to undertake this, universities could look at the gymnastics scandal at Michigan State University.
3
If they’re unqualified they shouldn’t be able to graduate from places like Yale right? But no, the hardest part is getting in. That should be the bigger scandal.
8
@Peter Getting in is the trick. None of these schools are that hard to graduate from.
3
As painful as it is for some of these students, the argument that they cannot benefit from a stolen admission--even unwittingly-- is very compelling. They should be expelled or have their diplomas rescinded. They shouold not get to "keep" their degree because they were, in a sense, never admitted.
10
Of course these students should be expelled or have their diplomas pulled. They're from families with cheating cultures, would never have been admitted without cheating, and we have no way of knowing if the cheating continued once they were admitted. Anything less devalues the diplomas of all hard-working legitimate students and graduates. And anyone who thinks they and their high schools didn't know they didn't have the qualifications to get into these schools is very naive.
6
Regardless of their knowledge, fraud was committed on their application and the admission was based on fake information. What does it matter if they knew?
7
@Lisa I think it does matter. I read of one fellow who was unaware of the steps his parents took and was quoted as being genuinely remorseful. He himself pointed out that he took a spot that was available to someone more qualified. Ms. McLaughlin's progeny who is active on social media and was at USC for social activity and not academic activity seems to be at the opposite end of the spectrum.
5
@Betsy Ross Someone's remorse isn't relevant. If the parents had stolen a material possession instead without his knowledge he would have to forfeit it, this should be no different.
“If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits.” That’s the reason to expel those students who were admitted on the basis of fraud.
And here’s some consolation: in every other aspect of their lives in society, they will continue to reap the benefits and privileges of wealth.
So let’s stop this pity-party for rich people who will fail upwards and save our real compassion for people who worked hard and earned their spot but got it taken away by undeserving cheats.
13
The fact that colleges could even question whether to expel those kids just shows the depths of the problem.
There was a 60 Minutes about SAT cheating rings in wealthy private schools — it aired back in 2012. None of the kids in the cheating ring that was featured and exposed faced any consequences. The kids who got caught having bought fake SAT scores didn’t even have their schools notified. That was nearly a decade ago, and even then 60 Minutes reported that such cheating was widespread.
Do you think a system like this, that has been openly exposed for so many years, could persist if the stakeholders (the College Board, rich parents and the schools that salivate over the rich parents’ money) didn’t want it to persist?
The system is corrupt because he corruption works for everyone involved.
5
Practically all students are beneficiaries of their parents' or guardians' roles in their lives. The affected children should not be penalized if they are unwitting beneficiaries, as long as they had no knowledge of the illegal activities, and studied hard for their degrees. Also, as minors, they are vulnerable to the influence of their parents over them, so they should also be looked upon with compassion, again as long as they were focused on education. So, in my view, only those students who had taken an active role in or consciously agreed with the illegal activity, or who did not particularly care for the education should be disciplined, including expulsion.
15
@Robby the admission was stolen, and stolen property must be returned and can't be kept.
48
@Robby Brady's reply that the fraudulent admission was essentially stolen property cannot be kept, is right on. In addition, even if the student was totally unaware of his/her parents' fraudulent intervention in the process, not removing the student rewards the parents behavior and sends a signal to others who might be tempted to try this in the future that the fraud works even if you get caught. That absolutely cannot be permitted. There may be rare exceptional circumstances, but fraud is fraud and the student who was accepted by fraud is taking the place of a student who earned acceptance and was cheated out of it. It really cannot be tolerated.
45
@Robby
And going forward, when parents and students cheat, they must maintain plausible deniability so when they get caught they can keep their degree.
10
Prospective college students are responsible for the content of their own applications. Period. It's not normal for parents to be filling out applications for prospective college students. If these students relied on their parents to complete their applications for them, then they did so at their peril.
The rule should be this: if the students were the victims of the fraud (parents or administrators intercepted the application and forged it), they can stay. If they were merely the unwitting beneficiary of the fraud along for the ride, they should be expelled.
99
Hugh, I agree. Prospective students are FULLY responsible for their applications.
17
@hugh Perhaps if they were unwitting beneficiaries, they should be allowed to withdraw, rather than be expelled. They don't need to be punished. They just need to transfer to a school that will admit them based on their actual merit and attain a degree at that school.
25
Overlooked in this debate is "qualification." Admission standards sometimes have a subjective aspect. Many people apply and "do not qualify," but the fact is a large number would have been able to do the work had they been admitted. So far there has not been any report of any individual who was fraudulently admitted but later had to drop out because they could not keep up academically. Not all of the standards for determining "qualification" are necessary. Some standards are simply a way to reject, nothing more. Higher ed could use this embarrassing scandal as an opportunity to reconsider admission standards and more precisely calibrate them to what is necessary for student success. Perhaps the academic standards need to be raised. In a better world, any "unqualified" person who enters a program via fraudulent means would wash out (provided professors do their job catching cheaters, which is likely the big story of some future date).
17
Roger,
I like your thinking but somewhere the main point seems to be lost. What happened was not merely a scandal. It was fraud.
This country was, until now, believed by most people to be generally free of cheating, bribery and corruption in higher education—a social institution with degrees widely sought after by people around the world.
All our social institutions suffer from what this criminal investigation has turned up.
Our remedies need to address that.
11
@Roger Schools aren't just screening students for who can succeed at their schools. There will always be vastly more people who could succeed than there are spots in the class. They are screening, at the end of the day, for the people the school wants, not for who will do best there.
And for the record, there are more than enough colleges in this country for rejected students across the board to find a place where they can attain their degree. As someone who dropped out of college to work full time and study at night so that I could pay it all by myself debt free, I'm really tired of hearing whining about some stinging rejection. Just wait till they have to get a job. Are they going to argue their lives were cheated because they don't get the job they want?
Life ain't fair, folks.
4
@Roger I've always thought colleges should set criteria to make a yes/no decision irrespective of capacity, and then use a lottery to decide who will actually be accepted, given the available space. "I was accepted to Yale but lost the lottery" could still be a bragging point!
3
Yes, they should expel the current students and pull the parchment of former students. Schools are very draconian about pulling scholarships when grades dip below minimum requirements and expelling students for other reasons far less serious. In several areas of the common app, applicants sign that the submission is their own original work and accept the consequences. Having to sign multiple times cements the awareness of what is at stake for lying.
I’d go further than this. Anyone working with a consultant other than their school guidance counselor should have to discose that fact and the company name on the app. Class name/location and number of hours spent in formal prep classes for standardized tests should be disclosed on the app. Underprivileged students have to disclose certain govt. programs that gave them help on some apps for state university systems, yet the overprivileged are not required to do the same.
44
The larger scandal is the racket of athletic scholarships. Colleges should be admitting students on the basis of academic merit, with an eye toward creating a horizon-expanding mix of students. While they’re at it, colleges should end the ability of their fundraisers to earmark the children of big donors. A system that awards admission based on athletic ability or personal wealth damages America’s ability to compete against countries where students are rewarded for working hard in high school.
16
Maybe the universities should embrace the same NCAA rules they enforce on their own student-athletes: guilty until proven innocent and culpable for any “impermissible benefits”.
6
The "students" should be dis-enrolled and the parents should spend some time in a federal prison.
15
@Karl Heinz
Totally agree with this view. Even if the students were not directly involved, they secured a spot that could have been occupied by someone more deserving.
5
End athletic admissions preferences. Admit students based on academic merit. Ask students to take an entrance exam given by the school. Done.
Oh, and go back and admit the top people on the wait list.
13
Thought it was "higher education." Guess the bar is not that high.
4
These institutions of 'higher learning' need to do redeem their good name, or diplomas issued with their seal, become suspect, to an even greater degree. Many 'jocks' survive to graduate due to athleticism.Those soon to be of the elite will survive and succeed because money will buy them in everywhere else. The university experience should be about an education; but it is as much about building a networking system.
I'm thinking that as a head hunter, I want the sharpest pencil available. That's a pre digital analogy for you kids with over developed thumbs, meaning- the person I'd hire would be the one you'd want to network with.
Sorry kids, it's my generations fault for allowing greed to supplant the true value knowledge and integrity.
5
Am I the only one who thinks this whole thing is just a little overblown? We are talking about maybe 100 kids out of 20 million college students. This scandal reeks of sensationalism.
8
@Tom
Yes, you may be the only one.
Mail fraud and probably tax fraud (both Federal issues) are involved. Along with blatant entitlement by the very wealthy.
10
Tom,
I can’t tell about the 7 who have recommended your comment so far, but as I look around... yep, looks like you might be the only one.
I have a child waiting for college acceptance letters right now.
This behavior by adults, and most importantly by educators, whether institutional or advisory/coaching, is a national disgrace.
10
@Tom This is the tip of the iceberg; those you mention are the ones who've been caught. As big a scandal to me is the SAT complicity.
8
That this is even being debated shows just how invested these universities are in keeping the rich and famous enrolled. Does anyone really believe that these kids are innocent victims of their parents schemes? Or is it that university officials believe that maybe the kids maybe did deserve their spot in admissions, simply because of their status and ability to pay full tuition and later become wealthy donors? Many rich kids are admitted to these elite schools every year on that basis alone. The real irony of this scandal is that the parents probably didn't need to cheat, they just chose to (for whatever reason). In any other case, this flagrant evidence of fraud in a college application would immediately lead to expulsion. Not here. The reasons seem clear.
19
Unfortunately, just because someone was hurt, does not mean there is a remedy.
2
It really doesn't matter if whether a student knew people were pulling strings for them, or not. If they did not have the quals to attend a school when they applied, then they should not have gotten in; another student - a worthy one - would have. So...these kid will have to leave and thus open the 'stolen' position for someone else. Will they feel bad? Likely. They can take it up with their parents, who manipulated the system and cheated to get them into a school they didn't - and don't - deserve to be at.
21
@SilverLaker 4284
I do feel sorry for the kids who didn't know about their parents' schemes. This will follow them around all their lives and cast doubt on any accomplishments they may have in the future. As to whether or not they should be expelled, I think if I were one of the innocent students, I would publicly apologize for my parents, give up my place in the university, retake the SATs under proper supervision (not someone paid to help me get in) and apply to another school. You don't have to go to one of these elite schools to be successful in life. I graduated from a state college after mostly paying my own way and have a very good job plus pride in knowing that I did it all myself.
8
Doesn’t really matter much. These kids don’t even need a degree to get a high paying job. It was ever so.
6
I do not buy the argument t that these schools did not know what was going on. They should be held accountable. On another note, these kinds of shenanigans are exactly why the average Joe/Jane might distrust the rich & famous. The rest of us work and save for what we have and so do our kids.
6
@sg It's no more right to stereotype the rich and famous than it is any other demographic or culture. There are cheating crooks at all levels of society.
1
“A college is not in a great position to investigate,” said Theodore O’Neill, who was dean of admissions at the University of Chicago for two decades. “The admissions process is held together by a tissue of trust.” - That tells much of the story right there.
8
Many of our children need new teachers. Showing our children how to commit fraud is despicable!
5
Students, culpable or not, should be dis-enrolled from the colleges. Whether intended or not, the application to college represents a falsehood. These students should be required to take the SAT again and re-apply with a truthful application.
Graduating through a corrupt system degrades the credibility of the college and all those who graduated. Those who had already graduated should be required to re-certify through additional classwork, just as a secondary education teacher might need to after many years out of the system.
If someone purchases a valuable painting that turned out to have been stolen, does the buyer get to keep it? No.
17
What about those who did not get a seat cause of someone who did it fraudulently ?
The answer here is obvious ! Universities - do the right thing .
15
This is my favorite line in the entire article:
“A college is not in a great position to investigate,” said Theodore O’Neill, who was dean of admissions at the University of Chicago"
Yet Universities across the nation have had not resisted investigating, conducting trials, and expelling male students accused by female students. They have done so often with flagrant disregard of such fundamental justice as the right to confront and cross examine one's accuser. They have expelled upon mere accusation without any substantial evidence whatsoever.
There is no problem here. Every one of those kids whose parents bribed their way in should be expelled and let to re-apply. Decision on their re-application should be based solely on merit for those not determined to have been part of the fraud. Those determined to have been part of the fraud should be rejected.
9
Except you are wrong. Title IX investigations are structured, regulated and documented. That’s why they have lengthy investigation processes and why there are appeals processes in place. The two situations aren’t in any way comparable.
No student gets kicked out without a decision report to points directly to the evidence that led to each specific determination. It isn’t a criminal court, it has different burden of proof and different repercussions.
2
@Errol Your comment should lead every story about this scandal. I only differ with re-application, They never would have been admitted in the first place or else their parents wouldn't have gone to these lengths.
1
Chill out Brock we all know you're guilty.
1
I have no doubt all of the wealthy parents feel put upon to have been outed because of their fraud, but I can't help but wonder if they realize what permanent harm they have done to their kids. Wether the students knew or not that their parents were acting in their behalf, I can't imagine a more vivid message sent to them by their parents that they aren't good enough.
19
I definitely fall on the side that these students need to be removed from the university. I just went through the college admissions process with my second child. The last thing he did for each application was to review the application to make sure he didn't miss anything and that everything was correct. These kids had the opportunity to do the same thing. They need to be held accountable for their actions and/or inactions.
40
The fact that the student may have been unaware of the fraud is not relevant. S/he is in possession of a fraudulently obtained good, and it must be returned. The response to the claim that it’s not fair to them is that life isn’t always fair and that they will now know how the rest of us feel.
37
What of those particular students whose position on the applicants list indicates that they would have been accepted if the fraudulent candidates had not been accepted? They are the ones who suffered the primary injustice. Easy for universities to fix: admission with full scholarship or financial compensation. What say you, universities?
18
I wondered how long it would be before these poor little rich kids were portrayed as innocent victims. Even if you believe that they were blissfully unaware of trumped-up disabilities, fabricated athletic records etc, the fact remains that they were admitted fraudulently. Those spots rightfully belong to qualified students who competed honestly. And the honorable thing to do would be for them to withdraw before they can be expelled. But of course that won't happen, not least because they and their parents think that the only thing they've done wrong was to get caught. Most of them will lawyer up in the certainty that senior university administrators -- a notoriously venal, craven, and spineless lot -- will happily and swiftly settle once the initial media furor has passed and the whole shabby business can be quietly swept under the rug.
28
Might not seem like it but it would be an act of mercy if these students were expelled and admitted to another university on their own merits. Otherwise, they and everyone around them would always wonder about the authenticity of their admittance.
33
Once they got in, did any of these students flunk out- despite not having the academic credentials to gain admission?
The bigger scandal might be that it is much much harder to get in than it is to graduate. In the end a lot of these universities are social clubs, especially the Ivy Leagues. A big part of the admissions process is centered on what the student might do for the alma mater 20 years from now.
High admission standards don't guarantee your education is any better than anywhere else.
18
@Terry. It has been a while since I've been in college but I'm pretty sure that if they got in with "help" they will get out with "help". Lots of essays are bought & sold before they are turned in as original work. Tests? Might be a bit harder to come by but they could get "leaked" before hand. Some classes have hundreds of students so paying someone to take your test might work....prof doesn't know your face from Smart Susie or Sam.
8
@Terry
Cheating of all forms is rampant. We have little power to truly enforce the rules many times. I knew people I strongly suspected of cheating as an undergraduate and saw many more when I taught during graduate school. When it isn't cheating, it's internal pressure to push the curve higher up the scale in all but a few courses where "weeding out" is sanctioned.
I happen to agree Yale and Brian Leiter. We need to treat a college admission application the same way we treat tax returns. It doesn't matter whether your accountant was a crook or not. You are responsible for certifying the return. You therefore bear responsibility for any false statements on that return. What happens to the accountant is a separate issue. So too with parents and falsified college applications. "I didn't know" is not an excuse. This is the adult world. You ought to know.
As for the thorny issue concerning due process, colleges have a pretty easy way out. Put everyone involved in the investigation on disciplinary probation. Pending the outcome of the trial, the school will either grant or rescind the student's diploma after the verdict. I imagine most students will opt to restart the college admissions process rather than continue paying for a degree they may never receive. Especially the students who are aware of their own guilt.
Besides, I can't imagine many students are going to be happy showing up to class after being branded as an admissions cheat. You have to be something of a sociopath to want to continue attending the same college after these allegations. Even if ultimately exonerated, the other students certainly aren't going to let you forget it.
18
@Andy, the rich are held to a different standard, even by the IRS. I was hounded about claiming a child support payment my ex had not claimed to get. Trump was allowed to value an apartment complex as worth less than $0.
1
I find Mr. Singer's confession of his feelings to be a bit of "ooops I got caught" and now need to act sad. He gamed the system over and over and over again to line his pockets with 25 million bucks. If he cared so much about the distress the kids are facing, why in the world would he build a business to cause them additional stress. Getting into ANY college is just step one of the kajillion steps required to graduate. Can the cheaters hang?
3
@Maureen A Donnelly
They can it they pay someone else to go to classes and tests for them. Some just sign up for easy courses for athletes.
Tip of the iceberg.
When so much money -- $1.2 million to get into Yale, a bargain-basement $500K to get into USC -- is available, it's unlikely that William Rick Singer is the only entrepreneur who saw the opportunity.
Keep digging.
51
There's no way that the students didn't know that there was false information on their applications. Every student in the world knows when, for example, they are being recruited as a college athlete for a sport which they never played can safely assume that something is fishy. If they can't see through that deception, they aren't as smart as they think they are.
29
@MarathonRunner FTA:
In the court papers, which contain transcripts of conversations between parents and officials at the organization that arranged the bribes, one parent recounted a “glitch” when her son, fraudulently recruited as a track athlete, was asked about the sport by an adviser at orientation.
“Apparently the adviser said something to the effect of, ‘Oh, so you’re a track athlete?’ And [my son] said, ‘No.’ Cause, so [my son] has no idea,’’ the transcript reads.
Let's not kid ourselves: none of these wealthy parents are actually going to jail. They have lawyers who will take care of that. The only way to curtail false applications is to take the benefit out of them. So do it. Rescind acceptances, deny credit, revoke diplomas, and expel current students. Parents wealthy enough to pay for false applications are wealthy enough to pay for another round of college. Or, failing that, their kids can do what everyone else's do: borrow the money or start over at an inexpensive community college. As an exhausted middle class parent trying to get three kids through college, and whose youngest child was accepted (unaided by false credentials) to three very prestigious programs but will probably opt to stay at home and go to a state university in order to avoid debt, I have little sympathy for the impending struggle of these overprivileged children. Life can hard, and it can be disappointing. They'll just have to muddle through.
61
@Motherboard. None of these kids even need to go to college...with the connections they have. And the dough. This will blow over and they will become actors and business people without degrees. For some, it will be a kardashian phenomena...best thing that ever happened to them.
3
i love the quotes from the current and former university of chicago guys. if ever there were a place immune to the sway of cajolery and blandishment, to say nothing of outright bribery, it's the UofC!
3
This entire sordid episode goes much deeper than the current scandal. For centuries elite schools have been bribed to accept unqualified students, Jared Kushner for example. So these institutions are equally culpable. A second injustice is a fact that once a parent graduates from one of these private schools their offspring are automatically accepted no matter what their level of intelligence. Unfortunately, I do not see any of these institutions admitting to their guilt and changing the way they do business. When bribery and legacy exist morals and ethics are ignored.
26
No, I don’t hunk legacy Admissions are as automatic as you think. You need to have a legacy of going to the school AND a legacy of giving enough $$$ to the school for it to matter.
I was taking an informal tour once at Columbia, where I was a grad student. The guy giving the tour pointed to a building and said the guy whose name is on that building just died, so the school was going to quickly bid it off to someone else. Just then, another person on the tour turned to me and said that there wasn’t any amount of money he could ever afford to give a place like that that would ever make a difference to them, so he wasn’t going to bother giving them anything.
There is an hierarchy even among legacies. These schools are experts at making everyone feel insignificant, no matter how much connection or legacy or success you may have in reality.
This bogus 'holistic' admissions process has produced a billion dollar admissions industry with a vested interest in keeping the process as baroque and opaque as possible. Just like the ridiculous 'tax prep' industry. Time to simplify the whole thing. A single exam; children choose schools in the order of their scores. Yes it will spawn a test prep industry, but that is almost a good thing since it will just reinforce mastery.
6
@B. Except colleges do not just want one type of student. Some state universities such as Texas do admit the top students from their high school classes. But many schools do not just want, say, all engineers. They want a range of majors. They want to fill the sports teams. They want musicians and dancers for those programs.
3
@Raindrop
Exactly. No single text can judge the amazing range of human abilities. Besides, it has been proven that standardized tests are better at judging a person's wealth (that is, access to resources that allow you to perform well in those tests) than at judging their ability to learn. That's why universities adopted holistic admission practices.
4
Yes though you could say the same thing about the high school admission exam in NYC. It's overwhelmingly Asians who excel in that exam, many of whom do not have extensive test prep resources
For privately-funded colleges and universities, the answer to that question may be how many of those students pay full sticker price, or come from families that are generous at alumni-giving time. Cash llow matters everywhere. It must stay postiive to stay afloat. The students, in any case, only get as much out of university knowledge-gaining experience as they put into it. If some dunce, who rarely shows up in class, is helping to fund my education, why should I really care? I am helping myself to his family money, not he to mine.
5
Oh, so these students didn't know? What did they think when they posed for pictures with a soccer ball in front of a fake soccer team or with an oar in front of a rowing skull?
What did they think when they got SAT scores much higher than the preliminary academic tests they had taken, such as the PSAT? Or when they had to go to another town for their SAT when it was being given locally?
I suspect they thought they were just smarter than all the average kids.
12
If the children of privilege are allowed to stay in school and keep their degrees it's just one more example of how the rules don't apply to the rich. It doesn't matter if they benefited from their own wealth or their parent's wealth. They were accepted due to fraud, and they should not benefit.
Let them start all over and get their degrees from a school they can actually get into.
22
"'It’s pretty common in the law, and it coincides with moral intuitions: If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits,' said Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago, who has posted on his philosophy blog, 'Leiter Reports,' about the scandal."
We are talking about children though and they should not and cannot bear the same culpability. Would we want the same reasoning of "unwitting beneficiary" be applied to a DACA recipient? I would hope not.
3
@Billy G DACA recipients are a whole different kettle of fish. They were indeed children when their parents brought them here. The students whose parents cheated on their behalf are young adults. At best they may have been 17 - old enough to enter the military with a parent's signature - old enough to consent and to marry in most states - old enough to be an "influencer" - old enough to sign a document attesting that the information in it - information about them - is true. 17 year olds across the country are serving adult sentences for petty crimes. The other thing 17 year olds across the country are doing is crying in their soup because they didn't get into the college of their choice. Many of those 17 yr olds don't have wealthy parents who can help them to begin a career, put a down payment on a home, etc. I say we kick the cheaters, and beneficiaries of cheating, out and fill those limited spaces with students who play fair and are more likely to succeed in those schools and make a difference in our world with the degrees they earn.
18
@Billy G
We’re not talking about children. They are 18 or older. We’re talking about adults.
16
@Billy G. Do you know of any DACA recipient who lied on their immigration forms, despite its cautions of the consequences for not telling the truth? Different situation. These college applicants are responsible for their own applications. Did your mother sign your application? How exactly did someone who is innocent somehow mention all their sports activities, including photos, unless they had someone else fill out the forms? Know what you are signing, and fill out your own applications!
4
It would seem that some parents are determined to promote a Paris Hilton career path for the lovely narcissists they have bestowed upon the rest of us. There is a strong corrupt capitalist thread running through this story, as there is running through the lives of both the parents and children. This career path appears to enjoy the support of the market place, with so much of modern life premised on "aspiration"; if you can promote an illusion that others follow vicariously, they are asking to be manipulated and thus there is money to be made. We can look forward to their failed careers in show business and the inevitable release of salacious personal videos. Then comes the serial plastic surgeries and chronic failures at the obligatory stints in rehab (for alcohol or drugs, it makes no difference). As long as the face and body work as click bait, the career will prosper.
14
The colleges involved should return the application fees to all students rejected during the past several years. Most of the eight colleges involved charge $75 for the privilege of applying. Since their system was flawed the fees should be returned.
156
@Pat Davis H And how about returning the millions of dollars their parents donated! I bet that won't happen.
5
They shouldn't return donations because a donation isn't a bribe.
4
@Me or is it?
11
If they knew going in or found out afterwards and continued, then the hammer comes down. From the courts, from the universities … if they don't think that's fair, then they can talk to mom and dad.
“It’s pretty common in the law, and it coincides with moral intuitions: If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits.”
Exactly. This issue is—should be—closed.
12
As another commenter said, your attitude would immediately render all the DACA members ineligible. They are unwitting beneficiaries.
2
Every child in school, from kindergarten on, knows WHO the smart kids are.
They're in the better reading group in K-1, they ask bigger questions in middle school, they're on a different level.
And conversely, the not-so-smart kids know themselves as well.
While this is probably on a very small scale proportionately to the rest of the nation, it is a scandal because we've all said, since we were little kids, "Hey, that's not fair!"
7
Who is passing these "gifted" (as in being admitted fraudulently) students in their college courses now? Who is writing their essays and research papers? Who is doing the lab work and taking their quizzes?
My guess is the cheating has not stopped with the college acceptance letters. Get a live time writing sample now and compare to the work submitted. Check sources. Do the work as faculty to see who is plagiarizing and cheating. Most students care deeply and work hard for the grades they earn in my course. For hard-working, honorable students and instructors, this story of privilege and money and what it clearly spells out about the way society works is sickening. It is also, sadly, nothing new. Perhaps now sunlight and the media spotlight will provide the motivation of shame and just maybe, something will change for the good.
20
The Dollar Store in Zip Code 90210 accepts the former USC students as Shelf Stockers. A promotion path to Cashier if they work hard. These young girls will receive the education they so richly deserve. Their new found motto, “We make money the old fashioned way, we earn it”.
6
@Tabula Rasa. Dollar store in 90210? LOL
1
"Two parents named in the case resigned from the board of trustees of Sage Hill, a private school in Newport Coast, Calif."
This scam only grows worse. At the high school level, at institutions, counselors knowingly falsified documents to help the undeserving. The parents sat on elite boards to help perpetuate this national scheme. All throughout they process, there are handpicked persons - aiding the corruption. How can anyone have any trust in an educational system that is mired in such widespread deceit?
12
These colleges are really afraid of opening this can of vipers. And people with money with high-powered lawyers might go all red wedding if their kids are expelled or degrees rescinded. The college “consulting” industry had been growing for at least a decade now. And lots of those consultants may not have gone as far as Singer, but you can bet your bottom dollar they wrote or “edited” admissions essays, gave students ideas on how to boost their extracurricular r sports resumes, and advised them to lie about disabilities to get extra time on the SAT. So do you expel those kids too if you expel Lori Loughlin’s kids? I’m sure some lawyer will be making that argument, and schools would be forced to look at a lot more applications. No one wants to lift the cover on this so my guess is that most of these kids will either be quietly urged to withdraw or allowed to stay.
7
Too many people made too much money "assisting" these kids get into colleges they wouldn't otherwise be able to attend for the conspiracy to stop at 50.
There are a LOT of very nervous parents (and kids) out there waiting for those other college mascots to drop ... are you listening Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and Jared?
There are no statute of limitations for civil "crimes". Let's put some lawyers to work ferreting out the great pretenders.
14
Just as Captain Renault was, I'm shocker, shocked that cheating was going on here. Here are your sheepskins.
5
How about that unqualified students seem to do fine at elite institutions despite not being qualified to be there in the first place? What does this suggest about the education these universities are providing?
12
@Orange Nightmare It's not a question of unqualified or qualified. In any pool of, for example, 10,000 applicants to an elite school, something like 8,000 may be qualified (there is a great deal of self-selection and self-weeding-out in the application process itself, so most applicants are students who have a shot and "would do fine" at the elite school - not because the school has dumbed-down, but because they have a surplus of smart, talented applicants). So it is a question of where a qualified applicant stands in relationship to other qualified applicants when only 2000 of the qualified 8000 can be accepted. What these students have done is fraudulently enhance their qualifications so that they get an unfair advantage over other qualified students, thereby cheating students out of an acceptance who otherwise may have earned an acceptance.
The quality of the education at the University is not at issue here. The character of the applicants and the flaws in the admission process are the issues.
13
It suggests to me that if you can spend 100's of thousands of dollars cheating to get in, you can spend the same money cheating to stay in.
12
I doubt that any students were "cheated out of an acceptance". At none of these schools - or any others - do 100% of admitted students enroll. At USC the percentage is about 40%; they admit about 8,000 students to bring in a freshman class of about 3,200. These institutions aren't going to admit more students if one or two others don't come.
The honorable and moral thing for all of the students admitted under false pretenses would be to withdraw voluntarily from these universities, whether they knew about the fraud or not. If some are willing to affirm under penalty for perjury that they knew nothing of the fraud to universities to which they want to transfer, they should be accepted, if they qualify. Otherwise, they should have to start the process again and admit the fact on their applications.
As for those who have graduated ( presuming there is no reasonable cause to suspect cheating in college), the institution should await the results of the trials or plea bargains. The university can then annotate their transcripts by stating that their admission was obtained by fraud and whether or not they knew.
Frankly, their parents have placed a heavy burden on their children's lives and if the students knew of the fraud, they and their parents have ruined their own lives.
Of course, over time, some people will forgive or forget or simply not care - as has been the case for the fraudulent real estate university part of the Trump brand.
15
Seriously? The students who are recruited as athletes then affirmatively elect not to participate in the sport or the student who miraculously scores several hundred points higher on the SAT are culpable and should be expelled if a current student. That part doesn’t seem complicated to me.
14
Could this scandal occur in a country like France or Germany that requires passing a much higher academic bar than the American schools do? I doubt it. In those countries and elsewhere the expectation is that only a small fraction of children will go to university, while the rest will be apprenticed in a trade for which they have a much higher aptitude. Only in America where money trumps every value does this story even raise a cream...
9
@Tournachonadar - perfectly stated. Kudos!
1
Oh, so you think well placed French technocrats don’t pull strings to get their off spring into elite universities? Think again.
4
@Tournachonadar
There is no SAT, no extracurriculars, and no "sports" in German college admissions involved. The GPA on your high school diploma is the only thing that matters. So indeed, this could not happen in Germany.
You are wrong though in that 56% of the graduating class goes on to college in Germany. Tuition is essentially free and there is free state money available for room and board if the student's parents income falls below a threshold.
3
“A college is not in a great position to investigate,” said Theodore O’Neill, who was dean of admissions at the University of Chicago for two decades. “The admissions process is held together by a tissue of trust.”
Give me a break. Most university students cannot write a clear, well-thought-out paragraph, yet they submit essays worthy of a Pulitzer. How incredulous could the universities have been?
Did they really believe those doctored essays were the real musings of teenagers?
36
Give us all a break already. If you were not bright enough to get into what we call an elite institution you should have been bright enough to know someone was cooking the books. When these kids got the acceptance letters they thought they earned them? In what looks like an effort to protect the children of the wealthy we are led to believe most of them were not aware of the misdeeds of their parents. It is ludicrous to believe this narrative that is being pushed. If you know you didn't take the SAT or ACT and you got into an elite school how do you think you got there? If you are told to pretend your an athlete when you are not to get into college you cannot feign ignorance. We have seen in recent weeks that two justice systems exist in America with the Manafort rulings. The scenario is already being set to slap the wealthy parents on the hand and let beneficiaries of the cheating off the hook. If these students were poor white kids or well to do children of color what their judgements be then? If the administrations of these schools did not know what was going on they had their heads in the sand. If these were not elite schools the media would be beating the doors down to find out who knew and when they knew the books were getting cooked. Society is willing to ruin the lives of the less privileged but not The Privileged. Being Privileged in America does have its perks.
19
Is it still possible for (privileged) kids to flunk out of college anymore if they don’t do the work? Considering Olivia Jade’s social media posts about having zero interest in going to college, her busy life as a “social media influencer,” and her interest in partying and attending sports events (rowing?) I fail to understand how she could get a diploma from USC or anywhere else, unless her wealthy parents had a four year plan to keep doctoring her results, and “buying” her course work.
43
All students who got in under this program need to be expelled. They can reapply again at another institution. Their parents cheated. They didn't make it on their abilities and as a result they stole from others who would have. Sorry kids but you need to pay for your parents crimes.
32
@Ralph Durhan It's not even about "paying for your parents crimes". That isn't fair. It's about telling these kids, "Your parents committed fraud, and even if you had no idea, you don't get to keep on reaping the benefits of that fraud."
It shouldn't be about punishing the kids, if they weren't actively involved. But they absolutely should be expelled, and given the option to reapply on their own merit and be considered the same as everyone else.
8
Funny, nobody seems to address the big fraud: school athletics.
On what conceivable basis do schools admit students in order to form sports teams? That's a shameful distortion of the foundation of the university. There's no legitimate reason for a school to have school teams other than for basic student recreation.
The NCAA is one of the most corrupt institutions around.
BTW, the University of Chicago was bold in exiting the sports circus decades ago. Umm, pity the article cites a professor there, I sure hope my alma mater isn't caught in this scandal.
23
The fact that a dean of students can use a lame metaphor like “a tissue of trust” is reason enough for me to send my kids directly to vocational school.
5
More rich people, getting a pass. You can bet of they were low income you’d be interviewing the booted students.
17
At a minimum, the students should be placed on a forced leave of absence pending the results of their respective trials.
I earned and deserved every C I got in high school, and subsequently in state university. I accept that I deserved those grades, and I’m proud to have graduated with a crystal clear conscience having earned every aspect of my degree.
I’d say let the cheaters burn. Rescind degrees, expel students, deny admissions.
12
Each family should apologize, pay 5 years' income to a scholarship fund for the poor, and the kid stays in school.
If that seems unjust (as in, too lenient: of course it is to an extent), consider how much *less* of a sacrifice "development" donors incur in *their* bribes to get their kids accepted.
When this penalty is paid, the families and students in question havec"graduated" (at least) to the ethical plane of development-bribe familes like the Kushners.
If that is too mild, then start applying the tougher standard to the Lochlins and the Kushners alike. But not one standard for the former and another for the latter. If x% of your wealth buys admission for latter, x% of your wealth for the former should do the same.
Thereby, we move towards a more just, less hypocritical society. We'd still haveca long way to go, but it would be a start.
4
Realistically, more like about 3 years' income I suppose.
Perhaps the students in question should be asked to re-take their SATs and produce some new essays, and maybe demonstrate their athletic abilities in real life...
12
@S. B. Excellent idea! In addition to great justice this would produce gold standard comedy as well!
5
A good many commentators here. sound like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz singing "If I were king." But not as clever or entertaining. Then again, what do i know? Is it too early for a Scotch or too late?
2
Don’t overthink or rationalize this. Expel all these kids. If they’ve graduated revoke their degree.
14
Off subject, but what gets me about Olivia Jade is that, well...her parents aren't that famous! I hear she's a Youtube star....but didn't find that out until this investigation.
9
There is no qualitative difference between classes as taught at a Community College versus an Ivy...If these students are passing their classes...Let them stay...
1
The whole college admissions system in the US, actually the whole higher education system in the US, is turning into a money driven joke. The kids should be expelled, no doubt about that. At the same time, kids of donor-class families should have their application materials made public. You want your name on building: we publish your kid's application.
4
Whether the kids/students are aware of their ill gotten gains or not, they should be expelled from the school and their degrees and credits rescinded. Bernie Madoff's sons were ignorant of their fathers misdeeds, but their money was clawed back along with everyone elses. If universities fail to punish all involved, the parents will have been successful in cheating the system to give their own kids an unfair enrollment at a top school. If you want to be sure parents won't try this again, make it clear their kids will suffer too. No one should benefit. No one.
12
1/3 children of alumni are accepted in Ivy League colleges. This is the real issue.
9
until this scandal i had no idea that anyone considered USC a prestigious degree
i thought it was one of those overpriced places for rich kids
(like GW in DC)
if i remember correctly jeffery toobin had a great description of USC as just such a place in his book on oj - a USC alum
it's a fancy place that those who go there think of as elite but that everyone else thinks is just a place for rich kids
i suppose i could google their acceptance rate but i also assume that those numbers are manipulated to make it look more selective than it is
3
Perhaps that is how it earned the moniker “University of Spoiled Children.”
5
@j
It is referred to the the "University of Spoiled Children" for a reason.
when does the Bush family reckoning happen?
4
If these “tainted” kids are passing their classes...Of course they should continue as regular students as long as the tuition gets paid...Stop the insanity...
I was at a large southern state university visiting my Harvard gf and going to her classes and her ivy classes in Cambridge were exactly like my ACC classes in Raleigh...
3
@Tiguan In Cheek Sorry no. They got in under false pretenses and denied a qualified person from getting into the school. Plenty of people who got rejection notices would do well in their classes. This is affirmative action for the wealthy. Time to stop treating rich whites with kid gloves.
IF these kids were black do you think you would say the same thing? I know most would want to jail them all.
10
The fraudulent application process, for these elite schools, found one of the biggest holes; lack of scrutiny, in their athletic departments. Seriously; would not a high school coach, for the stellar pole vaulter or rower, need to submit a letter either attesting to their abilities, or at the very least write a letter of recommendation as part of the process? Apparently, if the talent is not listed on a transcript or not part of the SAT, many other options are fair game to those adults who are very used to buying their children's achievements.
5
Simple. They were admitted as a result of fraud. Kick them out!
8
I read about the “tonsillitis kid” that allegedly took his SAT at home.
I’m pretty sure according to multiple articles his Mom was discussing some part of the SAT scheme on the phone when she told Singer “I’m taking him to the doctor right now.”
Obviously, that doesn’t prove the kid was in earshot when she was actually discussing the scheme.
She may have meant she was on her way to pick him up to take him to the doctor or she was still sitting in the car alone while he’d taken off on his own into the doctor’s office. Or perhaps she wasn’t taking him to the doctor’s office at all- the whole tonsil surgery as an excuse to avoid flying to Houston for the specially proctored SAT (if possible per Singer) as it all seemed a little weird, future tonsil surgery is usually ok to reschedule etc to take a special fake SAT exam.
And of course, maybe he was with her with headphones blasting & playing a video game or talking to his girlfriend & paying no attention because he’s tried of all this college nonsense especially as he doesn’t want to fly to Houston to take the SAT (I think his Mom & Singer were discussing that).
However, it did jump out at me. Might be interesting to check out the phone records for potentially associated location data for Mom, son @ the time that conservation was being recorded. Doctor’s records too- time, location could be circumstantial evidence also if kid hadn’t had any location services working on his own phone at the time.
If a child knew, kick them out and prosecute them. If the child didn’t know, let them continue. Send the parents to prison, but don’t punish the unknowing. In some ways, they too are victims.
1
How would you prove that? What would be the level of culpability required? Active participation? Willful ignorance? Informed consent? Failed due diligence?
3
I wonder how far back and how deep the FBI is going to dig.
While there’s clearly a case to be made for tax fraud (parents wrote the bribes off as donations on their taxes) the affidavit mentions Goldman Sachs and Kleiner Perkins...were seeing only the ip of the iceberg.
Seems like the odds are very good this bribery scheme extended far and wide into corporate America. What will be the Feds tolerance to uncover it all given who might become ensnared? Or will we forever be left with these few dozen examples?
4
It is inconceivable that the students were unaware of what their parents were up to; however the parents should face the brunt of the justice system(such as exists)since very likely they were the brains behind this subversion. It is very difficult to correct a harm such as this without also delegating some of the blame to the schools themselves who have managed to look very innocent indeed.
2
Unlike any other story of deceit and wrongful behavior to have emerged in the last few years, this saga appears unique in one important way. Along non psrtisan and non racial lines there seems to be absolute consensus regarding the moral and ethical depravity of the perpetrators of these crimes. The transgression of deeply held public trust in vaunted institutions can’t be forgiven. Its the story where we all agree to agree.
3
Any unwitting students should be allowed to stay if they consent to being publicly identified—such as in the school newspaper and public website—as beneficiaries of parental deception.
Witting students should be expelled. Witting graduates should have their diplomas rescinded or at least tagged with their status and be listed on the school website as such.
Schools are for education and molding students presumably because they are plastic. I would consider any expelled witting student for admission to the original school or alternate school if he or she were otherwise qualified and consented to public identification as a prior invalid enrollee on the admitting school’s website.
As for wink wink but actual quid pro quo gifts for schools, those should bar any family member’s application for seven years. Or, if a family member is enrolled, not received until seven years after the student’s graduation.
1
The students should be expelled, their admission fees seized and awarded to those who actually deserved to attend the school in question, and every single graduate who had anything to do with Mr. Singer and his ilk should have their degrees withdrawn and invalidated, no matter how far along they got in their education. They are welcome to start all over again by enrolling at a community college, assuming they didn't cheat in high school, too.
5
Wow. I read all these comments about kicking kids out and I wonder what happened to the concept of innocent until proven guilty. Sure some of them may have known what was going on, but they also were working with a paid counselor who was helping them do their applications (Singer). That certainly could have changed their perceptions of how to finally submit an app.
Just saying you might wait to put someone in jail until there has been a trial
3
According to several articles, Singer allegedly added fake documentation (of their false sports prowess, etc.) to the applications of at least several of the “recruited athletes.”
Singer then allegedly submitted the applications on behalf of these kids, apparently without their knowledge of the particular “edits”.
If this is true, he likely forged their attestations of truthfulness re: their applications one way or another.
Paper vs. electronic applications and signatures?
Depending on the method(s), there are numerous ways to mitigate various forms of application fraud. That includes the type I haven’t yet seen mentioned- application fraud not for the purposes of enhancing admissions, but sabotaging admissions.
If these are e-applications, what would it take to hack into someone’s account/application at all stages of the game? Most disastrously, of course, after it’s been electronically sent off to college(s) & waiting in an electronic queue to be reviewed.
I wouldn’t have put it past my jealous sibling if e-apps were used in my day & was capable of such a thing! I’m not kidding, either. 25 years later, sibling still not over something I hadn’t even planned or expected to do until pushed by a couple of high school teachers.
Wasn’t worth it. Even a “high prestige” school won’t benefit some in the long-term if they & most of their family, etc. never felt they were supposed to be there in the 1st place.
1
I am puzzled why any institution has to "grapple" with how to deal with students who used "fraudulent means" to gain admission. Seems pretty clear cut ... it was fraudulent. They have to go.
6
Expel the students; retract diplomas. The student applies, not the parent or 'educational consultant,' and is responsible for his/her application. The schools must hold these students accountable. The Common Application requires the applicant to sign that the information is "factually true... honestly presented" and falsifying could lead to "admissions revocation … expulsion."
5
The easiest solution would be to remove all the students who benefited from this cheating scandal regardless of whether they were aware of their parent's activities as ultimately they were beneficiaries of their parent's fraud.
The difficulty arises when you try to determine how far you should go in trying to purge students who were admitted without merit. Essentially what these parents did is just a more blatant form of the bribery that occurs in hundreds of colleges and universities across the country. The ultimate irony is that as much as we talk about the privilege that these wealthy children enjoy, the truly wealthy simply just give a hefty donation to the elite schools to pay for a new campus building with the understanding that their child will receive preferential treatment in return.
Those types of quid pro quo arrangements bother me far more than this cheating scandal because (a) the school is fully aware of and complicit in the arrangement, (b) the parents are often far wealthier and have greater means to just give millions of dollars to the school, and (c) all of it is perfectly legal. If the schools are going to expel the students involved in this scandal then they should do the same for the other students who are also just there because of their parent's length. Otherwise, any expulsion is just a superficial PR fix that fails to address the larger systemic problem.
74
In principle yes, but breaking the law is still breaking the law. These parents had wealth and contacts to exploit the an unethical system legally, but chose to go the extra mile and break the law. They should not get a pass. Nor should their children- "It’s pretty common in the law, and it coincides with moral intuitions: If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits.”
11
@Eric Gotta agree with Carter on this one. While those quid pro quo arrangements are troubling, I can actually see, if not accept, the arguments for them--they benefit all students at the school, rich or poor, by providing better facilities and allowing the school to divert its endowment funds to improve the curriculum or offer more scholarships, blah, blah, blah. Knowingly committing federal felonies to obtain admission is a whole other level of wrong.
10
What difference does it make as to whether or not the students knew of their parents' wrongdoing as a determining factor of them being allowed to stay at the schools? If they were accepted on the basis of false information, clearly they have no business being allowed to stay.
255
If the student didn't lie, the school shouldn't renege on their decision. They could be sued by the student.
@Mark These students' applications were lies -- their SAT scores were lies, their athletic profiles were lies, their essays were lies. And they all signed the statement in the CommonApp certifying that they completed the applications themselves and that nothing on it is a lie. So they have no grounds to sue.
20
At the University of Texas, for instance, that language reads: “I certify that the information I have provided is complete and correct, and I understand that the submission of false information is grounds for rejection of my application, withdrawal of any offer of acceptance, cancellation of enrollment and/or appropriate disciplinary action.”
That should be the standard for ALL college admissions. Admission under false pretenses should be unacceptable, period.
A similar standard applies to job applications; lie on your application, and find yourself getting fired.
That "mommy or daddy did it" should not be an excuse.
31
@Joe From Boston
I can assure you that language is quite standard. However, most legal interpretation would consider it to be related to knowledge and intent to deceive regardless due to how they are often applied in practice. Though if this went to court, I imagine that most judges would accept a ruling that favored stripping the admission in cases of false SAT scores or grades.
Perhaps more precariously situated are the students for whom their parents bribed a faculty member to lie on their behalf and try to get the school to recruit them. This would implicate honesty if they knew about it, but if they didn't they still wouldn't have provided any false information and gotten into the school.
Also worthwhile to keep in mind that if this were purely nepotism, then the student would surely be admitted in the second case.
1
The students knew or not, their admission was still fraudulent.
They are still not qualified to enter the university they are in.
That should be the only criteria.
23
I feel so sorry for these students. Their mortification must be immense.
They were under their parents’ control and influence — and they were highly “disadvantaged” in that they had no moral training in right and wrong.
The smart thing for such a student to do is to immediately try to transfer to a more modestly placed school and get in on their own merits.
20
Why is this difficult to decide?
Whether or not with their own knowledge (which you can guarantee is true with most of them), if they are not there with valid credentials, how can you let them stay?
Invalid credentials invalidates their admission. Period.
40
Once guilt is determined, it would be a fitting punishment for all involved to have to fund scholarships for deserving students who can't afford college -- and to do some sort of in-person community service for kids from lower income families who can't afford to buy their way through life.
16
These schools aren’t victims, they’re culpable. Are they not required to supervise their admissions process? Are they not required to supervise coaches? My guess is a lot of lawsuits will be filed against these schools. And the schools will lose. It’s not enough to say you’re committed to fair and honest admissions. You have to actually have fair admissions. And we all know they don’t. It’s an open secret. Mommy and daddy donate a building and junior is in. Time to end it all. And it doesn’t matter if the schools are private. I run a private business but I’m still ultimately responsible for the acts of my employees.
14
The kids signed the applications. Admittedly they may not have been adults, and the case may not hold up in court, but name and shame them and their fellow students will administer justice.
5
@Amalek
A lot of these people receiving a bogus admission are 18, an adult. We don't call soldiers "kids" that are 18-21 when we ship them to war zones.
2
What is there left to be determined? Part of the rigor of engaging in higher education is academic honesty, to present your work as your own, not someone else’s. These students should be required to re-submit their applications without the falsifications their parents bought. Their applications should be judged on the merit of their own work.
If any of these students who gained acceptance via bribery and false documentation are allowed to remain without being required to submit any re-application, then the whole integrity of college application process must come under further federal investigation and scrutiny.
How could the athletic department accept a non-athlete student as an athlete? Are certain university admissions either willingly engage in fraud or are simply so incompetent and bureaucratic that they can’t detect a deceptive and false application?
7
It is likely too early to know the facts of each case and it may be some time before all the facts are known. If I were a college administrator, I would let each student who may have been admitted under false pretenses know that should the facts show they gained admission unfairly, they will be expelled whether they did so knowingly or not. It’s then up to the student to decide whether to cut their losses and start over legitimately or stay the course and hope they and their parents are exonerated. An honest reckoning between student and parents may occur. The college should not make allowances for students who may have been ignorant of their parents misdeeds. It does the student no favor to allow them to “earn” a tainted degree and is unfair to those who should be in their place.
4
Schools should be very careful here. An accusation isn’t a conviction. Students still have a right to due process even for alleged honor code violations.
I’m not buying the idea that the colleges are the victims here. Schools routinely admit children of large donors. They routinely admit legacy students and athletes who would not otherwise be admitted. They created the whole framework that made parts of this scheme possible.
I’m still trying to process how reserved admission slots for sports like sailing, water polo, and rowing are anything other than the literal definition of white privilege.
14
Colbert I believe said it best: "Now each kid knows the dollar amount of how dumb their parents think they are."
70
And nothing about the girl at Georgetown who bragged about cheating? Maybe they will just let her graduate, crime often pays after all.
7
“It’s pretty common in the law, and it coincides with moral intuitions: If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits,” said Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago, “
Would he apply this logic and deport all “ Dreamers” ?
9
@FACP
Actually a good point. However, we are talking about adults vs children. Are we going to met out the same punishment to a 3 year old as we would an 18 year old?
1
@FACP Crossing illegally into the US is not a fraud, though it is a crime. Fraud has a specific legal meaning. Your rhetoric is (a bit) clever, but misleading.
2
@FACP
E.g.The Madoff recipients had to give back their money.
2
Whether or not they knew about it— they were unable to get into these universities on their own merits— so why would they be able to stay????
(Plus if they are so clueless they they think they suddenly got high SAT scores— they are also too dim-witted to be in difficult academic classes)
((Plus plus, who are we kidding, that they don’t know what there parents are up to. Again if they are that unaware, they don’t belong in higher instituitions anyway))
12
I feel sorry for Olivia Jade. She speaks English very well and seems like a bright young lady, with the resources to attend a good school. Why are people so obsessed with seeing her excluded from higher education? Our universities and colleges used to be filled with kids like her. What's happening to education in this country? And yes, if they kick out Olivia Jade and don't do anything about 'dreamers' enrolled in schools, or international students from communist countries, it's a total unfair scam that discriminates against our own American kids.
3
@david I do not understand how bigotry is a criteria for this case of fraud. Please explain.
1
Displaced sympathy, my Trump-supporting friend.
Yes, I will confirm your suspicions that the liberal, globalist, Soros-supported Deep State has been conspiring for years to “exclude” your precious Olivia Jade from higher education.
“She speaks English very well.”
Seems like a “bright young lady” - she’s is so very “bright” she simply wanted to attend ASU, known as a party school & obviously couldn’t get into a more competitive school without her parents bribing coaches, etc. She has also admitted that she isn’t interested in higher education.
“She has the resources to attend a good school”
In other words, she’s White, wealthy & a native born American that’s “bright enough” to live a life of luxury in part because she’s a walking “brand” (aka capitalism personified).
Now just be a good boy like Trump & admit your greatest interest in the case of poor, persecuted Olivia Jade is because she’s quite physically attractive. Trump would have no problem mentioning that politically incorrect fact, so you shouldn’t either.
2
@david
Is there something I don't know about Oliva Jade? For instance, your comment leads me to believe that her 1st language might be something other than English?
2
Unless it can be proven that the kids participated in the misdeed, they should not be punished for their parents sins. Right, “dreamers?”
10
@DRS
Apples and .oranges
Our country is debating whether to pass DACA. Sending dreamers back to countries where they have no family would be cruel. Saying that Olivia Jade can't go to Yale or USC without reapplying with honest credentials Is not going to ruin her life permanently.
1
I agree. Same for the dreamers.
Her life would certainly be enhanced with a degree from Yale or USC!
So have the schools that Trump bought his kids into give back the money?.... not likely... they like the zillions that bought new buildings...
The elephant in the room here is the people who cheated were not smart enough to simply give the school $10,000,000 or whatever to buy a building or a scoreboard...
You don't think this goes on all the time?
5
Actually, many of the parents apparently don’t have that much money.
Allegedly it takes at least $10 million today to get mere consideration for “special consideration for admission” for one’s kid today.
2 or 3 kids? 30 million maybe.
Nope.
It is inconceivable that these students didn’t know. Being picked to be on the soccer or crew team when he/she had never stepped foot on a pitch or in a boat?? Scores suddenly going wildly up? But in addition to the students, parents, coaches and exam monitors, I hope that the doctor(s) who provided support for the student having some sort of disability in order to gain more exam time will be prosecuted and lose their licenses. Finally, I hope that all participants in this scheme receive a more fitting sentence than Paul Manafort got in his first sentencing.
24
@Christine Houston
unfortunately, people can misrepresent themselves as having various quote psychiatric unquote and learning disabilities which are very hard objectively as a doctor to prove or disprove. They lied to the doctors, don't blame the doctors.
1
This is a little ridiculous. This article makes it sound like it's impossible for schools to know what's true and what's not. Of course, any kid who lied on an application should get kicked out - that is true for anyone who falsifies information. These are not children who have applications completed for them. These students submit their own applications. Certainly, there should be an investigation and only if the school is sure of a fake application should they be kicked out. If it's a question of cheating on a test and there is no way to determine that, then fine, they can stay. But someone who clearly states participating in a sport when he/she never did should be easy to uncover.
8
Isn't it better to be admitted by the old boys club? Paying for access through commoner means is uncouth.
5
how about another investigation on student performance once admitted? More bribes and other benefits provided to professors and such to pass classes? Dangle that carrot of big names Hollywod contacts! You can’t but wonder the lengths the students will go to based on their parents corrupt behavior.
1
I do feel sorry for the kids for growing up in an environment like that, but if you're so clueless that you don't follow your own college application, no you don't deserve to go to a top college when many donors and tax breaks work to ensure that people have access to higher education at that institution.
She won't even know her score on the application? And imagine thousands of kids filling out their own FAFSA, their own applications, all by themselves, and not getting in. Meanwhile, someone gets off because they were so sheltered they aren't expected to do anything themselves.
6
@L As I understand it, some of the parents paid the test proctors to falsify their children's results. The students would take the test, get their score, and be pleasantly surprised by how well they had done. They wouldn't know the scores weren't real unless they were told.
2
Hmm. College admissions is probably not where this whole thing began. The blurring of the line between privilege and merit for these kids (in this furthest example... cheating) has probably been happening all their lives. And unfortunately it shapes public policy. “Born on third and believe you hit a triple.” 😖
12
The solution is simple, throw them out. Every. Last. One. of them.
1. These kids were unable to gain admittance on their own merits.
2. It appears that none of these kids were bright enough to question how their obvious lack of educational achievement resulted in perfect SAT scores or admission to one of the most competitive universities in the world.
3. None of these kids had the integrity to question tactics such as having a consultant or tutor write or re-write their work.
4. Not throwing these kids out signals to parents that the only failure of this con is that SOME parents got caught.
If these students are not immediately terminated from their respective schools then the risk their parents took PAYS OFF. It doesn't matter if the parent has to pay a hefty fine and/or do a little time in a white collar facility, the risk they took will have resulted in the thing they prized the most - a diploma in their childs name from University X. Because at the end of the day - say 5 or 10 or 20 years from now - no one will remember this scandal and even fewer will care. The spoiled brat at the center of all this will still have that diploma, all the contacts they made along the way, and the salary that goes along with it.
13
All of the sudden the culprits are those privileged few who have the money and connections to game an outdated and unfair process that bestows "pedigree and future success" to those who enter a numbers game worthy of Don Vito Corleone. The schools in question have nurtured this type of abuse by entrenching themselves on a medieval selection process that want us to believe those who gain admission to the Ivy League are the best American society has to offer, in terms of intellect, perhaps. And the families and students who naively believe a prestigious school is the ticket to a good life are as guilty as well. It is worth noticing that all those involved in this charade are byproducts of the Ivy League, and an innocent bystander should wonder what is the fuss all about. Now come the school sanctimonious administrators, who have been sleep at the wheel for years, placing some of those students under the scrutiny of academia's endless and deeply flawed processes. What a joke. What about the many others who have gained admission and graduated with the much desired diploma of those schools, and are now teaching, or running other scams? American higher education, particularly the type dispensed in the Ivy League, is morally corrupt and has been so for many years. In the end, the amoral culprits of this charade will hire Ivy League lawyers who will argue their cases before Ivy League judges and their equally greedy peers, and will walk away with little or no retribution.
5
"now face a reckoning as universities seek to determine whether they were innocent victims who should keep working toward their degrees or unethical schemers worthy of discipline."
I would think that if someone else takes you SAT tests for you, then how could you now be involved?
3
Anyone know what is happening to the approx. 40 students from China who had fake English language tests to get into US universities? LA Times article identified 5 ring leaders for the scam. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-chinese-visa-fraud-20190312-story.html
8
After reviewing my senior's college applications last fall, I realized the amount of documentation is very substantial. The applicant transcribes her grades, AP scores and SAT scores into the application. Grades and AP scores are grouped by subject. Colleges require all SAT scores even if they use the higher one.
There are no innocent kids here. One student sees her SAT score jump by 400 and does not question it. If special extracurricular activities are to be useful, they must be in the essays. An top athlete must have awards listed. There is no conceivable scenario in which a candidate does not know about fake achievements.
35
@Joel Ii
I’m not sure these students even filled out their own forms. The “adults” could have hired someone even for that. All that person needs to do is have the confidential information at their side.
1
@Casey
That would be fraud committed by the student because he has to electronically sign the application. There is a lot of correspondence between the school and student. If the student did nothing at all on the application process as you imply, it is still fraudulent - getting into a school without personally applying. Ignorance of the law is not a valid defense.
Students are treated as adults even if they are minors throughout the application process. As such, decision letters and "cocktail" scholarship award letters are only addressed to the student.
2
@Joel Ii You think any of these kids wrote their own essays?
This is not a difficult issue. Even if these kids were not aware, and I have a problem with that, they cheated and should not be there.
19
@R.Kenney. If the kids were not aware, then they did not fill their out their own applications and sign them. No high school senior is unaware of the college application process.
1
And the very idea of being listed as an athlete! Remember the saying about being born on third base? Looks like it's worse than that. These kids don't even have to suit up and still get the championship ring!
12
@Velvet goss And when will this “student-athlete” nonsense end? Universities should be places of higher education and research, not the minor leagues of professional sports.
2
No, don’t remember that saying at all.
If parent's can no longer pay tuition does the school look the other way and keep the student enrolled? No, even though its no fault of the student, he/she is bounced. What is the difference here? No fault of the student but he/she should be bounced.
17
The colleges will do nothing - this whole episode is simply a warning that you need to pay large sums of money directly to the university to gain admission, not to a third party. With the publicity this episode has garnered, ever greater sums of money will be pouring into university coffers. They win.
19
Thank you Sir.
3
@Max duPont Correct - and exactly how some Bushes, Kennedys, and Jared Kushner got into Yale or Harvard.
9
If the students are there on a cheat, it doesn't matter whether they knew. They should be expelled and any credits or degrees rescinded. Let's face it, their wealthy parents are never going to jail; they'll plead and pay their way out of whatever happens. It's what the rich do. (Jeffrey Epstein from Florida -- there's American justice for the wealthy.)
If the students there on a cheat are allowed to proceed as normal just because they were not personally aware, then the system isn't just rigged, it's rigged in broad daylight, for everyone too see. And the next collection of parents has no reason to do anything differently, except save a little more for the plea deal.
17
While it is true the colleges do not have to act now and can wait until the criminal cases are complete they can make the repercussions of fraudulent applications crystal clear ~ your application will be denied, if you are an existing student you will be expelled, and if you graduated your diploma will be revoked. Regardless if the student claims they did not know their SAT scores were gamed, they were diagnosed with a disability for extra test time, or that they were admitted as an athlete.
9
The victims of this fraud are the applicants who were rejected because the fraudsters took their slots.
If USC and the other implicated schools were sincere about wanting to right this wrong (instead of just engaging in PR damage control), they would determine the applicants who were rejected and offer them belated acceptance plus a full scholarship.
If the rejectee has already completed an undergraduate degree elsewhere, the schools should offer them graduate admission. Since these schools turn away huge numbers of qualified students, I’m sure these borderline students will be qualified and up to the task, even on the graduate level.
Crimes involving fraud often include disgorgement of profits as part of the sentence. Let the disgorged profits in these cases be pooled together into a scholarship fund.
12
All of the kids should be kicked out. Even if they were unaware. This kind of behavior should not be rewarded, which is the message the parents would get if the kids were able to stay. It is also a matter of character. The kids will become better, more ethical adults if they are made to leave.
23
I got such a kick out of UT Austin being one of the schools involved in the scandal. My daughter was thinking of going there (and could have easily gotten in) but they didn't have the program she wanted so she went to a school that was easier to get into because they had the program she wanted. Maybe the kid that wanted to go there had the reverse problem - there was a program there that he wanted but since he couldn't get in he had his parents pull strings to get him in or his parents did it without his knowledge because they sensed how frustrated he was that he could not attend UT Austin.
Remember no middle class kid could get into Yale with the SAT scores and class rank that George Bush had. He got in because of his parents prestige and their donations to the school. College admissions is not very fair but I really don't think it is that important. Smart students are going to excel wherever they go and the education you can get at most universities is very good.
The biggest injustice students face is they can't afford to go to college. Let's spend more time on that problem and drop this one.
8
What about John Kerry?
1
Many people have repeatedly said thst these "elite" schools aren't worth the money and they can obtain good education can be obtained from a public university.
IF that's true, who cares if they fraudulently got a degree from USC or Stanford? The schools aren't worth the money anyway, right?
IMO, these kids have already been punished in the worst possible way. Their parents, whom they presumably loved and trusted, betrayed them. Their parents lied to them. Their parents lacked faith in them.
I don't really care whether the students are allowed to stay or not. They have already been punished by losing the parents they loved.
I know many people have rushed to call them "adults" but bear in mind that they may not have been adults when they completed the applications. And i think it's just jealous, anyway, to call these kids "adults." In truth, they are just barely adults, and probably trusted their parents and followed their lead. Most commenters seem angry at the rich and famous always getting their way. But that doesn't mean these very young adults were culpable
5
@Charlie
They operate as 501(c)(3)s.
That's why I care. If they are social clubs that provide a social service, fine. If they are merely social clubs that sell private education and provide little to no net social good, then tax them as private businesses.
8
The students were not naive preschoolers trying to get into an elite kindergarten. I find it impossible to believe that, at their age, they did not know the machinations of their parents. They were admitted under fraudulent circumstances and should be asked to leave. The honorable step would be for the students to withdraw, take any qualifying tests on their own, and apply--then see if they get admitted. I'm not holding my breath since they are inheriting the shameful values of their parents.
15
What about the legacy students? What are the colleges and universities going to do about them? There are legacy students who don't belong in colleges or universities as well.
Just as many of our politicians are the best that money can buy, our elite schools offer the best education money can buy as well, or so it would seem.
Will hard working students who were honestly admitted to these elite (supposed) bastions of higher learning now face challenges gaining employment? Will there always be that shadow of a doubt about how that person secured admission to a select school - especially if that person happens to be the offspring of a celebrity? Rhetorical question.
6
@Diana How exactly do you propose to identify the legacy students who shouldn't have been admitted? Presumably some of them are qualified to be there. Probably many of them are, since highly educated parents tend to raise children who do very well in school. And that's leaving aside the question of whether giving an edge to legacies in return for donations is justified if it lets the university offer more students financial aid. I agree that it's a shame when people like George W. Bush get admitted to Yale, but I also think dismantling the legacy system could have some unintended consequences.
2
@Katy
I am talking about going forward, in terms of legacy students, although I think there are some glaring examples of legacy graduates of elite schools who were obviously not qualified for those schools. You mentioned George W. Bush, I had in mind the current occupant of the White House. The unintended consequences of legacy students has unleashed untold suffering on the world in the case of Bush, and both Bush and Trump have been disastrous for this country.
Not really talked about is how these students survived rigorous testing once they had obtained admission. If they survived on their own, then no harm, other than the lack of a level playing field for all who want to attend an elite school, but if cheating is involved then that is unacceptable.
Perhaps there could be a percentage of legacy students admitted to the elite schools, in a sort of reverse affirmative action.
Are you kidding me? These children knew full well and actively participated in this scheme. Sending somebody in to take the SAT under your name is big time cheating . Sorry, students should be barred from all academic institutions.
7
@Karen B. You are going to bar them from learning things? You are going to insist on keeping them ignorant? Even violent felons--when they've completed their sentences--are allowed to attend school.
Will these kids be allowed to watch Kahn Academy, or are they forbidden that, too?
Kids have been caught cheating before. And they've never been banned from every single school as a punishment.
Besides, no matter how angry and jealous you are, you can't be sure that ever single kid knew. In fact, if you read the complaint (which I doubt you did) you'll see that the parents were trying really hard to keep their kids in the dark.
Sorry, I know you want an easy answer, but this situation is more complicated than that. It's complex. It's about kids on the verge of independence--technically adults but still mostly dependent on their parents. It's about kids who were betrayed by their parents. A good number probably didn't know.
Expelling them may be the right thing to do, but it's also pretty sad the ones who are innocent. If you can't deal with that sadness, then by all means, pretend that they all knew "full well." Makes things easier, doesn't it?
Stop the blame game. This one is REALLY simple, as you just read. Here it is again.
"If you’re the unwitting beneficiary of a fraud, you don’t get to keep the benefits,” said Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago
12
I attended a community college and state university in California before going on to graduate school in the Pacific Northwest. However, in what I now jokingly refer to as a temporary fit of insanity, I quit graduate school to enlist in the Army Infantry. Going from Seattle, Washington to Fort Benning, Georgia was a useful experience in culture shock, and the U.S. Army taught me lessons I never learned in college about racial tolerance, the value of perseverance, and the life or death importance of courage and integrity.
12
My parents did not even see my college applications. I had to sign them. My kids had to sign their applications and attest to their truthfulness And submit recommendations from their guidance Counsellors etc. I don't think the students who got in fraudulently should get to benefit from the fruit of the poisonous tree, but I admit it seems like a tough forfeiture if they've completed school. Perhaps if they are half way through college, they can receive a hearing to see if they can stay, or perhaps they can keep their credits for a transfer for another school but not get to graduate from the particular college.
Money and influence are not new factors in college admissions. I've heard parents boasting that a donation to a school helped grease the wheels of admission, and I've always felt that those parents were doing their kids a huge disservice. I suppose in the cases at hand, the schools themselves did not benefit, but some staff did. Either way, I'm glad there will be some repercussions that make people think twice about trying to get an advantage over the kids who work hard to get a legitimate admission.
8
I gained admission to a second rate college with no help from my parents.
38
These "students" are legal adults. So they are responsible for what they did, whatever it was. College students are not children. If they are so wealthy that they had a secretary complete their application for them then they didn't apply and are not following the requirements from the get-go. It just can't be possible to 'have no idea' unless you never saw your own application. I can't imagine the destroyed and damaged relationships in their families that this will create. No trust there.
16
@Nnaiden Probably no destroyed family relationships. just blame they got caught.
2
I think it is telling that so many commenters believe that it is appropriate to mete out justice without considering the merits of the individual case. I think as a culture we learning to take out our anger on anyone and everyone, based on their class, their party, their ethnicity or lack thereof. To the guillotine! Off with their heads.
If a young man or young woman is truly innocent and his parents cheated without his or her knowledge, then justice should not be meted out to punish that student for the sins of the parent or our anger at their status. The solution depends upon the facts and circumstances, and not upon our entry into class warfare.
If the student is indeed blameless, then they deserve a soft landing of some kind. An opportunity to finish out the school year if they are doing well. Perhaps an opportunity to reapply, and certainly not, as some have contended, to be banned for life from all academic institutions. We don't have corruption of blood in the United States.
If the student is a co-conspirator, then of course expulsion. But justice, please, depends upon facts and circumstances.
27
These ‘children’ all attested, as in saying I swear, that the contents of their applications were truthful and accurate summaries of their own achievements. All college applications require this. Even if it’s not written in large font bold letters, it is clearly presumed that the applicant must not lie.
9
@Jerry Von Korff How is a student blameless if they got in as a crew athlete?How can they not know someone else took their SAT test or had ‘special arrangments’ made for them. Pleeezzzeee! Guilty!
5
Some guy below says that the kids in question should be banned from ALL SCHOOLS. Can we all just calm down a bit?
Let the guilty be prosecuted and punished. If kids participated in the fraud, then prosecute them along with their parents. However, If the kids knew nothing about it, as some clearly did not, why should their lives be ruined?
12
Did they sign their applications? If they didn’t know what was in their own application, then they should repeat twelfth grade. Ask any legitimate applicant who grills themself over and over, did I present this well? Could I have said this better? Legitimate applicants know what is in their applications. How can any of them claim not to know?
5
@Mike
Obviously some of the kids were in on it. They should be punished. Equally obviously others were not. They should not be punished.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph this is getting out-of-hand.
If you want to give the Dreamers a pass, give these kids a pass. particularly those who will testify they knew nothing and were just following parental instructions. If not, rethink the Dreamers.
5
Oh really? I think there’s a big difference between a baby who can’t even remember the circumstances and a soon to be if not already legal adult who attested to the veracity of their application.
8
@Observer of the Zeitgeist That makes absolutely no sense. The Dreamers are students who have actually studied and earned their good grades and completed their extracurricular activities.
These other students have had every possible advantage of family wealth, private schools, private tutors, and STILL needed to cheat to get into schools the Dreamers actually qualified for. And don't think for a second that ANY of those kids didn't know what was going on. The only way they didn't is if they did not submit their own application, which is fraudulent in itself.
9
@Observer of the Zeitgeist
Whether they were in on the scam or not, to equate these kids with the Dreamers is extremely contrived false equivalence.
00:10 EDT, 3/20
8
expel them or rescind their enrollment; either way get them out of these elite schools.
If it was my parents that did this and I did not know as some seem not too, I would hope that I had the sense of self-worth, pride and integrity to dis-enroll on my own. If it was past the point of no return in the semester to get a refund on loans, then notify the school you will leave at the end of the semester.
Those that don't do that, in my opinion, have no shame, no ethics, and their names need to be made public so their fellow students don't mistake them for honorable and ethical people.
5
@mike
And if your parents brought you to this country illegally when you were a kid, would you just dis-enroll and return to your native country out of a sense of "self-worth"?
4
The students who benefited from the fraud should be given the choice of expulsion or voluntary withdrawal. Let them leave with their transcripts.
13
These parents have scarred their children for life.
I can only image the therapy bills these poor kids will face... and therapy is terribly questionable in terms of its efficacy.
Its child abuse plain and simple.
I wonder if these arrogant, self-centered parents had their children's best interest in their twisted minds, or were more interested in being at social gatherings where they could say, "My child goes to -----, how about your child?"
4
You really think these kids are innocent? Or that this is a first for these families? This is likely only one incident out of many. About time they were caught and forced to pay the consequences.
1
Personally I'm not to worried about Olivia Jade.
She seems pretty clueless, and is already cashing in on mommy and daddy's fame with her YouTube channel.
Besides, she didn't realllllly want to go to college. She believes her time is much too valuable. She is one that should definitely be kicked to the curb, with haste.
2
@Beezelbulby
I believe she has "chosen" to be at home right now (for her own safety, undoubtedly.) She is well deserving of the wrath and the forfeiture of her sponsors. As does her mother...
I watched Olivia Jade Laughlin tell her You Tube fans that she went to USC to sell stuff and enjoy game day. She “wasn’t really a student.” It was disgusting. And non athletes who were admitted as athletes surely knew fraud was involved. And how is it that universities didn’t know that the “student athletes “ weren’t athletes? We’re they so busy kowtowing to their coaches that they failed to notice that athletic recruits weren’t on the teams they were recruited to join? Give me a break! It’s all about the money and privilege and it’s a horrible message to send to our kids.
56
Did the active students and graduated alums do the work and meet the school's standards?
If that question is less important than the provenance of their admission, then why is the school's name even coveted in the first place?
1
@Jack - However, what about the student who was not admitted because the fraudulent student took their space at the university?
6
@MNimmigrant
Offer transfer admission to all the near-misses?
1
The top-rate schools where these second-rate students applied should expel these kids immediately. Not even their parents trusted they could get without significant financial support. Kids today know that the college application process isn't easy: it's competitive and takes years of effort to do well. Compare the students who are involved in the fraud with those who deserve to attend one of these schools and you can't help but notice these kids don't belong there.
12
The point to me is that there are no innocent victims. The fruit of the crime is the target of "justice". I didn't know people whose parents overtly bought their admission. If the students, and showing Lori Loughlin's young daughters, aren't feeling entitled, what?
I think uniformly the children are the beneficiaries of this crime, and it is the children and also the parents who deserve "justice". It changes the parental mathematics enormously. If I cheat, my kid(s) will pay heavily. For the kids, knowing or otherwise, what a great life lesson for living in the egalitarian society we dream of.
6
I am surprised at concern expressed about universities acting prior to the resolution of a criminal trial of cases of admissions fraud. Don’t many universities act prior to any court finding of guilt in other important matters related to student conduct, including but not limited to allegations of sexual misconduct?
10
It is wrong to hold unaccountable the students who were not aware of their parents' actions. It would enable only the parents who cheated better.
The kids were required to sign the apps, and without proof their signatures were forged, the kids should go down too.
Maybe learn something their parents do not know and were unlikely to teach them--honesty and responsibility and entitlement.
5
Expel them and make their (and their parents') names radioactive for decades. Maybe clean house of the clueless admissions staff also, since they totally failed at noticing fraudulent applicants. Severe consequences for wrongdoing is a good thing.
34
@JackC5
How would the admissions staff know that Photoshoped athletic pictures were part of the file or that someone else had taken the SAT for the kid in front of them?
Do you really think the admissions office at any college has the bandwidth to do a deep dive into the hundreds, if not thousands, of students that enroll each year?
if so, then any college degree you have should be rescinded as you lack basic logic and math skills.
1
The kids are 17, 18, 19. Who among us elders has never done something morally wrong? Should we suffer forever for the stupidest thing we ever did as a teenager? Let’s say they’re guilty, then they deserve an appropriate punishment but decades of public shaming? Really? Come on, it’s ok to be angry but they’re not guilty of assault or bullying or terrorizing.
1
@JackC5
Pretty much no one is going to remember their names in 6 months or less. The 24/7 news cycle always has a new scandal to dangle in front of the public.
Kick them all out. Retroactively admit the next ones down the line on the list, and probably pay their tuition too.
55
@APS
1st it is too late to ask the next on the list, and 2nd, why in the world would the school pay their tuition? The schools are the victims of frauds and their reputations have been harmed. Expecting them to pay a penance for some bad actors crimes is absurd.
2
I see so many comments advocating a free pass for the kids? Did any of you have a kid who worked her behind off and didn’t get in? Shame.
69
@Vivien Hessel Most of us have kids who have or will apply to college.
of course you do. there is fraud involved
1
Show why aren’t the husband of all actresses involved in this scandal named along with their wives?
6
At least in the case of the Macy-Huffmans, there was insufficient evidence to charge the dad. The mom, however, was caught on tape with Mr. Singer.
5
@Steve Alicandro, Registered Architect
And if it were only the husbands who had been charged, commenters would dwell on all the misdeeds of men, and how they controlled the wives. There's always a way to work gender grievance into it, right?
The whole American collegiate system is just a giant bunch of schools trying to sell something. They have become marketing machines focused on the contrived benefits of "getting in" to the club and "belonging". And don't get me started about collegiate athletics, which have corrupted the system to its core. Nevertheless, I hope these liars and cheats have the book thrown at them. And not a textbook.
43
@Kevin In a 2005 article in the New Yorker magazine, Malcolm Gladwell argued that one of the principal motives for Ivy League admissions policy was luxury brand management. Gladwell wrote: "Élite schools, like any luxury brand, are an aesthetic experience—an exquisitely constructed fantasy of what it means to belong to an élite —and they have always been mindful of what must be done to maintain that experience."
Here is the link to Gladwell's article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in
14
@KevinThere really are a lot of schools with an academic organization focused on education and excellence. The notion that these schools are really some form of a conspiracy is just not accurate.
3
@Joe Solo Sure there are. I don't disagree. But marketing has made the whole system into something different.
expel them all. Saying 'not the kids who didn't know what their parents did- is affectivt guving parents a free shot at cheating for their kid.
So the kid feels bad....well they would have felt bad when they got rejected when thwy should have.
10
It isn’t about culpability, but qualifications. Even if totally ignorant of their parent’s graft these students by definition did not qualify to attend these institution. What does it say to the other students that these children remain enrolled?
413
@Randolph Rhett
that is an unbased absolutism that has no foundation in any thing but speculation.
While their parents may not have had confidence in them to pass the test on their own, that does not mean they wouldn't have. It also does not mean the schools would not have taken them based on whole of their school package.
As for the fake athletics, nowhere is it published this group was academically unfit or unqualified for admission through the normal process. The only thing we know for sure is that the parents wanted a "sure thing" from specific schools and paid through the nose to get that sure thing.
6
@Randolph Rhett You assume they are unqualified because of the attention given one girl, who seems unqualified. Her sister is a junior, and the initial reports mentioned the many students who had graduated. So, once there, the kids could do the work.
The real issue is the ridiculous admission process. And, studies show that the best predictor of graduation is parental income, not the ridiculous SAT and ACT scores, which favor upper middle and upper class students. If you believe the kids were not qualified, how do you explain all the graduations? What I took from it, and my experiences as a university professor, is that the real work is getting in, and these colleges have a work load no different from any other school. The real work is getting in, and being one of 4.26% of the students accepted.
5
@Mrs. Cleaver So true. The secret is that the state schools may be easier to get into, but they have no problem flunking you out if you don't perform, so to me a degree from one of them means something. Almost no one flunks out of an Ivy once they get in, which means they are carrying a fair number of students through.
19
The students of these rich parents need to be banned from all schools. If they knew about their cheating parents plans they are starting their careers off to a immoral start. Make them work to go to school. No more easy handouts.
9
All students associated with this scandal should be suspended. When their parents are convicted, the students should be expelled. This is the only way to dissuade other parents from considering such actions.
29
Do you pull the parchment? Yes.
21
If a parent bought a car they knew was token and gave it to their child, the child would Not be allowed to keep the car. Hence no child should be allowed to attend a university gotten into by crime.
16
I'm just going to say it. These parents who bribed their kids into top schools without their kids' knowledge never cared about their kids or their futures. They only cared about their own egos and appearances, and how their kids can serve their the family image. Nothing more. I may or may not know this from personal experience.
44
There is no difference between wealthy people cheating and paying brides to get their kids in good schools, than there is a poor person cheating about where they live to get in a better school district. They are both cheaters, both deserve to get bounced!
4
@Joe This right here is why schools should not be funded by property tax. Lets be clear. In both instances it is not by the merits of the child that they got into the better or worse school but by the thickness of their parents wallets. Contrast this with the other article in the times today about the Specialized Highschools. Out of all options, a single exam seems most fair and equitable.
4
@Joe
I view the poor people as having already been cheated out of their right to a decent education or safe schools. If they cheat, they were cheated by the system first, which was set up to send them to schools that were inferior, in just a more legal form of 'separate but unequal.'
These rich kids could have certainly gotten good educations at other colleges. In fact, perhaps better one. Many 'elite' schools aren't going to fail out students who bring in big money, so they might have even learned more at a community college. Maybe they wouldn't have been to all the right parties or gotten the connections, but they would have at least learned something and had to work to earn grades.
If these students are doing the work well doesn’t that imply these schools aren’t so hard after all and they have been scheming the pubic for a long time. Actually I knew that. Didn’t our commander in chief go to Penn and we know he can’t read and his son in law, also not too bright (think 666 5th ave) well he went to Harvard.
Maybe it’s time to rethink these institutions.
4
@JEH
elite schools are not about the curriculum being any harder, in fact they must pass the same accreditation as every other college in their region, which means the content of the courses is essentially the same.
The elite schools have hired elite professors who publish, make things, win awards, invent things and garner positive attention. The students gain by being in their orbit and having access to working on those projects under their professors.
With a Harvard pedigree, or Yale or the Seven Sisters or Stanford, MIT, etc. the graduate will be headhunted not only to do the job but also for their connections their hiring firm might exploit
3
@JEH POTUS actually only qualified to be admitted to Fordham. He transferred in after second year there probably cause daddy found out how to pay for a transfer spot. Notice that Trump never mentions Fordham? And no surprise that he worries so much about his test scores and grades being revealed!
4
Expelling or 'unaccepting' these students is a fairly mild response to a very serious wrong. Lots of kids take a year off before going to college, not a thing wrong with that. Recall that what they would have in front of them is basically a do-over. Re-apply and be admitted to the school you deserve to matriculate to one year later.
I would have a very different response about legal recourse - leaning against the idea that these kids deserve to be criminally pursued for their parent's legal transgressions.
5
@Les Biesecker
you skip the reality that every school in the world they apply to will know they were dumped out of one of these elite universities. If they lie about it to the next school they will be found out, sooner or later, and be in the same position of being bounced yet again.
State schools or more likely community college is their best bet for a couple years before they try to get more than a Bachelors.
Glad to see that my comments when the Varsity Blues scandal broke, to the effect that the scope of this mess needs to extend to the students as well, have proven correct. It is hard to imagine that any of the students whose parents were implicated didn’t know what was really going on.
But what about the high schools’ college guidance counselors and the college admissions committees? They also had to have known what was going on. They communicate with each other on a regular basis at a granular level.
You better believe that the USC admissions officers are on a first-name basis with Harvard-Wetlake’s college guidance office, that the latter has very extensive knowledge about each student applying to USC, and that both offices have in-depth discussions with each other about applicants. That’s the way it is at every elite college and every elite private high school, as I know from personal experience. The notion that USC wouldn’t know if a particular elite high school has water polo team or a crew team is laughable.
It is time for a whole lot more people to be punished in the Varsity Blues scandal.
19
@ALB. Did any attend Harvard-Westlaje? I’ve only heard Buckley mentioned and their college counselor did question the parents about this.
Of course college advisors and admissions officers know one another! They are involved in a mutual process each year. You make this sound as if it’s somehow “sinister” that they know one another. College admissions officers also know counselors at public high schools from which students regularly apply.
1
I cannot accept the reports that these students who applied to universities as athletes do not know the fraud committed for their benefit of being accepted into these schools.
16
I'm sad for the young adults. The article speaks of "parents" and "children". If the children were aware of the fraud, and signed the applications then they are likely participating PRINCIPLES to the crime. Be advised, teenagers under 18 can be charged as adults and those 18 or over are not children. Lets be clear, this isn't just a pox on the adults that are accused of orchestrating this fraud, theft and "charity" tax evasions. These youngsters may be criminally liable as well, and these are Federal felonies. These "children" may have earned privileges beyond their understanding, thanks to their parents. This could be very sobering to all involved.
9
Getting in to particular university is one thing, but a degreeis not awarded for admission (except perhaps at some diploma mills). A degree is awarded for fulfilling the academic requirements of the program.
So if a student has done that , done the work at a level that warrants the degree, then they should be awarded the degree and it should not be revoked.
To do otherwise is to feed the insidious belief that a degree is a certificate of admission. It's not, it is a mark of accomplishment.
8
@WJG If you lie about your qualifications for a job, but demonstrate that you can adequately perform the duties required, do you reason that the employer has no cause at all to fire you? And what positive example is set under your suggestion?
3
@WJG
to allow those that cheated to get in, no matter their performance once in, is to reward cheating.
Wow- so easy for everyone on here to rush to harsh judgment on the kids — and, yes, they are kids.
They are not adults, they are not independent, and (as we know from scientific study) their thought processes are not fully formed.
How many of you commentators can honestly say that that if your parents insisted on a course of action when you were 16 or 17 that you could have refused? And if you could, could all of your friends refused too?
These are kids - I’m not saying that they skate away scot-free, but I’m also appalled by the “off with their heads” self-righteous pronouncements that seem to dominate the comment section.
Maybe we should take a minute at look for a reasonable middle ground?
8
What about the Dreamers?
5
@Aaron Klein
Nearly all the people I knew were perfectly capable of standing up to their parents at 16 and 17, and made it a point of pride to be their own people. In fact, some became draft resistors, others were determined to sign up to go to war, still others were already working full-time and engaged to be married.
3
@Aaron Klein
Your suggestion is probably the right course but I do understand everyone's outrage. These kids are already born into the lap of luxury, afforded every break our society provides fairly and many advantages only wealth can buy.
The greed and the mendacity and the arrogance and the hubris is truly astounding and contemptible. How many more breaks should they be given in a world where so many get none?
Also, I find it hard to believe they innocently submitted doctored applications. However, wherever there is doubt it should be extended and yes, they were minors "not fully formed."
With all the millions truly deserving sympathy it does though stick in the craw to extend it to this lot. But extend it we should.
1
Just list their names. The shame alone should be enough for them to leave the university. Their social media will solve the problem.
8
Ah, so make sure these kids get bullied mercilessly by peers and strangers alike. Seems like a totally irrational and immature response to this whole thing. “Let’s make these kids have miserable lives”. Got it.
4
@Aerys
how to do you bully an adult? and 18 year olds are adults
@tom
Shame? Shame?
Oh, you mean that quaint old notion that died out towards the end of the 20th century. With the final nails in the coffin applied by Trump, Mitch McConnell, Devin Nunez, the rest of the GOP, the 1%, and the vast majority of celebrities, reality TV stars and people who voted for Trump.
To experience shame you have to be willing to admit you did something morally wrong. Scarcely anyone in America is willing to do that anymore.
The children who may or may not have known about the fraud should all be expelled. If their application had bogus test scores or fraudulent claims that they were athletes, they would not have been admitted. So, they are unqualified. Good bye!
13
@Vicki Not being admitted to a particular university does not mean you are not qualified to attend.
Admission is a decidedly imperfect way of assigning slots for which there are a surplus of applicants.
Once the students are admitted, if they flunk out, then fine. But if they can do work to a sufficiently high standard, then they are qualified for a degree.
3
@WJG
letting them stay rewards cheating and lets others know that even if they cheat to get in, they will not be punished.
1
I should imagine that the "duped" kid can simply volunteer to leave the school, call a lawyer, then lead a well funded life at their parent's expense.
12
This is so overblown.
Kids who do not get into so-called top schools can get into second-tier schools (so-called). They can, if they are determined and energetic, get as good an education or better than they would have gotten otherwise, and they will have earned every bit of it, which itself is a great lesson.
If kids are derailed by not getting into Yale or Stanford, they were never on track after all.
I'm not for parents scamming the system, not for parents setting those examples for their children either. If public laws were broken, public punishment should be considered. But the weeping and wailing and class-action lawsuits are just nauseating and counterproductive.
Albert Einstein made do at a second-tier school. And the smartest person in America in the last century (so-called) did not get into his first choice either, probably because he was Jewish ... but Richard Feynman turned out all right as well.
Get over it America, the world did not end.
3
@jr
Wait a second, what?
Einstein did not "make do" at a second-tier school. Who told you that? And Feynmen went to MIT, which simply meant that he had to leave New York to go to college.
2
@jr Mr Einstein attended ETF Zurich which is currently ranked number ten in the world and has produced 32 Nobels and 4 Fields. That’s top tier.
@Sonja
Einstein went to Zurich Poly, which did not award PhDs during his time there. German colleges were the top tier. When Einstein graduated he could not land a school teaching job. To the point, this did not stop him.
Feynman was turned down by Columbia, which had Rabi and an active experimental as well as theoretical physics school. MIT was good but in theoretical physics, second tier then. Again, to the point, this did not stop him.
2
The Director of Admissions ought to be fired. His job is to get the best possible students for USC. Even if he is honest, he is grossly incompetent that he had no systems to see if he was actually admitting good students. If a corporate CFO was repeatedly paying fake invoices, he would be fired immediately. Why should the Admission Director who repeatedly let fraud happen be kept in the job.
5
While we’re at it, let’s cap the obscene way college presidents, administrators, faculty and staff are compensated (yes, coaches too). Eliminate the scam known as tenure and let’s see how many of these progressive educators stick around for $50,000 a year.
1
@Kevin So you want the qualified educators to leave for better-paid jobs? Anyway, your information is wrong; a lot of college professors stick around for a lot less than $50,000. Something like 70% of college classes are taught by adjunct professors, and many are at or below the poverty line. Tenure track jobs are very hard to come by, it takes a long time, a lot of work and a lot of luck to get tenure, and even a full professor's salary isn't what it once was. There are exceptions, of course, but overall it's a very precarious profession and not a strikingly lucrative one.
That’s my point. The adjuncts don’t get paid because top administrators are grossly overcompensated. And believe me, there are more than enough “quality educators” ready to fill the void left from those who leave.
If you benefit from a crime, punishment is inevitable. Whether or not the student "knew" is irrelevant! Bernie Madoff's legacy comes to mind.
6
@SGC Wait, so you're saying that the people who bought into the Madoff funds and happened to withdraw money before the scheme collapsed are criminals?
Because I don't think that is even remotely close to true.
2
@WJG You misinterpret my point. Madoff's family might not have "known" and benefited from his ponzi scheme, consequently, their assets should be frozen to compensate the victims. Whether or not they knew is irrelevant. It's still a crime!
2
"A statement from Stanford said that inaccurate information on a college application was grounds for being “disenrolled” from the university or having an offer of admission rescinded,"
Of course, this goes without saying. (every kid knew they were lying)
For those who already graduated with a degree but also knew they blatantly lied on their initial application, their degree should be modified with a giant asterisk and labeled "Provisional". These students should go back and repeat 2 full years, Junior and Senior year, of school.
Who knows, maybe mommy and daddy also paid to have someone other than their darling babies attend classes and take tests for them. Shock.
5
Perhaps these colleges can give the parents a chance to pony up a few million more dollars in order to name a building or the like, in order to put their kids into the legal offspring-of-wealthy-donors side door entrance.
6
In any of the cases where the universities themselves were beneficiaries -- direct or indirect -- of the pay-offs, the university should also investigate the complicity of every admissions officer and committee member if they are going to go back and rescind the credits these students earned. I have no problem with them kicking the kids out, or rescinding admissions offers subject to doing so prior to the acceptance deadlines at other schools (shouldn't a good liberal school try to mitigate damages?) but for students who paid for credits, did the work, earned the grades, etc. those students are entitled to a transcript to allow them to resume their studies without interruption somewhere else.
4
No this not a hard call. Until you have proof, students aren't ejected but also can not continue studies. Once a criminal trial results in a guilty verdict, then you take action.
But the bigger issue here is our government going after this at all. Definitely admirable, and definitely shows what a government like ours can do in terms of "doing the right thing"....
But why wasn't this done for the financial meltdown?
What wasn't this done for campaign finance reform?
What about massive lobbying efforts and PAC grey money?
Where is the government in all those MUCH more impactful instances.
There is no justice department focused on those are there?
10
I think there is a lot of misinformation in these comments about how high school students apply for college. My son is a senior in high school. He applied to four colleges, three in-state and one out of state. His high school counselors checked his (and all his classmate’s) applications before they were sent. He filled out the apps, wrote his essays, made sure everything was accurate and he pushed the button that said “submit”. His parents were not involved (except to remind him of deadlines). That there is any question that these kids did not know what was going on is completely mind-blowing. The only way they would not have known is if they let their parents pretend to be them and submit their applications. Which is equally fraudulent.
73
If a student honestly takes the SAT and then an unethical proctor alters the answers without the student knowing, the student has done nothing wrong.
This is not to say that there should be no repercussion for the student, but to point out that it’s possible that an applicant in this situation shoulders no blame (although I suspect there are very few, if any, of these kinds of situation in the current scandal).
4
@Amy Flynn
so you are declaring, absent any right or knowledge of, that every kid in every school in every city in this nation did the exact same thing you say your kid did.
delusion is strong in you .
A high school with a 1000 kids and 2 guidance counselors does squat with 99.9% of those kids.
2
I know I'm in the minority, but let them stay. At most it was a few students per year at each school, not a group of 100. Kids like this are usually considered "extra" anyway. And, their full tuition helped finance other students unable to pay.
THe entire admission process is a cash cow for universities. People complain about tuition, but not admission fees. And, the mote lids that apply, the more money, and the right to say they only accepted under 5% of applications. Such a figure somehow makes the school more exclusive.
If these kids are expelled, so should the kids there because of donations. The only difference is who received the money. Don't revoke diplomas. Once there, the kids did the work, and passed, or dropped out. The initial articles mentioned a student who had left the school. That some students appeared to be unqualified, but graduated indicates the scam of the process. Getting in shouldn't be harder than the work in classes.
There will always be people who circumvent the rules. Life isn't fair. But, this case is a reaction to a ridiculous process. Focus needs to be on the process as well as the reaction.
1
Pulling the parchment is too extreme, providing the student actually did the coursework. Removing any academic honors would be appropriate however.
Students accepted but not yet started are easy: they can apply again next year on their own ability. This group is likely fairly small (early acceptance).
The others as pointed out are difficult, as one has to ascertain the degree of culpability. At the very least one expects that there is no need of any public assistance, including implied assistance based on state support of Universities and disgorgement of any past support benefit, one presumes to be paid by the parents.
If you can't get in on your own with all the special schools and tutors for assistance, well, you probably don't belong at that school. You are a dullard dragging down the rest of the smart folks.
1
@MH I got in to Yale as a homeless sixteen year old from NYC. I studied. It wasn't that hard. These kids were a nightmare at school and didn't do any work. This is a racist process, yes, but that doesn't mean the Trumpers get to profit from it.
2
The students should be expelled, regardless of whether they were aware of the scam, otherwise the parents’ scams worked and were rewarded. I also think the schools should rescind any degrees that were obtained fraudulently. Eventually Singer might reveal a full list of clients, and that list should be examined and acted upon — even if the students have graduated. This may sound tough but if any of us were in college and were caught cheating, we would be expelled. There’s no difference. Actions have consequences. Bad actions have bad consequences.
16
To me, this isn't such a hard question.
Anyone who benefitted from this fraud, whether they were fully aware, completely unaware, or conveniently looked the other way, should not be allowed to register again.
They should be barred from continuing to take classes after completing the current semester. Absent clear evidence of deserving to be expelled based on what they themselves did, they should not be expelled now. If they prefer to withdraw, they should be allowed to withdraw without failing their classes. Maybe they should be encouraged to do that.
Any credits they have earned, they are entitled to keep. Their professors attested that the students completed all course requirements, which means the credits are theirs. If a diploma has already been awarded, the same principle applies.
Of course, I'm assuming the professors were honest and diligent in upholding academic standards and preventing plagiarism and other forms of dishonesty. Or, is this a problem too?
5
@Sonja
Re: Profs---Even as a Teaching Assistant at two Universities, the pressure to pass student athletes in my lab classes was intense.
Some of these kids could barely read and ALL were traveling and practicing so intensely they had no time to attend labs and were incapable of doing the work although I had one student 3X and he got better, a bit.
I refused to pass them, unpopular, no idea what admin did behind my back.
So, yes, likely a problem with profs too, especially given competitive environment for tenure or holding a tenuous part-time contract.
1
Oh for heaven's sake, the solution is not that complicated. First, there needs to be a wholesale re-evaluation of how colleges operate. Second, all students applying should have their admissions pulled. Those who were unaware can reapply, those who were complicit cannot. For those already in, if you gained admission fraudulently, no sheepskin, you decide if you want to stay. For those that claim innocence of criminal charges, appeal the decision to the school, none will.
1
@tony
That just rewards the parents and the students who cheated better.
As an adult, if apply to a job fraudulently and that’s discovered, I will likely lose that job. I’m not sure if this as any different. Tragic for those kids whose parents cheated them, but college is about education. The lesson shouldn’t be gaming the system from the word go will get you what you want.
12
If a student knew that they were cheating the admissions process, they should be expelled. If they knew and they graduated, their diploma should be pulled. If they did not know, let them finish the year and reapply for admission. Whether they knew it or not, their application was falsified.
Lastly, while we all like to think the best of ourselves, I find it hard to believe that any of the student athletes who were admitted under false pretenses did not have some inkling that something was wrong. The same goes for other students who were taking tests under odd circumstances.
7
People say "the kid didn't know" but it's not relevant. Their admission to the university was based on fraud and false applications. They need to be not allowed to participate in classes during the investigations. If they are found to have been admitted as the result of bribery and fraud, then they should be expelled.
They were admitted based on criminal and unethical behavior. Some of the kids were even CCed on emails regarding false athletic participation and test cheating. Don't be naive, these kids new and they are used to getting this type of "help".
5
Professor at a state university here. As much as I hate academic dishonesty of all sorts, I think it's a mistake to paint all the students involved with a broad brush. At the age of seventeen, many students aren't in a position to refuse intense parental pressure, and they're likely to believe their parents' assurances that this is just how things are done. And unlikely as it seems, some really may not have known or grasped the extent of what their parents were doing.
Once in college, the students may have a variety of achievement levels. While few tears are shed for students on yachts when they are supposed to be in class, there may be some who have worked quite hard in their classes, earned their credits, and contributed positively (not monetarily!) to the campus community. Do you automatically toss out their earned credits? Expecting students to transfer elsewhere is not always feasible -- especially when they're being dismissed from their prior institution.
Campuses have personnel devoted to dealing with academic dishonesty cases. These staff members are experienced in analyzing a student's situation and determining an appropriate course of disciplinary action. For some it may be expulsion. For others it may be lesser penalties and ethics instruction. Much as we might want to discuss this along with the rest of the scandal, individual student disciplinary matters are not something that can be resolved in the comments section of the New York Times.
12
Here here. First sane post.
Too many people writing here think they’re playing Game of Thrones.
1
@Wondering
I agree with many of your points, and would add that young adults of parents such as the ones who can pull off one of these stunts are likely stunted themselves.
Somehow conveying to them the magnitude of their parents' and their misdeeds would be welcome to everyone.
At the very least, the rich parents should be required to subsidize the full education of at least three students their child replaced, greater by 4X the money they spent to get the kid in.
My thoughts on how the universities should handle this issue:
First, do not do today that which can be put off until tomorrow. The facts are still unclear (an indictment is by its nature a one-sided account of what happened), but they will become clear as legal proceedings and other investigations progress. In particular, whether to rescind a diploma for someone who has already graduated is something that is far from urgent.
Second, schools should distinguish between students who were honest dupes from those who were complicit in the scheme. Anyone suspected of complicity can be handled through the school's usual disciplinary process for cheating and fraud.
For the others, it's less like confiscating the proceeds of a bank robbery and more like trying to purge someone of illicitly-obtained food they've already eaten. They might have have gained entrance honestly at a different school, and they were deprived of the opportunity by the same fraud that deceived the school. If their academic performance is adequate, then I think the school should allow them to remain, and let the public humiliation (as well as the prosecution of their families) stand as sufficient punishment.
3
For all of the meritocratic dialogue about our country -- freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc. -- this country is based on a tax code that makes it easier to turn a buck faster here than any where else on the planet.
Sorry. Privilege is alive and for sale in the United States.
2
It's not at all unusual for schools to revoke the degrees of those they discovered either engaged in academic dishonest or admissions cheating, sometimes long after graduation. Your degree may have been "earned" but the university or college it was granted from remains the ultimate arbiter of its existence.
5
The parents should have the book thrown at them. The students, all over 18, are adults, and must bear the responsibility for their acceptance at their University under fraudulent means. Hard to believe they did not know, based upon the stories in the media. What a great life lesson in cheating. Under the illusion of protecting their children, by being bulldozer parents, protecting their children from disappointment, they actually gave them the gift of a hard lesson; one the students will never forget.
4
What's the issue here? These students gained admission through false representation of their qualifications. Boot them out! They can be invited to re-apply for admission on their own merits, with proof of culpability grounds for denying acceptance.
3
For any of William Singer's clients who truly want to attend college, going through the application process with their actual grades, scores, activities and essays might be the best thing that ever happens to them. As for those who weren't interested in being there in the first place, I imagine they can find other things to do with their time. Or not.
5
Were any of the kids involved graduates of public high schools? Either I missed that detail or it hasn’t been mentioned. I’m assuming they were all or mostly private school grads, but maybe I’m wrong and jumping to conclusions.
15
@Julie Zuckman’s. Why does that matter? Are public school parents automatically ethical and those who send their children to independent schools, all crooks?
1
This whole story that has been going on for decades .Just not so on your face with selfies etc, Bring rich has its rewards however being intellectually superior is not one of them,
These children because they are little self centered children have cheating parents who don’t care about right or wrong just getting over because we are rich and so special.
6
If the student knew or should have known expel them.
If the student most likely didn’t know have them reapply as if they were an initial applicant.
Offer the seat of the expelled student(s) to whomever was next on the list and let them know that they should have been admitted. And apologize.
Inevitably, most of these parents and kids will feel like victims and never appreciate the impact of stealing a deserved seat from an unknown applicant. Or appreciate that some unknown kid who earned a spot that was stolen was the real victim.
27
@Imkay
Make each of the "rich parents" fork over 4 years tuition for a disadvantaged student who has the grades but can't afford the tuition.
4
What's to "review"? They illegally hustled a seat in the class and denied another student the opportunity. Throw them out. And it's also time to shut down all the legal hustles that allow students without the academic excellence needed to be accepted at such schools. Who cares if you play sports well? No more red carpets being rolled out because you can throw a football. Legacy acceptance? No. Child of a faculty member? Though. Holistic jibber jabber? Nice try. Affirmative action? Nope. Quotas of any kind so nobody's feelings are hurt? Nada. Enough of all this nonsense.
41
@Eddie Brown Thank you. We all were thinking it. You said it.
4
Will they also be freezing the accounts of students whose parent made massive "charitable" contributions to get their unqualified offspring in? I doubt it.
14
@Bob
That is a completely different argument.
The only way to punish these parents is for the universities to kick the students out, and mark their transcripts as cheaters so they can't get in some place else. Let their parents support them for the rest of their lives!
43
I cannot imagine falsifying my kids' test scores and then deceiving them. What unethical behavior. What terrible examples they set.
17
I am disappointed to say the least about the insensitive way only Lori Laughlin and her daughters picture is NYT has chosen to publish. Why her and her daughters only and all the time. Is is so difficult to show pictures of others who are implicated or this is just sensationalism or something more insidious. Millionaires and public figures been indicted, but all we see is Lori and her daughters.
Really, NYT is this the best you can do.
112
@A Common Man
Perhaps because Ms. Laughlin's daughter made such a point of being a "social media influencer" and how she would tweet she went to college not for an education but for a social "experience." The apple really didn't fall far from that tree.
They've both set themselves up for scorn and ridicule, haven't they?
39
@A Common Man
I agree.
But Lori Loughlin's daughter was so egregiously obnoxious with her "I only like game days and parties".
She just captured the essence of a spoiled rich girl.
35
I think that photo is a perfect illustration of the story. People who are leveraging beauty to get money without doing what the rest of us think of as “work,” and using that unearned money to buy a prestigious intellectual credential.
So — beauty can now buy an Ivy League credential! Ugh.
20
Give me a break. The “kids” should be prosecuted just like the parents. The school makes them sign the application. They knew whether or not they actually took the SAT, rowed on the crew team, or wrote their own essay. These kids played the game. The schools don’t want to loose the golden goose, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to let those kids stay enrolled or keep a fraudulent diploma.
137
@Me The only think that makes the actions of the parents prosecutable (mail fraud / wire fraud) are the payments. If the kids didn't make the payments, at most they can be charged under "conspiracy" statutes. Conspiracy statutes are an artifice of the control state, a kind of trump card used by law enforcement typically to overreach the doctrines of traditional law in order to deal in 'values'. We do not legislate values. We require ethics codes from some companies, but we do not police the substance of those codes (a company's code of ethics might endorse any legal activity, including using it's customers personal information for whatever it wants to... ) We also outlaw fraud in areas where market confidence is critical as a matter of policy. We like confidence in the stock market, internet retailers, and insurance companies... it keeps the dollars flowing in the economy. And as much as confidence in the college admissions system is good for the economy (or is it?), there is still no statute that treats application disclosures the same way they would be on an SEC filing.
1
@Me
"The schools don't want to loose (sic) the golden goose." The goose isn't golden; only the eggs are (cf. "The goose that laid the golden egg"). I'll bet the kids now have golden egg all over their faces.
Excerpted from the "USC Application for Admission" (from the Stanford Chaparral, 1975):
"1. You are going to be stranded at a desert (Palm Springs) resort hotel for three weeks. You will be allowed to bring along only five (5) of your family's servants. Which servants will you bring? Why?
2. You are trapped in the Beverly Hills I. Magnin for one (1) hour with only ten thousand (10,000) dollars to spend. What will you buy? Why?
Which of the following body types is nearest to yours? Mesomorph Ectomorph Endomorph (Please ask your doctor if you do not know what these words mean.)
Name five of the United States (for instance: California, New York, Illinois, Texas, Florida):
Estimate your parents' yearly income (round off to the closest $50,000; use exponents if necessary and if you know what they are):
If you can, please send along a high school transcript (your grades). An 8 x 10 glossy portrait of yourself may be substituted in lieu of (instead of) an official transcript (your grades)."
Guffaw
77
Most colleges and universities have honor codes or codes of conduct. Some may even include a line in their application form that has the person who signs it attesting to the truth of everything that is said in the application.
That said, any student who knowingly participated in a scheme to provide false information in their application should be charged under the schools disciplinary code.
They of course should be given full due process rights, but if found guilty, they should face whatever sanctions the disciplinary code provides.
Some may have been willing participants, others may not have known what their parents did. But this is why an investigation and a disciplinary process is needed.
Nothing short not this can restore student and parent confidence in this schools admissions system.
5
@Drspock Legally it is quite complex. You can get certifications on a contract, but when the transaction closes you generally don't get to look back and say, sorry, unwind the deal, unless something among those untrue certifications actually harmed you. For example, I make a mortgage application. I, at the behest of my fast talking mortgage broker, round my income up to the "nearest $100,000". The bank finds out before advancing me the money, then their remedy is to walk away from the deal, charge me fees and penalties, etc. The bank finds out after advancing the funds, and I have been paying on time, they typically cannot foreclose on me. In some commercial loans, the way this works is that the certifications have to be re-made every time the company submits a collateral statement, or makes a draw on its credit line. So at that time, it becomes actionable again. There need to be very specific acceleration clauses in the contract that trigger if a false certification is triggers. Some schools are probably better at this that others. Schools that perceive a high threat of "scam entrance" most likey have robust language in their acceptance letters that invoke the honor code, etc. Schools that don't will be acting just as illegally as the fraudsters if they start kicking out students who have been performing their end of the deal (paying tuition, passing classes) since they were admitted.
1
Private colleges are free to admit whoever they want, absent bribery, it would be hoped. USC isn’t a public college, so what the public thinks is largely aspirational or a matter of opinion. Those who decrying donors, particularly big donors, need to know that public colleges in California haven’t been generously nor adequately funded by the state for years, and thus there are few alternatives other than begging. Private colleges with modest endowments are in the same boat. That’s why money talks. What should be done with the kids who benefitted from these machinations is a moral question,to be determined by the colleges that admitted them, and is not up for a vote nor mob rule. Justice should always be tempered with mercy.
5
@Wolf That may be relevant to the wider issue of "donations" to colleges, after which the donor's child is admitted. However, in this case the colleges themselves never received any of the money, it just went to the crooks who were orchestrating the scheme without the colleges approval.
5
@Wolf You might be half right, however, many of these large private universities get tax payer money for research. I do not want cheaters having at my tax dollars!
2
@Jacinta
Just so you know, if I give you $50k, you pay taxes on most of it. If I give the same to USC they pay NOTHING!!
Still think they owe nothing to the public sphere and get to do whatev?
1
Have the students apply again, with correct SAT scores, grades and accomplishments so they are properly compared to other applicants. In the meanwhile it might be time for a gap year in which they perform actual community service, or perhaps attend community college, while waiting, one more time, to hear from the schools of their -not their parents'- choice.
66
No way. They cheat they’re out. Plenty of other honest kids can take their place.
21
@Susan
Instead of your plan let's admit the kids who didn't get in with apologies and a scholarship to make amends.
Far better solution I think.
8
@Susan If they reapply to these schools or some other college, they will now have to show their college transcripts. If their college professors did not inflate their grades, then they are probably fairly awful. This will make it hard for these “kids” to get in anywhere except perhaps a community college. But even community college’s have standards of acceptance.
There are so many other students who were admitted to selective schools only because of their parents' connections and money. Though not technically illegal, admission via legacy and "donation" amounts to cronyism and bribery. It seems unfair to punish these students and not those students.
7
@SRF
No, it makes a difference whether it was a crime. It would be unfair — and akin to a due process violation — to retroactively punish students for actions they or their parents took that we’re legal at the time they were taken, even if they were immoral. You have to give people notice that something is a punishable offense before punishing them.
We need to fix the outrageous cesspool of legacy, athletic and donation-based admissions immediately, but to be fair it has to be done prospectively.
1
@Bill
My College and University explicitly stated that lying on the admission application would be under the Honor Code and grounds for dismissal before entry, while there, and after graduation.
Real schools care.
I feel badly for some of these kids. Imagine if you found out that your parents never trusted you to get the SAT score you might need for admission on your own merit - even with an overpriced tutor. I remember being that age, and the best learning tool my parents instilled in me was the internal belief that I could accomplish nearly anything intellectually that I really tried to achieve. It would hurt to find out my parents never had that kind of faith in me.
Now, for the other kids who were actively involved in the scam, expel them. They were more than happy to use the advantages money could buy rather than work to deserve them, so I don't feel badly for them at all.
21
@Lizzie, they ALL need to be expelled. The kids who didn't know still don't deserve to be chosen over more qualified candidates and were admitted via fraud. The good news is they'll have their wonderful parents to console them.
35
@Lizzie Don't feel sorry for them. This is unlikely the first time they've been the pawn of their parents cheating, just maybe the most egregious. This may be the best lesson of their young lives. There is still plenty of time for them to make a life for themselves.
14
@Lizzie
Screeching violins!
You feel sorry for these cheaters?
Poor is me...my parents didn't have "faith in me".
Unbelievable!
These parents had complete "faith" in their kids to keep their mouths shut and go along with the lies and cheating as they all planned.
These are not innocent children who were duped by their parents. They were young ADULTS who knew the difference between right and wrong, knew exactly what was going on, and felt more emboldened and superior as a result of getting away with their stunning deceit.
4
How about revoking diplomas from those found to have benefited from these frauds? There should be no statute of limitations here.
19
And what if they really studied hard and got the grades on their own? Do you negate that?
As a parent to a junior at one of the high schools attended by some of these cheaters, I have had a spectrum of emotions on this issue. We wouldn't let anyone keep the proceeds of a robbery or fraud just because they gave it to a child, so why should any of these students get some pass? The fact is someone who was actually qualified, who actually filled out the applications, wrote the essays and took the tests did not get into the university of their choice due to this mess. I'd rather teach my character matters more than anything else than worry about whether some kid who shouldn't have been there in the first place is affected. As my mother continues to say, "life isn't fair". These cheating families will just have to get over it.
90
@Antipater People -- this did not keep out a qualified person any more than full pay kids keep out kids that need money (which happens all the time)
@Antipater
I agree with most of your response, but I'm not sure you've painted the most accurate portrait of the student that "would have" gotten in.
In many cases, it seems as if the spaces would not have gone to the student(s) you describe, but instead to another underqualified "preferred walk-on" with below-standard grades and test scores, who just happened to be an actual rower, lacrosse player, sailor, soccer player, pole vaulter, water polo player, etc.
That's the loophole that really needs to be examined. And the number of spaces that these admits take is astounding, especially as they are early admits. If you adjust for them, as well as legacies, then the admittance rates for the standard "qualified" applicants at the Ivy League schools are miniscule indeed.
The kids knew and so did USC. It’s naive to think they didn’t. USC is in damage control mode and trying to salvage their reputation. I’m not sure that will go over at this point. Same with all the other “Ivy’s ‘ that were ‘shocked’ at the revaluations. This is a scam they’re been enabling for forever - for their own benefit.
25
@Gwen Vilen
This is ridiculous; the universities did NOT benefit from the bribes - in fact the universities consider themselves defrauded. Why would any administration be happy that an employee had taken a bribe to give away an admissions slot?
Singer himself said that parents could make a donation to the university the "front door" way or pay him 1/10th the amount and he would get them through the "side door". You can cynically say, the universities are just upset that the coaches were undercutting their rates with a side deal. But it's ridiculous to say that any university administrator would condone this.
3
@Gwen Vilen - there's no doubt that a few people at the athletic department were in on it but it's naive to think that USC the institution was in on it. Do you know how large the school is? A few subpar students could easily sneak in as athletic recruits and statistically they wouldn't even be a blip in the incoming class.
But more importantly, if USC had been in on it money would have been flowing to the university, not some third party consultant. USC is not above pay for play, just like every other university, but if you want to buy admission you need to fork over enough to get your name on a building or at least part of a building. They didn't financially benefit, therefore it's reasonable to conclude they weren't involved. Why risk their reputation when they didn't gain anything?
2
@Gwen Vilen Maybe it's easier for you if the kids knew. But if you read the complaint, you'll see that the parents and Singer were dedicated to keeping the kids in the dark. Read the complaint!
I am so relieved that they will have to pay the piper.
2
To eliminate any doubt over their deservedness to attend these Colleges, each student involved should be given a new entrance exam, administered under stringent observation.
9
@Rafael
Offer admission to the next front door applicants on the old admissions waiting lists instead.
6
No way. Give the spot to the next deserving kid. They can go to community college and start from the bottom and work their way to a state school.
4
Entrance was gained via some version of fraud through collusion of Singer, his minions, and these fraud-participating parents. Their offspring student took a seat in their cohort based on fraud. Someone who went through their application procedure in a straight forward manner did not gain a seat in the class because of the unqualified student. The "front door" applicant has had their life changed forever because of this "side door" fraud.
13
That photo of Loughlin and her two girls, speaks volumes to some of us!
30
@Counter Measures
Bravo. Who the heck is Lori Loughlin anyway? A B-list actress from the 90s?
Her "designer" husband (laughable) is the one who brought in all the $$$ with his relationship w/Target, comprised of those cheap, raggedy clothes made in China or whereever.
Throw the book at the supposed "elite!"
Where's Michael Cohen when we need him?
3
It is the student, not the parent whom submits the application. It is not possible you could submit an application with your face Photoshopped onto someone else's body, and not know about it.
On top of that, one student of a well-known celebrity boasted online about how little work she did in class, if she even attended. Clearly, she's not an Ivy League candidate, and I would not believe she's unaware of how she got where she is.
58
college applications don't have pictures
2
Hard to believe the students didn't know. Nevertheless this just seems like a ploy by USC to look as if they're taking real action and interested in an even playing field- they're not. Once this embarrassment blows over it'll be right back to taking legacy endowments and business as usual.
8
@Keely
The students knew.
And if they said they didn't, they are too stupid to be in college.
3
So the first thing they do -- after firing their own people of course -- is kibosh the kids.
If anything, send them a value card for University counseling, to advise them on how to ditch their amoral, status-grubbing parents.
5
I hope the reviews focus on the performance and conduct of the students while in school rather than punishing them simply because they were teenagers who followed the bad guidance of their parents.
Tighten admission procedures but do not remove those who slipped through and then proved they belonged there.
12
Isn’t that a little like allowing the children of a bank robber to keep the stolen money?
36
@gc why - the students were party to the fraud. They sign the application and attest everything is true
28
The point you're missing is at the fraudulent information was not in the applications. it was sent separately, either test scores, or photos and other information sent directly to coaches
3
zero point zero chance the students were unaware of the cheating.
think about it. the grades, the scores, the essay...they knew. they all knew.
230
@pamela True. And they look around, and figure it comes with their surrounding territory. They're right.
12
@pamela
So the college counselor asks the rich accepted incoming student about the sport they are playing in college.
The fact that the applicant knows full well he/she does not play this sport sets off NO ALARMS?
Do not insult us with the "I didn't know" excuse.
They all knew what their parents were doing.
14
@pamela Any student who did not hear alarm bells go off after being admitted into an elite school without taking an SAT him or herself, and seeing sports and activities they did not participate in on an application, should not even graduate high school, much less get into Yale.
8
We certainly hope that integrity and academic honesty are upheld. Clearly, universities cannot pretend to demand a code of conduct against plagiarism, honesty, and behavior if they allows students to remain as part of an unethical and illicit, even criminal and tax evading, admissions process.
What to do is clearly established in law, in cases where “innocent” family members of lawbreakers gain wealth or benefits. As in the case of children losing the wealth and privileges of drug lords, thieves, or tax evaders, all benefits should be forfeit.
Students that signed a false admissions packet, or who claimed to be athletes, or who had their SAT falsified, should be expelled and their credits annulled. Students truly innocent of any lies, if they exist, should reapply for admission. If they fail to make it they should transfer to an institution that accepts them.
51
I think it would be impossible to establish whether the students involved were aware of their parents misdeeds, and would be a serious waste of money and time for the universities. But they should be expelled - they gained admittance through fraud.
I don't know if any have actually graduated. I don't think it would be fair to rescind their diploma - they did actually take and pass the required courses for graduation. But it should be noted on their "permanent record". If any employer inquires about the validity of a degree, they would then see this.
18
@India except if they were admitted through fraud, maybe they passed their classes the same way...
17
@Rebecca
I wonder about that.
But maintaining academic standards, including preventing cheating, is up to professors. They are the ones who attest that the students completed and passed all the course requirements, and submitted their own work.
I know that as an adjunct at a little public college in a very affluent area, I was given little support to maintain standards. Plenty of tenured profs simply gave cheaters a do-over. We even had students cheating in ethics class.
1
@India
It is absolutely possible to establish whether the students lied. Just ask them.
1
The universities that were duped into accepting students with sham records should also consider returning any donations from the parents.
21
@Suzanne Moniz Hey! Let's not be unreasonable here!
2
@Suzanne Moniz - Why should money be returned? Let it go to scholarships.
Universities that have Admission Directors so incompetent to admit blatant fraudsters need a new director.
1
Is Olivia Jade still aboard the yacht of the chairman of USC's board of trustees? Oh sure, she didn't know what her parents did.
161
@Lynn in DC
Do you think the board member did not know.!!! I doubt it.
21
What i have seen so far of Olivia Jade on youtube- oh yeah she knew
26
@Lynn
The SS Caruso is NOT a good look for SC right now.
5
The students’ guilt or innocence is irrelevant. If anyone “got them in” using fraudent means, whether they (the students) knew about it or not, their (the students’) ability to benfit therefrom is undeserved—and should be denied.
If they (the students) were unaware of the scam implemented on their behalf, then they are—very sadly—the victims of their parents (or other benefactors’) deliberately fraudulent misrepresentations, and, particularly in light of the amount of largely undeserved privileges they enjoy simply by virtue of having been born into money, they willingly should reject their own fraudulent student status. That is, the students should want to do this, as a way of standing up for themselves as moral, or potentially moral, human beings. Their moral wholeness as human beings matters far more than their ability to take classes and make contacts, and whatever else they do, as students.
67
@David one of the best points I’ve read—the students should stand up and say “I don’t want to be a part of this cheating and fraud— I want to be better than that.”
Character Building, infinitely more beneficial than a piece of paper affirming you graduated
1
This has been going on for some years. Some of the students have graduated. What is going to happen to their degrees? I would think those will get to keep their degrees.
I also think that the caught parents are frantically filing amended tax returns, with the bogus charitable donations removed.
15
@Don Wiss
Students who are admitted to universities under fraudulent conditions often lose their degrees.
5
@Don Wiss
That would likely be construed an admission that the original returns were fraudulent.
1
@Hadassah L Foster
If the university neglects to state that the degree is contingent upon the truth and accuracy of any documents they submitted to the school, and are only a matter of completing the courses, then I'm not clear on how they could lose degrees they earned. Professors have the last word on whether credits are earned.
A person who gets a job with a fake diploma or a fake resume will be fired when discovered, I hope. But they usually get to keep the money they made in the meantime.
It seems like everyone is saying they should be expelled. But here’s a question—what if they are succeeding in school? First, it means their parents might have bribed for nothing and second, if they wouldn’t have been admitted normally, then the schools were wrong to deny them in the first place.
5
@David
All agree that even for the most competitive schools there are many many more applicants who would have no trouble academically, but are still denied admission. There are just aren't enough openings available.
8
@David: They took slots from kids who might have otherwise gotten those slots. I think they should be expelled. There are natural consequences when people lie or cheat.
28
@David it doesn't matter if they're succeeding or not. if they attained admittance through fraud, that means someone else who qualified the correct way was rejected. whomever got in through fraud should be expelled.
21
At another university affected by this scandal, the Yale President appropriately noted that an applicant's signature on his/her application signifies the applicant is swearing to the truth of its contents. So if any of the children of the cheating parents had an inkling -- and given the circumstances it's hard to believe they didn't (especially the non-athletes "recruited" for Division 1 teams) -- their signing off on applications containing fraudulent material is certainly a legal (and just) basis for expulsion.
247
I understand expelling them after an investigation. What basis is there to do so prior to one other than the college saving face?
#dueprocess
There is no way these students were unaware of what their parents were doing. They would know better than anyone how their own grades are etc. Further, the ones who went so far as to pose for fake sports photos definitely knew as well. As an Professor in higher education, I feel the students should be expelled and those that have graduated should have their degrees revoked.
44
What’s so great about USC anyway?
142
@Susan
Exactly. I honestly thought USC stood for the University of Santa Cruz. I grew up in California, and USC wasn't a destination school. Yale was.
14
@Susan At least it's not ASU - per one of the parents.
3
@Brooklyn
haha...UC Santa Cruz...looking pretty good these days.
2
Investigate each case and if any evidence the kid was complicit he should be expelled. It’s sad, but just because your family teaches you to lie, cheat, and steal and you do it, doesn’t mean you are innocent. Just ask a lot of thieves in jail whose families raised them that way.
Now if they find anyone who truly was unaware, as I could see happening in a case where the SAT score was changed after it was taken, they should look at their performance and if they are holding their own, I’d let them stay. You can’t undo the damage for the kids whose spots they took previously. Look at the Dreamers that everyone supports. Not their fault that their parents put them in that situation. The parents are at fault. It’s a messed up situation any way you look at it.
6
As if the university didn’t know...
5
Like they could care.
One of them was posting in Instagram that she just got to Fiji, on her first day of class.
They got in by the back door, and have no clue what they are doing there.
Let them fail on their own
35
I don't think it will matter to Olivia Jade. According to her statement, “I don’t know how much of school I’m gonna attend...I don’t really care about school..."
Perhaps USC will still let her attend all the parties and game days.
235
@Dr Ged
Haha...just give her an "honorary degree" in Parties and Game Days... she'd love it!
14
@ Dr Ged
That quote makes the USC admissions department look utterly stupid. If ANY applicant has the nerve to post that on social media and the school allows said applicant to attend, then they frankly deserve one another. Way to reinforce all the stereotypes of USC!
29
@Dr Ged I too was shocked by the tweet you quoted but then I thought of myself as a senior in high school (80s)... most of us were looking forward to the freedom of college and, yes, partying. It’s just sad that this naive chatter, which we used to do amongst ourselves, is now open for all to see. BTW, I still managed an engineering PhD, so party girls are redeemable.
6
I heard that the under-water basket weaving team is under scrutiny as well.
4
@Fred Rodgers
That was always my favorite team although it usually required advanced meditation skills to succeed. Bribes did not work for success at underwater basket weaving, drug use perhaps.
Seriously, how can we punish these people so no one will try this again, at least for a few years. Even the legacies.
2
How about a ban on legal scamming with a look-back period on donations? Anything given within 5 years of your kid's application dings your kid from admission.
16
Hard to believe that the students “knew nothing.” A bit like Sgt. Schultz?
It’s time for them to find out that there are consequences that even bulldozer parents can’t avoid.
55
I think it's appropriate not just to consider whether the student "knew," but whether the student should be deemed to know.
If the student did not personally complete the application and submit it, with the certification of truth and accuracy, then that's just as bad as knowledge.
Looking at the circumstances of the SAT test-taking, it's fair to say that any USC-bound applicant would have noticed the serious irregularities. If the student noticed those irregularities, that counts as knowledge too.
If the student was approached by the track or crew or soccer coach, or was cautioned that course selections conflicted with team practice and did not follow up, or fudged conversations with guidance counselors or school administrators, that counts as well.
Buying water polo gear on Amazon--yup.
If your parents rig an ATM to dispense $20s, you don't get to keep the stuff because you didn't "know." And these are not minors, these are adults. At some point they have to accept accountability.
95
Nothing new here. Does anyone remember the scandal involving Walmart heiress Paige Lurie (one of Sam’s granddaughters) who was a student at USC (now you have to question how she gained admission!) but had surrogates attend classes and write papers and exams on her behalf? Another example of shameless entitlement that knows no bounds. As they say “when the revolution comes...”
55
I mean, like, um, like, um, duh.
10
Expulsion and rejection aren’t to “punish” students. It’s to rectify the unfairness of having admitted them on the basis of a crime. The students aren’t entitled to be admitted in the first place.
It’s also irrelevant whether the student knew of the crimes committed by their parents and admissions or SAT officials. What’s relevant is that the student’s admission or application is based on a fraud.
785
"The students aren’t entitled to be admitted in the first place."
Bill — Yes, indeed. It's a lot like a president who isn't entitled to be elected in the first place.
65
@Bill We will never know if those students would have been admitted or not.
However, it is the students' best interest to withdraw and obtain admission to a school untainted by this scandal. At their current school, they will be the object of ridicule and exclusion.
26
@polymath
An autonomic reflex at work here. Like 6 degrees of separation, just about anything can be tied back to Trump if you work at it.
17
There is no way students could have been in the dark about this. The application is supposed to come from the student and they must take responsibility for any false information contained there.
All students involved in this cheating scandal should be expelled.
527
@Sbey
If you’re dumb as s door knob, cuddled and protected from reality by mommy dearest ‘cos you’re rich, and suddenly find yourself admitted to Yale … you might not even realize that there is something wrong. Just saying.
71
For some reason I think these rich kids will land on their feet.
27
@Ben
For some reason I think these rich kids will land on their money.
21
Regardless of how innocent some of these students might be, they gained entry, depending on which of the frauds their parents purchased, through deception and do not deserve to remain at this or any other school to which they were admitted. Let them take their credits to another school that will admit them. Indeed, if it is possible, those who received degrees should have their degrees revoked. They too can have their credits, which can be used at another school that might accept them. I know, it's harsh but they were admitted under false pretenses. The shame is that some of them probably could have made it on their own. But their parents couldn't bear the thought they wouldn't able to brag about their scions' elite schools.
82
How could students not know their parents were pulling strings. College-aged kids /adults know if their grades are up-to-par or substandard. And in the case of the Loughlin kids, they posed for crew pictures when they didn't do crew. Even if the kids didn't know, they should be expelled. It's not fair to kids who actually earned their places. Something about the sins of the father...
345
@Anne
the loughlin girls are actresses—so i guess we should give them a free pass, right?
“all that was once directly lived is now mere representation.”
— guy debord.
6
Kids of bribe-paying parents who were accepted should be ejected, period. Then if they want they can reapply just like any one else.
Yes, it's sad and unfortunate for the kids who didn't know the truth behind their admission. But that doesn't mitigate the fact they benefited from an illegal scheme. That *cannot* stand. The REAL victims here are the kids who would have been admitted but for the bribes paid.
I say revisit the rejected applicants that would have otherwise made it and send them that fat envelope -- with an apology. Pretty sure the admission office can figure out who those kids are.
116
You might have to go to Fiji to find some of these students, however.
43
How could the students NOT know, especially if someone else took their placement exams for them?
153
@elleng
In at least one case, a test was given at the student's home, to make the student think they were taking the test.
4
@Don Wiss
A student's home is typically the first answer when high school students are asked, "Where do they give SATs?"
11
@Don Wiss
Oh right. And I'm sure "innocent" student bragged about that at school.
1
After all, if the parents did got them in, grandfather the kids don't punish them. Don't put them under double secret probation. Rather, check their grades. Dummies don't get good grades.
I went to UVA's Planning Program at night, taking classes but not admitted. The dean would drop by classes, asking people not to apply for admission right before they submitted their application to graduate. They couldn't very well deny admission (and graduation) to someone who passed all their classes.
So let them stay until they graduate.
1
@MB, Many highly selective schools blame the instructors if a student receives a poor grade because their selection criteria is so high that the failing grades while at the university "must be the fault the of the instructor". I was told by an ex Ivy League professor that she was not allowed to give any students less than a C. So sometimes even dummies are allowed to pass at some universities. Not to mention that the last time I checked, Newsweek's college rankings punish schools with lower graduation rates, so schools have an incentive to graduate as many students as possible. For better or worse, public universities seem to be more willing to not pass poorly performing students.
10
@Joel Ferguson. This is certainly going to come as a surprise to many Ivy students who failed, or got a D in a class first semester! My grandson knows several who did at his Ivy. I don’t believe this for a minute.
2
If my parents robbed a bank to give me money and they get caught, should I be able to keep the money?
We can't know if these students knew what their parents did to get them admitted to these schools, but it doesn't really matter because nobody should benefit from a crime. At most their admittance should be revoked with the understanding that they can re-apply on their own merits like everyone else.
577
@Pat
Agree -- and in some ways it's worse than robbing a bank, where the money is insured. It's robbing an honest student of the place and education they're qualified to receive--but who lost it to a cheater.
10
@Pat Bribing an admissions officer is not a criminal offense.
@Ivan Light
Apparently the FBI and numerous prosecutors disagree with your legal analysis.
7
I am sorry that these kids' lives are upended but there is no way they were in the dark. How did they complete the Common App? They did not notice that it had sports and activities listed that they never did?? Or did someone else complete their applications (which is also prohibited)? As for those who had someone else take their standardized tests: they really thought it was nothing that they had to take their tests at a different location (or in one case, at home?!). Who takes the SAT at home??? What teenager believes that is normal? They should all be asked to apply again, including taking new standardized tests, assuming they are even motivated to do the work.
555
Mom of 3,
Children for whom the normal does not apply would have neither clue nor concern about what might be normal. How many million followers do you or your children have? Thought so. (Me and mine neither.)
21
@Mom of 3
My high-schooler knows that her grades (alas) aren't what Yale or USC are looking for, and would be verrrrry suspicious if I suddenly announced to her that she had gotten into one of those schools.
62
It’s entirely appropriate that all students who were given fraudulent preferential treatment have their admissions and credits be rescinded. I find it difficult to believe that these students were unknowing participants.
It will be the first appropriate lesson of what it means to be a responsible citizen and contributing adult.
And their parents should face felony jail time.
238
Can't help feeling sympathy for students whose parents bribed school officials, whether they knew of it or not. Evidently they were subsequently passing their courses and were involved in college life. However, you simply cannot allow them to stay, while others who should have been in the university are not.
I'm not sure how you remedy this--those bypassed students were borderline approval, and are likely now attending a lesser university, having moved on with their lives.
What we know is that he parents must see jail time---otherwise, there is no deterrent. If the worst that can befall you if you are caught is that your kids are asked to leave, which is where you were before the bribe, there is nothing to lose, nothing to deter you from trying bribery.
22
@Billy
Unless you consider losing your own self-respect.
Hard to accept that the students were not complicit in most cases. They cheated their way in. Expulsion is the only way to even begin to reestablish integrity.
113
@Penn Towers USC is the NYU of the West coast
GOOD!! And I hope their parents who paid for the bribes get the maximum of penalties. However, they are wealthy, so I am sure they will get the "Manfort" penalties.
14
Seems unfair to these poor kids who have lived hard lives to be thrown out of a top college when some of them have openly said they are not interstate in studying
What’s a privileged 1%er to do?
19
@Chicago Paul
hmmmm....Dancing with the Stars?
That will teach them the meaning of hard work!
2
Students who cheated by using the special allowances for disabled applicants and those that used the fake athlete route definitely knew they were cheating and should be expelled.
296
@Ron.. And those who were allowed to take the SAT in their homes?
Gee what's your first clue?
10
@JM I hated that test then, when I was in high school applying for college, and now, many moons later, I still hate it. Yuck!
2
The story will show that most of these students were willing participants in this chicanery. Given that actual kids can stand trial for murder, I don't think a tear should be spared for these children of wealth and privilege for going along with this. They are as guilty as their dumb parents and the price should be getting kicked out of the school. Furthermore, any student that got a degree based on fraud should have it rescinded. It should be a warning to any student who thinks that if they skate over graduation day they won. They should know they'll look over their shoulder their whole lives, a tell-tale heart beating under the floorboards.
183
The fair thing to do is to first investigate whether the student knew of the unfair behavior. If the student knew, that is grounds for automatic expulsion. If the student did not know, however, then the student should not be automatically expelled. Rather, a new admissions determination should be made, based on how the student would have been judged had the admissions process been conducted fairly.
30
@Michael
I agree with your comment but it would have been wiser if the College had more properly vetted its candidates. I should think that the athletic prowess claimed by the students and /or parents would have been relatively easy to verify.
13
@Michael To a new admission algorithm, I would add grades earned at the university and personal and academic evaluations/recommendations by university staff.
3
@Michael
And you expect these people who are steeped in privilege and deception to tell the truth?
29
Require the students involved to reapply to the school, on their own merits.
Refuse permanently to accept any donations from the parents.
252
@Daniel P. Doyle Ban them from the Schools and Expel them if already in..
9
@Daniel P. Doyle
The whole American, “donation,” thing is just a euphemism for a bribe. The same thing goes on in politics where people can, “donate," to a campaign, for a favor to be paid back later.
The schools don’t want to kick out the students because they just want the whole thing to go away, so they can get back to the status quo, and keep the gravy train rolling. This is not about ethics, it’s about money. The scandal has ripped off the cloak of respectibility these schools wore as sanctimonious plumage. Credentalism, is commodity.
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