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US College Bribery Scandal

245

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  • Registered Users Posts: 84,319 ✭✭✭✭JP Liz V1


    Autecher wrote: »
    Her hubbie is worth a cool $80,000,000. He is a fashion designer for Target.

    $500k is peanuts to them then


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,812 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    Sugar Free wrote: »
    There are degrees of wealth and these people, while wealthy by most people's standards, aren't necessarily wealthy enough to donate an amount of money equivalent to a new library, i.e. millions. Or perhaps their estimated net worth while very high, is in no way liquid. Going by an above poster, the average amount paid was 400-600k.

    So they were either too stingy to do it the more legitimate, donations way (unlikely) or they simply didn't have the cash required (more likely) and went for a more affordable, albeit illegal, option.

    Yeah it's important to keep in mind just how much money is swishing around these institutions. Notre Dame has an endowment of 13 BILLION. They can afford to be picky about accepting donations. The Irish studies institute there, funded mainly by the Keough and Naughton families, each year held something called the Ireland council, where the institute would lay out for its donors what its plans were for the year to spend the money, advance research, set the agenda for Irish studies etc. This was a meeting that the Taoiseach of the day would send a personalised video. When I was there they were able to announce the purchase of Kylemore Abbey for the institute. To get in the door of the council, I'm told, you had to be donating 7 figures. A 900,000 donation was welcome, but it's not considered big money.

    And that's just one institute at ND, and not by any means one of the bigger ones. It's hard to imagine how much money 13 billion is for a university, because it's so obscene, and dwarfs anything in Ireland.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,105 ✭✭✭Kivaro


    One of these days, the higher-ed bubble in the States is going to bust.


  • Registered Users Posts: 84,319 ✭✭✭✭JP Liz V1


    Legally Blonde a true story based :p


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    mariaalice wrote: »
    The whole thing sound nuts is college ranking the be all and end all in the US?

    For some people. For the past few years I've worked at two fairly prestigious financial firms and both would only consider graduates of certain schools for hire. It's not like that everywhere, but having certain schools on your resume will definitely get you more attention.

    But for others, like the rich people in this scandal, it's more about status than anything else. Because what those very top schools get you is a network and connections. These kids already had connections and networks through their parents. So it was mostly about being able to brag that your kid got into whatever school with the neighbors.


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  • Ficheall wrote: »
    People like to slag off dumb Americans, but lecturers in unis here are regularly instructed to engage in veritable marking gymnastics to pass students who deserve to fail. Not due to a call from rich daddy, but just standard procedure because it looks better for the uni to pass people.

    15 years lecturing and I've never seen that


  • Registered Users Posts: 16,500 ✭✭✭✭DEFTLEFTHAND


    this is a country where it is legal for congressmen to ask for money from lobby groups to vote a certain way on legislation.

    At the top level this is the major reason why DT is despised by Washington.

    He can't be controlled.

    Cannot be bought.


  • Registered Users Posts: 40,059 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    At the top level this is the major reason why DT is despised by Washington.

    He can't be controlled.

    Cannot be bought.


    ROFLMAO


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,474 ✭✭✭Obvious Desperate Breakfasts


    Lori Loughlin spent $500k to get her kids into USC - aside from whatever the actual tuition/boarding costs. If you're going to drop half a million, at least aim a little higher. Stanford, UC Berkeley, Yale?

    But honestly, there are already perfectly legal ways for rich people to game the system. What's wrong getting your mediocre kid in the old fashioned way by making a donation/funding a new library? But they've got to go crime it up and pay someone to pretend their kid might make the crew team. Which is barely even a D1 sport. And now, everyone knows their kids are stupid/lazy/their degrees are worthless, so they've spent all that money when the kid could have just quietly gone to a community/state school and no one would have been the wiser.

    I guess maybe the Ivy League colleges do actually want to attract the best of the best. They’ll want to keep churning out high quality graduates to keep their esteemed names. I think the Ivies offer quite generous financial aid to lower income bright kids that they want on their books, don’t they?

    I read a really interesting article about the yearly fight to gain admission to Harvard Law School recently. Every year they have to deal with the rich parents of rejectees, outraged that the fruit of their loins was not admitted. Makes me feel proud of my father’s first cousin, a first generation American of working class Irish emigrant parents, for getting in there in the 1970s.

    Whereas a university with a less prestigious reputation might be happy to take on some mediocre students in exchange for a cash injection.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,256 ✭✭✭metaoblivia


    I guess maybe the Ivy League colleges do actually want to attract the best of the best. They’ll want to keep churning out high quality graduates to keep their esteemed names. I think the Ivies offer quite generous financial aid to lower income bright kids that they want on their books, don’t they?

    I read a really interesting article about the yearly fight to gain admission to Harvard Law School recently. Every year they have to deal with the rich parents of rejectees, outraged that the fruit of their loins was not admitted. Makes me feel proud of my father’s first cousin, a first generation American of working class Irish emigrant parents, for getting in there in the 1970s.

    Whereas a university with a less prestigious reputation might be happy to take on some mediocre students in exchange for a cash injection.

    Stanford and Yale were both institutions named in the scandal and have just been named in a lawsuit related to it. Harvard, so far, doesn't appear to have a connection to this mess.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 382 ✭✭Giveaway


    AlanG wrote: »
    Top universities in Ireland are so reliant on foreign fee paying students that they will do almost anything to pass them and will find a technicality if one is caught cheating. There is no point in spending millions marketing a college in the middle and far east only to get a reputation for being strict. A person spending tens of thousands to come and study in Europe is not going to risk failing in Trinity if they can go elsewhere in Europe and have an easier time. This practice is rampant as 3rd level is big business. Approximately 50% of TCDs income is from the private sector.

    RCSI is renowned for their strict fair marking of international students. And have set up feeder unis in such bastions of human and respect as Bahrain to teach more admittedly very rich students


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,812 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    At the top level this is the major reason why DT is despised by Washington.

    He can't be controlled.

    Cannot be bought.

    In the context of how Trump's education secretary Betsy DeVos is systematically gutting every aspect of the education system that might help people from disadvantaged backgrounds to level the playing field that is so generously tilted in the favour of the wealthy, this post, on this thread, is hilariously wrong.

    Not to mention that Trump himself, who seems to have been a very mediocre student at best (he has fought tooth and nail to prevent any of his test scores at school and college level from being released, so we can't verify that), got into Wharton because an admissions officer there had gone to high school with his older brother. In other words, Trump's career embodies the kind of culture of rich people working their networks that constitutes the problem here. He is certainly not in the business of solving it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Rich people using their wealth to elevate their mediocre kids above brighter, poorer students isn't something new. People send their kids to private schools at great expense don't they?


  • Registered Users Posts: 40,059 ✭✭✭✭ohnonotgmail


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Rich people using their wealth to elevate their mediocre kids above brighter, poorer students isn't something new. People send their kids to private schools at great expense don't they?

    a bit of a leap from there to bribing college officials and getting others to do your childrens exams for them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 8,474 ✭✭✭Obvious Desperate Breakfasts


    Stanford and Yale were both institutions named in the scandal and have just been named in a lawsuit related to it. Harvard, so far, doesn't appear to have a connection to this mess.

    I’ll try and find the article on Harvard Law School admissions. It’s a really interesting read.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,018 ✭✭✭Ficheall


    15 years lecturing and I've never seen that
    Must not happen so!


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    a bit of a leap from there to bribing college officials and getting others to do your childrens exams for them.

    Yes indeed it is but it's still paying money to make your child look smarter than he/she is in relation to poorer students.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,983 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    a bit of a leap from there to bribing college officials and getting others to do your childrens exams for them.

    Yes indeed it is but it's still paying money to make your child look smarter than he/she is in relation to poorer students.
    Or paying money so your child GETS smarter in relation to poorer students.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,373 ✭✭✭tonycascarino


    15 years lecturing and I've never seen that

    People are in denial if they think this sort of thing doesn't go on here.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Or paying money so your child GETS smarter in relation to poorer students.

    Well people often said anecdotally that the richer students in these schools did better because they were the offspring of the rich. Unfortunately this was part of the prejudice that was peddled so people would avoid the painful truth.

    Only recently have any proper studies been performed on the topic of a state/private school divide. Now we have them in hand the results are clear that students from state schools do better when they get to university. In other words private school students receive marks that may be far in advance of their actual ability. In other words their achievement is partially bought.
    Researchers Carmen Vidal Rodeiro and Nadir Zanini were investigating how effective the A* grade at A-level is as a predictor of university performance, and found a divide between the performance of state and independent school students at university.

    Rodeiro said: “In both Russell and non-Russell group universities, students from independent schools were less likely to achieve either a first class degree or at least an upper second class degree than students from comprehensive schools with similar prior attainment.”


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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Also another anecdotally heard but only now confirmed point is that doctors from state schools far out pass private school doctors in terms of academic ability. More using wealth to distort academic ability.
    Medical students are nearly twice as likely to graduate top of their class if they were educated in the state sector rather than at fee-paying schools, according to research by the University of Aberdeen. It comes despite the fact students from private institutions score slightly higher in the entry tests.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 172 ✭✭devlinio


    I see no issue with people using their money to get their kids into college.

    It's the same as if their friend hired their kid in exchange for a favor. Someone else is missing out, yes! But **** happens.




  • Ficheall wrote: »
    Must not happen so!

    Didn’t say that. Just giving my experience.

    Did you give in to the pressure or stand your ground?


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,812 ✭✭✭✭Realt Dearg Sec


    devlinio wrote: »
    Someone else is missing out, yes! But **** happens.

    Someone better is missing out, yes. Then that better person misses out on the opportunity to be the best person they can be and make the most effective possible contribution they can to society, to make way for a thick actress's thick progeny to flounce around in a college where they're out of their depth. Society loses out.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,983 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Also another anecdotally heard but only now confirmed point is that doctors from state schools far out pass private school doctors in terms of academic ability. More using wealth to distort academic ability.
    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Well people often said anecdotally that the richer students in these schools did better because they were the offspring of the rich. Unfortunately this was part of the prejudice that was peddled so people would avoid the painful truth.

    Only recently have any proper studies been performed on the topic of a state/private school divide. Now we have them in hand the results are clear that students from state schools do better when they get to university. In other words private school students receive marks that may be far in advance of their actual ability. In other words their achievement is partially bought.


    Both UK studies, so I'm not sure the results would transfer, given that we have a fairly different Leaving Cert system. Is it down to academic ability, or motivation, or resilience?


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Ireland is much more a meritocracy than the UK or USA. I don't think the results are applicable. The UK is very much a two tier system with the richer, less deserving coming out on top.


  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Lori Loughlin's daughter was one of the beneficiaries of the brides to ensure a college place. Here's her in an earlier video stating she doesn't really care about school. Remember she would have got this place of poorer kids who would kill to get a place in college.

    https://edition.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2019/03/13/lori-loughlin-olivia-jade-university-southern-california-admission-scam-mxp-vpx.hln/video/playlists/top-news-videos/


  • Registered Users Posts: 24,135 ✭✭✭✭Sleepy


    I was mainly shocked that it was illegal tbh. I thought paying over-the-odds to get your offspring into ivy league colleges was standard practice. How else could you explain George W Bush having an undergraduate from Yale and an MBA from Harvard?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,452 ✭✭✭Twenty Grand


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    Lori Loughlin's daughter was one of the beneficiaries of the brides to ensure a college place. Here's her in an earlier video stating she doesn't really care about school. Remember she would have got this place of poorer kids who would kill to get a place in college.

    https://edition.cnn.com/videos/entertainment/2019/03/13/lori-loughlin-olivia-jade-university-southern-california-admission-scam-mxp-vpx.hln/video/playlists/top-news-videos/

    Her views are probably representative of many college students, who got there by merit or other means.

    In fairness if your parents were mega millionaires, it's not critical that you receive a high level education. She could probably blog or be an insta hun for the rest of her life.

    I'm actually shocked Lori Loughlin lost her job over this.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 172 ✭✭devlinio


    This is being blown way out of proportion. The reaction is OTT.


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