Quote:
Originally Posted by jmakin
I didn’t even see this part -
https://news.yahoo.com/celebs-charge...180302288.html
Lelling said the operation, allegedly run out of a Newport Beach, Calif., college-admissions coaching company, had several parts, including coaching applicants to cheat on SAT and ACT admissions tests and bribing athletic coaches to identify applicants as potential recruits who could be admitted under athletic waivers requiring lower academic standards.
Was definitely corona del mar.
This scandal is all kinds of amazing. What makes it extra amazing is there are less detectable (and WAY less illegal) ways to achieve the same results.
Things I've seen:
1. Finance your kids' "business". This is super popular for MBA applicants from rich families and picking up with second gen kids in Silicon Valley.
2. Get a de facto consultant for your kid's entries into science fairs.
3. Boarding schools with inflated/flatten curves. (A lot of these schools ration recommendation letters to basically internally sort the students to basically make sure even the worst students would look fine because the best students wouldn't be applying to Duke)
4. Boarding schools in non-English speaking countries with not easily translatable grades. Super high TOEFL scores (well, in a lot of cases, these kids are first language English speakers..., this also has the effect of effectively lowering requirements on SATs)
5. Pay galleries/artist magazines to exhibit/write about kids' amazing artistic powers.
6. Fly kids to basically unattended piano/music instrument of choice competition overseas and call them "Runner Up of International Chopin Festival of Some BS competition in Poland" with 2 competitors.
7. Sending kids to parents' home country for high school so they can use the lower admission requirements for international students and score super high TOEFL to look smart.
8. Trading recommendation letters (well-known alum from Yale writing recommendation letter for a friend's kid in return for a friend's recommendation letter for his own kid's application to Harvard for example)
I could go on. I have been around college/MBA/law school admission circles for a very very long time and I've seen a lot of shady ****. Other than SAT for truly hopeless kids (with some tutoring and just a few months of studying, even kids with only average IQ can get to 1350+ range), you could legally buy your way into perfectly fine college application while basically sending your kids on a tour of the world.
Last edited by grizy; 03-12-2019 at 10:30 PM.