Nice move Ace. Not taking the bait
college entry exam cheating...
- Thread starter kikdakan
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I don't know why this is being brought to light now, hell its been going on for decades. If you have a name or your a celebrity just make a large donation to your favorite university and you'll get in and you'll probably get a degree without taking to many tests
Exactly right, elite colleges have always been old boys networks and will continue to be for as long as they're around.
IF you're an alum that might work to some degree. Otherwise it doesn't. IF you're President or a former President that works too. IF you're black or Hispanic, you've got a decided edge and you'll likely go for free to the Ivys. The Ivys are all about social engineering and they bend over backwards to attract and admit first generation immigrants, Native Americans and blacks. It's why Pocahantus listed her race as Native American.
For everyone who is saying the privelage has it's advantages and has been going on for a long time and all the time, please provide some examples. Not saying it doesn't, but not sure it is as wide spread as some make it out.
Do you mean as in, getting into an ivy league school or do you mean the privileges that come from graduating from one?
With grade inflation today, if they turned in work at all they probably all graduated.
What about celebrity's? If I was a gambling man I'd bet after this all cools off, no press coverage it will all get washed under the rug, not will happen. Btw why aren't the kids in trouble? The have forged entrance exams, don't they?
i won't get into race or gender .. but if you come from upper middle class to upper class of wealth -- not the super rich but just well off
-better high schools .. can afford private or can afford to live in districts with better schools .. classmates/peers are education focused
-these areas/school districts value education more .. offer special test prep in school (ACT/SAT)
-likely more engagement of families in education .. one parent may be stay at home with an increased focus on kids education/college prep
-availability of AP classes
-can afford ACT/SAT test prep courses
-can afford to take the test multiple times
-can afford local college classes in high school
-can afford outside opportunities/lessons in extracurricular activities ..music, camps, etc that boost applications
-can afford to take multiple college visits to find best college fit for kids
-number of college possibilities are larger as cost is less of a pressure
Explain how any of those things are privilege. Do you know what the definition of privilege is? Everything on your list anybody no matter race, or financial status can obtain in some form or another.
Well, you miss the boat with this one. I was in education and definitely lower middle class. Wife stayed at home until both kids were in HS and MS, by choice. OurOsmall town didn't have school options and classes were somewhat limited but there were certainly enough. Everything else you listed was available. Both had very good ACT's, son had full ride to K-State in engineering. Daughter wanted private Christian, received all sorts of scholarships. She was also the valedictorian. Both kids did music, multiple sports (not great athletes but hard working competitors), 4-H (personal favorite), lots of public service, and more.
Having worked with kids for 36 years to help them get into college, hard work goes a long ways. There are resources out there. I grew up in a very poor, single parent home and was determined my kids would have better opportunity. It was more about attitude than money.
in HS, I used to think I was a middle class kid (maybe lower middle class or mid middle, not upper) but after reading this, I must have been in serfdom.
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If you think those things are options for kids growing up in poverty then I don’t know what to say .. few if any of those things listed are options for families that live in poverty ... let alone the option of sending your kids to private schools that charge college tuitions starting in middle school being taught by teachers making 80k+
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Kudos ... now say one of your kids was passionate about playing the violin ... would sending them to an elite music academy starting at age 8, summers at Juliard getting instruction, private lessons from elite instructors be an option ... plenty of wealthy parents have that option. A middle class kid in grand island may have started with as much talent but their road to an elite college music conservatory is going to be much more difficult than the example above.
Many wealthy kids work extremely hard just like middle class and lower class kids do. They just have the opportunity to work hard at private prep schools that charge college tuition starting in middle school with teachers making 80k+, going to summer engineering camps at places like MIT or Berkeley. Those kids have been better prepared to attend and gain acceptance to engineering schools like MIT, Cal institute of tech, Carnigie Mellon etc by the opportunities their family wealth has given them. I don’t begrudge their parents providing these opportunities but many parents don’t have that option.
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Not so sure how many Juilliard kids end up at a top music conservatory but I am confident a kid from Grand Island with elite talent is going to be recognized and will have a path to a top school.
Beyond that silly example and loving my kid I would point the kid to STEM and a real profession.
Well since it basically just comes down to hard work it would be interesting to see the percent of kids with ACT scores above 30, division 1 athletic scholarships, admittance into elite schools, etc at two public schools .. say Palo Alto high and Scottsbluff public .. I suspect the differences would be quite striking. I guess those Palo Alto kids must just work harder
And yes by all means if your kid is passionate about music, performance, or other nonSTEM related activity if you love them even just a little bit you will squash their passion at an early age and set them on the correct path of your choosing
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The Ivy's in particular are vastly over compensating for "white privilege" with their admissions policy. A friend's son is going to Harvard free because he's a "first generation immigrant". It's comical because his parents are fairly affluent, both college profs AND they still have a house in South America that they routinely spend summers at. IF you are a white male and want to go to a prestigious school, you better be head and shoulders better than the other applicants or you aren't geting in.
Perhaps some day you will be a parent and I hope you're not one of those types who think a seven year old girl has discovered her life passion.
I was lucky and my daughter was good at flute, swimming, soccer and was a terrific student.
She is an Engineer and makes decent pay. She is in her mid 30's and plays soccer in a mixed league and plays piccolo with a great group of folks who enjoy performing outside their work environment.
Relative to Palo Alto and Scottsbluff I suspect their interests for their future aren't aligned but I would suspect the kids from Scottsbluff are more happy in the future than those from Palo Alto.
Lets not also mentiin here that with google at oids fingertips and every kid having a cell phone or tablet, or a laptop kids (if they work hard regardless of finaical status) can get pretty damb good grades and find these resources u speak of for grants, scholarships etc.
U can go to a lower ranked HS, but if u want to LEARN all the respurces at at ur dispidal to do so where u can write term papers, get tutoring all om this wonderful thing called the internet.
If u dont get good grades these days u either have a learning disability or u are flat out LAZY...no matter what ur bank account says...
True. MOST of them, IF you truly have a financial hardship, there are so called scholarship or donations to help kids attend camps etc. A lot of kids WILL do fundraising and work for it. Now I know this doesn't cover a lot of what you are describing, but there's ways that just don't become a handout that I feel the kids do appreciate and value more than a free pass. They'll be better off for it later even if they don't realize it at the time
Totally agree. Even being head and shoulders above all other applicants is no guaranty. Unfortunately, academics has been dropped way down the list in regard to admissions.
Are you referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren? Who did not attend an Ivy League university ever?
She worked at Penn and Harvard and that was what I was referring to. I realized after I had posted that statement that I didn't make it clear but was too lazy to edit the post. The Ivys most definitely discriminate against white males first then white females secondly. She probably wouldn't have been hired as a prof without her "Native American" heritage.
She worked at Penn and Harvard and that was what I was referring to. I realized after I had posted that statement that I didn't make it clear but was too lazy to edit the post. The Ivys most definitely discriminate against white males first then white females secondly. She probably wouldn't have been hired as a prof without her "Native American" heritage.
That is purely speculative B.S. and, like most of the idiotic things posted on this board, just a garbage right wing talking point that has little to no basis in the facts. I can tell you that you do not get a great job teaching at University of Pennsylvania's law school after working for years at Rutgers, the University of Houston and University of Texas law schools without being a great teacher and scholar.
Straight from Wikipedia:
"Warren started her academic career as a lecturer at Rutgers University, Newark School of Law (1977–78). She moved to the University of Houston Law Center (1978–83), where she became Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in 1980, and obtained tenure in 1981. She taught at the University of Texas School of Law as visiting associate professor in 1981, and returned as a full professor two years later (staying 1983–87). In addition, she was a visiting professor at the University of Michigan (1985) and research associate at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin (1983–87). During this period, Warren taught Sunday school. Early in her career, Warren became a proponent of on-the-ground research based on studying how people actually respond to laws in the real world. Her work analyzing court records, and interviewing judges, lawyers, and debtors, established her as a rising star in the field of bankruptcy law. One of her key insights, according to Warren and economists who follow her work, was that rising bankruptcy rates were not caused by proliferate consumer spending, but by the attempts of middle-class families to buy homes in good school districts.
Warren joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School as a full professor in 1987 and obtained an endowed chair in 1990 (becoming William A Schnader Professor of Commercial Law). She taught for a year at Harvard Law School in 1992 as Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. In 1995, Warren left Penn to become Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. As of 2011, she was the only tenured law professor at Harvard who had attended law school at an American public university. Warren was a highly influential law professor. Although she published in many fields, her expertise was in bankruptcy and commercial law. In that field, only Bob Scott of Columbia and Alan Schwartz of Yale were cited more often than Warren."
^^ You don't have a career like that if, as you are suggesting, you're getting hired places primarily because you are claiming some sort of protected minority status. ^^
Also, the reason why all private institutions have affirmative action policies are deeply entrenched in our society. "Discriminate against white males" is already a loaded, craptastic way of putting it.
Sounds like the "Steroids don't make you a better baseball player" argument, which always leads me to wonder, why do so many players do it then?
Why'd she do it?
Why did she claim native american ancestry? That's entirely her business.
"Warren has said that as a child she was told by older family members that she had Native American ancestry, and that "being Native American has been part of my story, I guess, since the day I was born". Warren was criticized in 2012 for having listed herself as a minority in a directory for Harvard Law School. Opponents said Warren falsified her heritage to advance her career through minority quotas. Warren denied these allegations, and several colleagues and employers (including Harvard) have said her reported ethnic status played no role in her hiring. An investigation by The Boston Globe in 2018 found "clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools". PolitiFact noted: "Before this controversy arose in 2012, there is no account that Warren spoke publicly of having Native American roots, although she called herself Cherokee in a local Oklahoma cookbook in 1984."
why is this surprising?? It costs a lot of money to keep these institutions up and running. Elite institutions will flat out tell you on visits that ability to pay does play a role. For every x number of students they provide significant financial assistance to they need to counter balance with x number of students that can afford to pay full tuition. Aside from the outlandish half million dollar brides - you have to be fairly well off to be able to afford an ivy league education. Which goes back to my point that kids that grow up in wealth have a distinct advantage over those that do not. This is why a kid who wants to be an engineer in the top 25% of their class at Palo Alto public high stands a much better chance of getting into MIT than the same circumstances at Scottsbluff. Aside from the likely wealth discrepancy the Palo Alto kid is going to have access to Stanford resources out their back door, numerous alumni that currently go to MIT, Stanford professors with MIT connections, etc, etc, etc. Circumstances matter.
On balance you aren't going to overcome these obstacles with hard work and bridging any gaps with the internet as some have suggested
sorry .. got a lot of push back above when I suggested growing up in a wealthy household gave kids a significant advantage when it comes to getting into these elite institutions
and then someone proved me wrong by referencing someone who overcame the odds and got a scholarship at Kansas State
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Probably referring to my son. I guessed failed to say that KSU is the one he accepted. He was recruited by USC, Brown, Colorado School of Mines, Rose Hulman and more that I don't even remember. I am also going to go out on a limb and say that several people on here can say the same thing. I know Tuco's kids have had numerous opportunities. Just saying.....but whatever turns you on, no skin off my teeth.
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In some ways I agree with them. At one U with one of my kids at a college visit, they said they weren't putting as much focus on grades and ACT scores as much as they were on the total package. IE grades, church, extra curricular activities, clubs, leadership, scouting, 4H etc and community service.
Thier thoughts were that some kids are super book smart but have ZERO social skills. They want the well-rounded student.
In short, they are more apt to get good job and give back to the university as opposed to living in mom and dad basement.
And that was 10 years ago.
I would say my kids fell somewhere in the middle. They had plenty of opportunities, but only because we had the ability to get them to camps, unofficial visits, and they played on top select teams that provided them the exposure needed to get their offers.
In all reality, 1 of my 3, probably took a spot from a more deserving person on an academic level. She was top 20% in a class of 600, decent but not great test scores and was accepted to a school she probably wouldn't have been accepted to without the ability to shoot a basketball and rebound. The other two would have been accepted to the schools with or without the athletic special treatment.
It's only a scandal now because the parents were bribing testing officials and university employees, rather than making a generous donation to the school itself. People got the money, not the school. Schools are like...whaaaa...that's our bribery money!!!
If a rich dude buys the university a new research lab so his dumbass son can get in, I'm fine with that. The other students benefit. If some rich dude pays somebody else to fake test scores, and then bribes a tennis coach to pretend the dumbass son is an athlete, that's another thing. The other students do not benefit.
Rich people are always going to game the system, but the question is whether the regular people who got in on merit are impacted or not.
I guess that's a good way to look at the donation situation. A lot of students benefit. As far as the gaming the system, ironic you say that. Where would these institutions be without the benefactors?