college entry exam cheating...

[jlb321_rivals110621]

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.

70% of Harvard admits come from top 20% income households
40% come from top 5% income households
15% come from top 1% income households

this it typical of most elite universities

for those that say that it just comes down to hard work - do financially advantaged kids work harder than middle class kids??

i don't necessarily even think the well off kids are less qualified applicants ... I think wealth gives kids many more opportunities and aids in order to meet the admission standards and then once in the pool of qualified applicants the ties typically go to the more financially advantaged.

Another thing to consider is that wealthy families have the option of turning down full scholarships at lesser known schools in order to pay near full tuition at a more prestigious school. I'm sure there are many that get accepted to an Ivy league school but because of financial pressures end up taking better scholarships elsewhere.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/harvard-university