Massive cheating scheme for elite college admissions, via ACT testing and fake athletic recruiting

The thing that blows my mind are the coaches that accepted bribes at places like Yale Stanford USC and UCLA to gain admission. Putting them on the roster to get them in exchange for a bribe.

The sheer MAGNITUDE of who and how many it takes to pull this off is nuts. And since 2011!
USC has been caught for this stuff before, especially with athletes. Bribery, buying athlete's parents a house and car, fixing state test score in the local database, etc... I am not surprised at all.
Reggie Bush-2005 Heisman winner was from USC although I remember the illegal acts were between Reggie, his family, and sport’s agents. I’ll look it up some time when it isn’t 2 in the morning.
 
Reggie Bush-2005 Heisman winner was from USC although I remember the illegal acts were between Reggie, his family, and sport’s agents. I’ll look it up some time when it isn’t 2 in the morning.
USC had a hand in it all. They lost 10 scholarships per year for 3 years, games overturned, and barred from 2 bowl seasons.

There are also local recruiting issues, feeder schools with inappropriate private school scholarships... it's messy.
 
Reggie Bush-2005 Heisman winner was from USC although I remember the illegal acts were between Reggie, his family, and sport’s agents. I’ll look it up some time when it isn’t 2 in the morning.
USC had a hand in it all. They lost 10 scholarships per year for 3 years, games overturned, and barred from 2 bowl seasons.

There are also local recruiting issues, feeder schools with inappropriate private school scholarships... it's messy.
wowza, I had forgotten that.
 
If those kids aren't failing out first semester the school needs to be looked at. JMHO

If they didn’t meet admissions standards to get in, they need to not even be there. What happens now to these kids presently enrolled [emoji848]
 
Don’t mean to be disrespectful, but this is a sexist statement.

Agree. The only reason their photos are plastered everywhere is because they are the most famous visually. William H. Macy is also involved. An actor. All the others I heard named were male CEO’s, executives. And I would beg to differ that they are indeed VERY ‘smart’ people. Perhaps too ‘smart’ for their own good.

I think rich, entitled elitists is a better description....
 
I always assumed that Millionaires and Billionaires were giving colleges money for buildings and other big expenditures and this allowed their kids to get into college. I mean how would it look if a college with a building named after Du Pont or Rockefeller didnt allow the kids of these donors to attend the college.

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well. If you are going to spend $500k on cheating your way into college you might as well give it to the chem department of the school in exchange for your kid getting in to the school. I am sure that happens all the time with major donations. At least that $500k will help a heck of a lot of students that earned their way in.
 
I always assumed that Millionaires and Billionaires were giving colleges money for buildings and other big expenditures and this allowed their kids to get into college. I mean how would it look if a college with a building named after Du Pont or Rockefeller didnt allow the kids of these donors to attend the college.

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well. If you are going to spend $500k on cheating your way into college you might as well give it to the chem department of the school in exchange for your kid getting in to the school. I am sure that happens all the time with major donations. At least that $500k will help a heck of a lot of students that earned their way in.
I wonder if the parents go through this scheme wanting to be able to brag that sweet Olivia "got into" Stanford rather than, "yeah, it took a million dollar donation to the College of Arts and Wonderfulness, but Olivia got in."

It may be that pride in the accomplishment of getting in, fraudulent as it may be, outweighs the humility of having to buy the kids way in.

I'm not in that position so am just throwing stuff out there as to their reasoning.
 
If they didn’t meet admissions standards to get in, they need to not even be there. What happens now to these kids presently enrolled
emoji848.png
In my mind it depends on whether the kids knew or not. If someone is simply correcting their test scores then it's not clear to me they knew. If they did know they should be charged for fraud as well, not just thrown out of college.

Agree. The only reason their photos are plastered everywhere is because they are the most famous visually. William H. Macy is also involved. An actor. All the others I heard named were male CEO’s, executives. And I would beg to differ that they are indeed VERY ‘smart’ people. Perhaps too ‘smart’ for their own good.
Macy wasn't charged so I don't think we can conclude he was involved. I suppose we can suspect.

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well. If you are going to spend $500k on cheating your way into college you might as well give it to the chem department of the school in exchange for your kid getting in to the school. I am sure that happens all the time with major donations. At least that $500k will help a heck of a lot of students that earned their way in.
It's sort of like income groups applying for college. It you are rich you don't need financial aid. If poor enough, you get plenty of financial aid. The group in the middle has a tough time. Same thing here. If you're rich enough to construct a building for the campus, or endow some chair or something, then you can do that to accomplish the goal of getting your kid in. If you only make millions of dollars that's not possible, so folks resort to this.
 
As I joked with DS, mom and dad are guilty of this as it relates to his admission to USAFA. We paid bribes - I mean TAXES - for years! :jump1:

Seriously though, as others have mentioned, why didn't these people just work through a school's advancement office. Hate to say it but money talks (i.e. big donations = favors with the administration).
 
If they didn’t meet admissions standards to get in, they need to not even be there. What happens now to these kids presently enrolled
emoji848.png
In my mind it depends on whether the kids knew or not. If someone is simply correcting their test scores then it's not clear to me they knew. If they did know they should be charged for fraud as well, not just thrown out of college.

Agree. The only reason their photos are plastered everywhere is because they are the most famous visually. William H. Macy is also involved. An actor. All the others I heard named were male CEO’s, executives. And I would beg to differ that they are indeed VERY ‘smart’ people. Perhaps too ‘smart’ for their own good.
Macy wasn't charged so I don't think we can conclude he was involved. I suppose we can suspect.

That's the first thing that crossed my mind as well. If you are going to spend $500k on cheating your way into college you might as well give it to the chem department of the school in exchange for your kid getting in to the school. I am sure that happens all the time with major donations. At least that $500k will help a heck of a lot of students that earned their way in.
It's sort of like income groups applying for college. It you are rich you don't need financial aid. If poor enough, you get plenty of financial aid. The group in the middle has a tough time. Same thing here. If you're rich enough to construct a building for the campus, or endow some chair or something, then you can do that to accomplish the goal of getting your kid in. If you only make millions of dollars that's not possible, so folks resort to this.
Marcy wasnt charged because he probably wasnt involved in handling the bribes and coordinating what needed to be done. I would be surprised if he didnt know about it
 
Marcy wasnt charged because he probably wasnt involved in handling the bribes and coordinating what needed to be done. I would be surprised if he didnt know about it
That's my assumption as well, but it's still an assumption and not conclusive. It is possible that his wife did this without his knowledge. We'll probably never know unless she rats him out or something.
 
It must be me but I am not as upset or traumatized about this cheating scandal. The media has been covering this all morning and many people including many people here are very upset about it. I have always assumed that there has always been money being exchanged to allow some people in. As i posted before, there are plenty of rich people who have donated money to the colleges which paved the way for their kids to get in. There is a reason many Elite colleges have buildings named after famous rich people. If you think about it one way, this scandal is about those who are wealthy but not necessarily super wealthy (although there are some involved) being allowed to play the same game. In other words, they dont have the money to donate 10 million dollars to Harvard but they could afford 15,000 to 500,000. This amount of money wouldnt get them an interview with the Dean of Harvard but it does give them access to coaches and SAT proctors. Dont get me wrong, I dont condone it nor approve it, just not surprised by it. What does surprise me is that coaches who get paid to accept the students as student athletes and those parents who are photoshopping their kids faces on top of a real athlete. Honestly, as terrible as that is, i can sort of appreciate the effort they went through. People seem to get upset because these kids have taken the spot of some other more deserving student. That would be true if we could assume that all of the kids who get accepted to a college are the best of the applicants and yet we know that isnt true. Colleges accept students based on a criteria of their own design. Harvard is being sued for cutting the number of Asian students because their criteria is to accept more minority students who may not have the same scores as the higher achieving Asians. UCLA and Berkley which are financed by the citizens of California, looks to bring in more out of state and foreign students because they pay more. They too limit Asian students and are actively looking for a more diverse population. These schools map out what their school population will look like regardless if better scoring students arent admitted. I just figured one section of the student population is made up of kids who parents paid for them to get in. Again, i dont support what they did, i wouldnt never do it even if i had 500K to spend. I just not surprised by it.
 
Marcy wasnt charged because he probably wasnt involved in handling the bribes and coordinating what needed to be done. I would be surprised if he didnt know about it
That's my assumption as well, but it's still an assumption and not conclusive. It is possible that his wife did this without his knowledge. We'll probably never know unless she rats him out or something.
Which she wont
 
Marcy wasnt charged because he probably wasnt involved in handling the bribes and coordinating what needed to be done. I would be surprised if he didnt know about it
That's my assumption as well, but it's still an assumption and not conclusive. It is possible that his wife did this without his knowledge. We'll probably never know unless she rats him out or something.
Which she wont
She'll probably bribe someone else to do it! :D:rolleyes::zip:
 
William Macy may still be in the “unindicted co-conspirator” pot. Several mainstream news sources indicate he was with his wife during conversations with someone from the accused college counseling company, “The Key,” and on phone calls. If it was her name on checks and payments, signed agreements or inappropriate tax returns categorizing the fees as a donation, she’s the easier and cleaner first target. The prosecution no doubt has a strategy for the case and how they want to roll it up, and Macy may be small fry at this point, especially if his wife cooperates by giving evidence in exchange for sentencing considerations in a plea bargain situation. The Key’s folks are probably the prime targets.

The Feds finally got Al Capone for failure to pay income tax. Uncle Sam can get his toe in the door for stuff like that.
 
Last edited:
It must be me but I am not as upset or traumatized about this cheating scandal. The media has been covering this all morning and many people including many people here are very upset about it. I have always assumed that there has always been money being exchanged to allow some people in. As i posted before, there are plenty of rich people who have donated money to the colleges which paved the way for their kids to get in. There is a reason many Elite colleges have buildings named after famous rich people. If you think about it one way, this scandal is about those who are wealthy but not necessarily super wealthy (although there are some involved) being allowed to play the same game. In other words, they dont have the money to donate 10 million dollars to Harvard but they could afford 15,000 to 500,000. This amount of money wouldnt get them an interview with the Dean of Harvard but it does give them access to coaches and SAT proctors. Dont get me wrong, I dont condone it nor approve it, just not surprised by it. What does surprise me is that coaches who get paid to accept the students as student athletes and those parents who are photoshopping their kids faces on top of a real athlete. Honestly, as terrible as that is, i can sort of appreciate the effort they went through. People seem to get upset because these kids have taken the spot of some other more deserving student. That would be true if we could assume that all of the kids who get accepted to a college are the best of the applicants and yet we know that isnt true. Colleges accept students based on a criteria of their own design. Harvard is being sued for cutting the number of Asian students because their criteria is to accept more minority students who may not have the same scores as the higher achieving Asians. UCLA and Berkley which are financed by the citizens of California, looks to bring in more out of state and foreign students because they pay more. They too limit Asian students and are actively looking for a more diverse population. These schools map out what their school population will look like regardless if better scoring students arent admitted. I just figured one section of the student population is made up of kids who parents paid for them to get in. Again, i dont support what they did, i wouldnt never do it even if i had 500K to spend. I just not surprised by it.
Bribery has existed throughout history. But this one is different to me. So many coaches are involved, and from so many different states. The testing companies are involved, or at least their employees. The level of security needed when taking the SAT is over-the-top. Obviously this security is useless if a proctor can fly into CA from TX and take the test for a kid. The cheating going on here is at a new level. If $ was handed to an insider and a kid slipped through the cracks, at least that's good old fashioned bribery. But this is such a complex system. And I am sure this is only the tip of the iceberg. Many, many more names will be made public as the plea bargaining begins.
 
Many wealthier families who are able to hire private psychologists to diagnose learning issues which gets them extra time for all testing in high school and for standardized tests has been going on for a long time. Otherwise it’s left up to the public or private schools to diagnose. I read an article recently where they said approximately 10% of Harvard students had extra time and used mind focusing drugs like Adderal that was provided by Harvard. In my children’s high school you would hear wealthier students laugh that they didn’t have to study because they had extra time on tests and that they thought it was hilarious they got a 35 or 36 on the ACT while abusing the system. These kids are in very rigorous honors classes at an elite private high school. 100% of kids go to college with about 25% going to elite schools. It was really infuriating seeing how much time my kids spent studying to get good grades and scores while these kids abused the system. I’m fine with kids who actually really need extra time but to me if it is highly abused in affluent areas.
 
Back
Top