Admissions Fraud

[Beeeej]

Yikes. This apparently implicates at least one Yale coach (women's soccer) and many others in a scheme to fake entrance exam results.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme

More details about the Yale coach from the Hartford Courant:

Longtime Yale coach Rudy Meredith, who resigned in November, is accused of accepting a $400,000 check from the family of a Yale applicant he ensured would be admitted to the university as part of the women's soccer team, according to court documents. Meredith, who is accused of working in concert with Singer, has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud, honest services wire fraud, and conspiracy and has been cooperating with the government's investigation since April 2018 with the hope of receiving leniency when he is sentenced, according to the government.

Bribed around 2015, flipped to help the investigation in April 2018, resigned in November 2018.

"Yale: We may be unethical, but at least we're opportunistically disloyal!"

[abmarks]

One of our own...

https://cornellsun.com/2019/03/13/gordon-caplan-88-paid-75000-to-rig-his-daughters-act-score-the-fbi-says-he-and-nearly-50-others-were-charged-with-fraud/

[nshapiro]

I think it is worth pointing out that anyone willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kid into 'the right school' is not doing it to set up that kid's future. That kid probably has a trust fund that has him set for life. They are doing it so that they can brag about it to their superficial friends.

A fraternity brother of my son at Cornell had a terrible first semester of his sophomore year when he moved into the fraternity, and Cornell told him to take a semester off.  Instead of doing something worthwhile, or at least travelling, he stayed in the fraternity house even though he was not enrolled for the second semester.  

Why???

Because this way, his parents could keep it a secret and let all of their friends think he was still in school.  Eventually they might have to say that he changed majors so it took him longer to graduate. A much more palatable story.

[Al DeFlorio]

Wouldn't you know it was a Harvard grad taking the scam tests for the kiddies.  Now he "regrets" doing it.  Prospect of prison time does cause "regrets."  He'll do wonders for the Attica tennis team, however.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/14/admissions-national-investigation/

https://www.heraldtribune.com/news/20190312/img-academy-suspends-director-accused-in-bribery-scandal

[dag14]

I think it is worth pointing out that anyone willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kid into 'the right school' is not doing it to set up that kid's future. That kid probably has a trust fund that has him set for life. They are doing it so that they can brag about it to their superficial friends.

A fraternity brother of my son at Cornell had a terrible first semester of his sophomore year when he moved into the fraternity, and Cornell told him to take a semester off.  Instead of doing something worthwhile, or at least travelling, he stayed in the fraternity house even though he was not enrolled for the second semester.  

Why???

Because this way, his parents could keep it a secret and let all of their friends think he was still in school.  Eventually they might have to say that he changed majors so it took him longer to graduate. A much more palatable story.

Do you know for sure that the parents were aware that their sun had been asked to leave school?  I know of a case where a student was suspended for a semester or a year [can't remember] and stayed in Ithaca, living off the tuition check his parents thought he had written to Cornell.  Since the tuition bills go to the student not mom and dad....

[billhoward]

Do you know for sure that the parents were aware that their sun had been asked to leave school?  I know of a case where a student was suspended for a semester or a year [can't remember] and stayed in Ithaca, living off the tuition check his parents thought he had written to Cornell.  Since the tuition bills go to the student not mom and dad....

You may be thinking of another ECAC school on a hill where the parents wrote the checks directly to the offspring. (At least the rink is on the hill).
http://time.com/104765/quinnipiac-university-graduation-bomb-threat/

22-year-old woman who failed to mention to her parents that she'd dropped out of Quinnipiac University did what many of us would do: she panicked. Then, she called in two bomb threats Sunday to try and cancel the university's commencement ceremonies, the Associated Press reports.

Danielle Shea had not been attending the school all year, but her mother had been sending her thousands of dollars to fund her education. About 20 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, police say Shea called the university's public safety department to report a "bomb in the library." Then she called again to say, "Several bombs are on campus," adding, "You haven't cleared out graduation. That's not a good idea."

Memo to stressed-out students: Do not call in bomb threats on your own mobile.

[CU2007]

Do you know for sure that the parents were aware that their sun had been asked to leave school?  I know of a case where a student was suspended for a semester or a year [can't remember] and stayed in Ithaca, living off the tuition check his parents thought he had written to Cornell.  Since the tuition bills go to the student not mom and dad....

You may be thinking of another ECAC school on a hill where the parents wrote the checks directly to the offspring. (At least the rink is on the hill).
http://time.com/104765/quinnipiac-university-graduation-bomb-threat/

22-year-old woman who failed to mention to her parents that she'd dropped out of Quinnipiac University did what many of us would do: she panicked. Then, she called in two bomb threats Sunday to try and cancel the university's commencement ceremonies, the Associated Press reports.

Danielle Shea had not been attending the school all year, but her mother had been sending her thousands of dollars to fund her education. About 20 minutes before the ceremony was scheduled to begin, police say Shea called the university's public safety department to report a "bomb in the library." Then she called again to say, "Several bombs are on campus," adding, "You haven't cleared out graduation. That's not a good idea."

Memo to stressed-out students: Do not call in bomb threats on your own mobile.

Fantastic problem-solving. But that's Quinnipiac for ya

[nshapiro]

I think it is worth pointing out that anyone willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kid into 'the right school' is not doing it to set up that kid's future. That kid probably has a trust fund that has him set for life. They are doing it so that they can brag about it to their superficial friends.

A fraternity brother of my son at Cornell had a terrible first semester of his sophomore year when he moved into the fraternity, and Cornell told him to take a semester off.  Instead of doing something worthwhile, or at least travelling, he stayed in the fraternity house even though he was not enrolled for the second semester.  

Why???

Because this way, his parents could keep it a secret and let all of their friends think he was still in school.  Eventually they might have to say that he changed majors so it took him longer to graduate. A much more palatable story.

Do you know for sure that the parents were aware that their sun had been asked to leave school?  I know of a case where a student was suspended for a semester or a year [can't remember] and stayed in Ithaca, living off the tuition check his parents thought he had written to Cornell.  Since the tuition bills go to the student not mom and dad....

Yes.  His parents comment to him was something like 'We are committed to paying your room and board at the fraternity, so you can stay there' but the subtext was definitely that you are not welcome at home to embarrass us.

[Trotsky]

Cooperating Witness 1 (a.k.a. the "CW-1" in the transcripts) was being investigated for securities fraud and he dimed out the scam to get leniency.

This is he.

I for one am shocked that a 1%er douchebag would turn out to be a former Yale hockey player.

He transferred to UVM so presumably his kid would need a boost to get in.

[ugarte]

He transferred to UVM so presumably his kid would need a boost to get in.

The classic transfer where you downgrade the social status value of the name on your degree in exchange for less playing time.*

* joke void if he had used up his eligibility at yale

[George64]

An interesting and sad footnote.  1983 ILR grad and Princeton economist, Alan Krueger, commited suicide this past weekend.  

According to the NYT, in 2014 he and a colleague published an analysis of the benefits of attending a highly selective college. "They found that, after statistically controlling for students' SAT scores, economic background and college ambitions, the long-term financial returns are "generally indistinguishable from zero." Students who are poised to succeed tend to do so even if they don't get into the Ivy League."

"But there was a crucial exception. There were strong benefits for the subset of black and Hispanic students, and for those whose parents had few educational credentials. It turns out that students who come from less privileged backgrounds benefit greatly from selective colleges. Elite higher education gives them social capital they didn't already have."  But, of course, these students don't have the family resources to cheat their way in.