Does anyone know if the SAT score mentioned in the article is 1600 scale or 2400 scale?
I’m guessing the former, because paying $15k for a 1420 on the latter would be just embarrassing; but it isn’t specified.
2 Likes
You should have highlighted the part where Singer (CW-1) notes that, because she faked a learning disability in high school to get additional SAT test time, she’ll be able to bring the documentation to college and can fake a learning disability in college to get additional college test time. See, cheating and corruption is a gift that keeps on giving.
6 Likes
In the full filing it’s specified as on a 1600 scale.
2 Likes
“Everything Harry tells you is a lie!”
7 Likes
USC is a selective private school. Maybe you’re thinking of UCLA?
These students are probably not simpletons. It looks like most of the fraud wasn’t getting these kids into college, it was getting them into a particular selective school when they were marginal about getting in. It’s more of a “thumb on the scale” situation than “write whatever number you want on the slip” situation.
2 Likes
"Apply it to all aspects of life and you’ll probably be ok."
A line cynically used by professional cheaters to lull honest people into a state where they can be easily duped.
5 Likes
I pretty much feel the same way about all moralistic exhortations on social media. Like, ok, what ever x is sounds like a good thing to do, or not do, so why don’t you just live your life and lead by example instead of making public displays of piety on the street corner like the hypocrites.
1 Like
Sure, they do, just, you know “global” business, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
2 Likes
Even better, ‘psychologist’ seems to be a bit premature (and is presumably part of the scam - in this case on the parent to extract more money):
“I’m gonna talk to her, because she’s going to a school online, there are forms that have to be filled out by her teachers that she’s doing online […]”
That doesn’t sound like a particularly well qualified person (or even at all qualified).
1 Like
In some ways, I am rather horrified.
In others, I am kind of happy, since $50K is a lot more approachable than the prior versions, which was $1MM or more; so that is a bit more democratic… (/Sarcasm)
Semi-seriously, did everyone not know this was going on? That there were ways to cheat to get into schools? I mean, I got in fair and square, but I know even 20 years ago there were places that offered… assistance of questionable legality for such things…
2 Likes
Honestly, and maybe naively, we did not know. We even used a college admission coach here, who put her through “preparation boot camp” with test prep and such, helped with scholarship applications and all, but no mention of slipping the maître d’ a $20 or anything. This caught me completely by surprise.
4 Likes
I never imagined anything so openly corrupt was a regular and widespread thing. I knew of the old trope of rich person buys school a new library to get unqualified kid into a school but honestly, schools have finite land, so I took even that as more myth that regular occurrence.
6 Likes
https://thumbs.gfycat.com/TimelyJealousHagfish-size_restricted.gif
{Edit: That’s a too-big gif of Meatloaf singing, “You took the words right out of my mouth.”}
5 Likes
11 Likes
Please list your learning disabilities:
wealth, entitlement, parents
a grift that will become a reality if they aren’t careful.
I think the $50k was just the first donation for the test. i assume a parent who bribes their kid into college is in for a long road of payments. cash cows.
if they really cared about their kid, the same amount of money could have bought a lot of private tutoring over the previous 4 years.
5 Likes
You’d think, but such efforts probably were tried, and failed. Most of these kids probably ended up just gaming or getting stoned with their “tutors.”
3 Likes
fair points. i hope the parents invested at least as much in actual attempted improvement and life skills as they did trying to bypass or cheat them. i’m remiss that i often underestimate the ability of children to thwart even the best intended efforts.
well now you’re just making me empathize with these kids even more. heck i’ll “tutor” them myself. 
now where did i put the “tutoring” lighter and papers.
2 Likes
I never cease to be amazed that lacking an aristocracy of its own, Americans chose to create and perpetuate one by fetishizing those who were accepted into select universities. Sure, the Ivies give a good education, but nothing that exceptional.
Instead, “dropped out of Yale after a semester” is way bigger signifier of status to the American public than “got a PhD at a reputable state university”. And, like all of most intangibles, 90% of the value is the fact that almost everyone accepts that value without question. Some believe this so deeply, they’ll commit serious crimes for it.
4 Likes
That’s more of a side effect of worshipping the rich. Plenty of members of the American Aristocracy haven’t even been to college. I try to absorb as little information as possible about people like the Kardashians but I can’t recall any of them being praised for their intellectual accomplishments.
4 Likes
