I guess some parents really DO want their kids to go to college

[tandfman]

Having been a reader in a major university admissions process I know for a fact that an applicant claiming high level athletic success shoots up toward the top of the class. And that admissions departments generally take claims at face value without vetting the resume items.

I'm a little surprised by that. It had been my impression that the admissions athletes got preferential treatment only at the request of the coaches, who would prioritize those requests based on their knowledge of the athletes' achievements and also their teams' needs. I can't imagine how someone who had never pole vaulted could be considered by admissions to be a pole vaulter. And it boggles to think that a coach would make recommendations based on his/her personally being paid off by a parent. That should be a firing offense.

[jc203]

Shouldn't be shocking to anyone that athletes get preference at major colleges or that many of those given preference are from white middle-class families. Given the range of NCAA teams (from fencing to beach volleyball to tennis to golf to aquatic sports) the percentage of white, upper class participants would seem to be fairly large. Just not in the money sports!

The reality of preference for athletes is more immoral in my view, though it has been in place for at least a century so it is tough to define as a "scandal", more like a long, non-sensical tradition that should have never begun but is now written in stone.

Having been a reader in a major university admissions process I know for a fact that an applicant claiming high level athletic success shoots up toward the top of the class. And that admissions departments generally take claims at face value without vetting the resume items. Not enough time or resources to actually investigate each of the hundred thousand plus applications that flood the big name colleges.

[user4]

Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz is calling this the greatest scandal in higher education in the history of the country. We report, you decide.

[Conor Dary]

"At elite colleges, athletic recruitment is arguably another form of affirmative action for the wealthy. As my colleague Saahil Desai has written, Harvard’s admissions office, for instance, gives a major boost to athletes with middling academic qualifications. Athletes who score a four (out of six) on the academic scale Harvard uses to judge applicants were accepted at a rate of about 70 percent, Desai reported; the admit rate for nonathletes with the same score was 0.076 percent. And research suggests that these athletic recruits tend to come from middle-class white families. Julie J. Park, an education professor at the University of Maryland, concludes in her 2018 book, Race on Campus: Debunking Myths With Data, that as many as 40 percent of Harvard’s white students are legacies or recruited athletes."

https://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...arents/584695/

[Conor Dary]

This story has all sorts of interesting connections....like this...

https://mobile.twitter.com/jbenton/s...08862126448640

[Atticus]

Oh dear...

Oh dear is right. The standards are at 14' - hardly elite - and the technique is far from elite.

[Merner521]

I spoke too soon when I said there are no track connections(though it sounds like USC coaches were not involved)

https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status...14482401460226

The kid should have just gone with it! show up to practice and learn to jump

Not sure if i'll be in a financial position to pull off a scam/fraud like this 14 years from now, but if my first born son doesn't go into pole vault, I may just have to try this.

Just kidding...probably

[Conor Dary]

I spoke too soon when I said there are no track connections(though it sounds like USC coaches were not involved)

https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status...14482401460226

Oh dear...

[user4]

..The parents involved .. but not the *super* rich. They can’t just write a $15 million check to pay a legal bribe to get their kids in. They are products of what I call “fractal inequality”

Yeah, I was really heart broken for them too... pulled on all ends, unable to find the time to educate their children or instill in them a love of learning they are driven by forces beyond themselves to fraud and bribery to get their pot smoking slacker into USC.


A very early and practical distribution. No need to rename anything..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_distribution


My own sentiment is that all of these parents should be able to get their kids into a university that is acceptable to them. And the price tag should be appropriately high. The market should determine these things. For every dolt son of Felicity Hoofmind that pays a premium the university can offer a scholarship to the brainy son of a laborer. Free and fair markets work.

[Conor Dary]

"I applied to UCSD for college where my dad was a professor and asked him to put in a word for me. He did, and I still got rejected and he goes “you’ve learned a valuable lesson. Never ask someone to put in a good word for you if everyone thinks that person is an asshole.”

https://mobile.twitter.com/justin_ha...34198335496193

[guru]

I spoke too soon when I said there are no track connections(though it sounds like USC coaches were not involved)

https://twitter.com/RedditCFB/status...14482401460226

[gm]

$100,000 bribe to the Texas men's tennis coach, it is alleged.

[Conor Dary]

Another thing that jumped out at me. The parents involved are quite wealthy, but not the *super* rich. They can’t just write a $15 million check to pay a legal bribe to get their kids in. They are products of what I call “fractal inequality”

https://mobile.twitter.com/chrislhay...77214559637511

[user4]

Friends, if your kid is a lazy slacker pot smoking loser just like you then you should give them a top 20 college degree to make up for it. It is money well spent.

[Atticus]

Felicity Huffman?! Say it ain't so!

The Stanford Sailing coach! Say THAT ain't so!

https://news.stanford.edu/2019/03/12...ord-statement/