College Entrance Fraud

I have written frequently about helping students achieve their college goals so today's news about the criminal conspiracy that entangled so many parents and students is both laughable and appalling. It's laughable on many levels including the public knowledge that Donald Trump's father paid Penn $1.5M for the transfer of Donald from Fordham, and Jared Kushner gained entrance to Harvard after his father paid Harvard, ahem, donated, to Harvard, $2.5 million dollars. It's laughable because these parents, unlike so many parents around the country, didn't pay any attention to their children's education until they were faced with college admissions so their kids had no "resume" to give. It's laughable because it wasn't the value of the education that the parents paid for but the name of the school. One of the two famous actresses' children is at USC and doesn't really want to be there to learn anything but wants to party and make connections to make her as famous as her parents.

The situation is appalling because so many people contributed to the success of the scheme. People took money to cheat on the SAT for folks, not by sitting the exam themselves but by proctoring the exam and then correcting answers. If any of your own children have ever taken the SAT, then you know that it is usually a pretty well guarded situation and increasingly stressful. So how does the famous actress pay someone to cheat? Another part of the scheme was to falsify the athletic skills of the applicants including claiming that students who couldn't even swim were water polo players. This required the complicity of various college coaches around the country. So it isn't just the more "pro" sports coaches who are crooked these days. It is also appalling because some of the "fees" paid were in the millions of dollars.

I never cheated for any student. I made suggestions to students about where they might apply, often based on factors that others might not consider. One young lady loathed cold weather so going to any of the Ivy League schools didn't appeal to her but North Carolina fit her to a T. I have been horrified at some of the choices students make despite my advice and I have been dismayed by others. But I always let them make their own choices and their own decisions even when I thought the fit wasn't right. That was true about suggestions I made on their essays, and about where they picked to attend. I never took any money. I never would take any money.