Well the late night hosts have all gotten in the action

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/13/trevor-noah-college-admissions-fraud-scandal-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin

To me getting into big name schools has always been a shifty proposition. Get good grades, do all the required extra curricular activities, write a b.s. ego driven sob story admissions essay, click the right boxes. etc. etc. I always though that if colleges choose kids at random it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

What I don't understand is if these kids are really 'dunderheads' wouldn't it become obvious in the first year of classes? Unless they also hired someone to sit in on all of their classes & take their finals?

@znexyish said:

Well the late night hosts have all gotten in the action

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/13/trevor-noah-college-admissions-fraud-scandal-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin

To me getting into big name schools has always been a shifty proposition. Get good grades, do all the required extra curricular activities, write a b.s. ego driven sob story admissions essay, click the right boxes. etc. etc. I always though that if colleges choose kids at random it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

Prestige and endowments (not necessarily in that order).

Also...

Thanks for the link; but, especially for this gem from Trevor Noah's comments:

Indeed, the college scandal did nothing to staunch the partisan news pouring out of Washington on Tuesday, such as House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion to reporters that she’s opposed to impeaching Donald Trump because it “divides the country” and “he’s just not worth it”.

“Wow, he’s just not worth it?” Noah admired. “Either Nancy Pelosi has gone soft or this is brilliant reverse psychology. Because you know Trump is going to hear that and be like: ‘How dare you, I’m totally worth impeaching!’

@bratface said:

What I don't understand is if these kids are really 'dunderheads' wouldn't it become obvious in the first year of classes? Unless they also hired someone to sit in on all of their classes & take their finals?

Wondering the same thing.

Yeah, even if not the first year, you'd still expect that somewhere along the line—as the course material got weightier—their dunderheadness surely would have derailed them. Parental dollars could buy them only so much ‘assistance’: someone to do assignments/write papers/do research/take on line courses/etc.; but what about, say, finals? /internships? etc.?.

Of course, if they “bought” a few choice professors here and there, that would have helped. (NOTE: I only include this for the sake of covering all bases.)

Anyway; will be interesting to hear how they pulled it off. All in all, what I’d really like to see is a where-are-they-now exposé.

Something a little less weighty...

(Ben Stiller on "Ellen")

In an interview on Ellen, Ben Stiller shared that his daughter (sitting in the audience) was there to look at Southern California colleges. When asked how the search was going, he said: “It’s great. She is going to go to Yale on a full football scholarship. And she’s going to major in Photoshopping,….”

While, not a knee-slapper, it certainly elicits a .

I doubt any of the kids involved were actually so dumb that they couldn't do the work. But the problem is that universities especially the prestigious ones, don't admit just on academics. There's a lot of game-playing going on, with various preferences for race and many other things that have nothing to do with how well they're likely to do at the actual work.

Yes, it's still "Cheating." But if someone could explain to me how being a FAKE athlete is any less valuable to university admission than being a REAL athlete would be, I'll listen.

@FormerlyKnownAs said:

@znexyish said:

Well the late night hosts have all gotten in the action

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/13/trevor-noah-college-admissions-fraud-scandal-felicity-huffman-lori-loughlin

To me getting into big name schools has always been a shifty proposition. Get good grades, do all the required extra curricular activities, write a b.s. ego driven sob story admissions essay, click the right boxes. etc. etc. I always though that if colleges choose kids at random it wouldn't make a bit of difference.

Prestige and endowments (not necessarily in that order).

Also...

Thanks for the link; but, especially for this gem from Trevor Noah's comments:

Indeed, the college scandal did nothing to staunch the partisan news pouring out of Washington on Tuesday, such as House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s assertion to reporters that she’s opposed to impeaching Donald Trump because it “divides the country” and “he’s just not worth it”.

“Wow, he’s just not worth it?” Noah admired. “Either Nancy Pelosi has gone soft or this is brilliant reverse psychology. Because you know Trump is going to hear that and be like: ‘How dare you, I’m totally worth impeaching!’

Of course the other side is the same way. When Trump says "America will never be a socialist country," they're thinking - if not saying - "Oh yes it will!"