goldentoe
SILVER
Other than the $250k bribe paid in Facebook stock??
Oh my...this is bad news for the Bruins.
College Entrance Scam includes former Yale Women's Soccer Coach
- Thread starter Dos Equis
- Start date
Oh my...this is bad news for the Bruins.
Dos Equis
GOLD
USC Crew circling Marina Del Rey, as they put Olivia Jade in the boat and are trying to make it work.
The Outlaw *BANNED*
PREMIER
I'm no UCLA honk... nor am I here to defend them. Just pointing out the fact that many teams bring on players with little to no intent of really ever needing their services. Call it GPA... call it 'friend of a friend' or call it 'famous parents'. Let's not pretend UCLA and USC are foreign to the concept.
I think coaches should have some leeway to bring in kids who they think will benefit their program. Maybe it’s as a manager who will help. Or a great kid whose work ethic will help the team and the GPA doesn’t hurt either. Does it stink that the head coaches best friend gets a special admit to be the team manager and not my kid who would’ve loved that role? Yes. But the coach has some leeway to do that. Ok.
But a kid who the coach doesn’t know, who has never played the game at any level, and whose parents paid (illegally) another coach to make it happen? No. I sure hope there’s a good explanation.
But a kid who the coach doesn’t know, who has never played the game at any level, and whose parents paid (illegally) another coach to make it happen? No. I sure hope there’s a good explanation.
eastbaysoccer
GOLD
Do you think Cromwell will be dismissed? The LA times reports she took one of those players on to her roster. She must have known. Sadly she probably thought it was harmless.
That's all fine and dandy unless money was exchanged (big payoffs) to make this happen.
So, my DD informed me that based on last year, acceptance letters for UCLA were sent out by this coming Friday. I told her don't hold your breath....If I were on the board, I would triple check all those who have been accepted this year. What a mess....I've been checking all those that are on the indicted list and I'm just baffled. These are well educated parents---for example, Elisabeth Kimmel. If you are to believe her resume, she went to Stanford and got her law degree at Harvard. Ok, with those credentials, that I'm sure she worked her ass for, you would think she would be pissed off if her kids did not achieve grades or test scores to get into a decent school. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this whole thing. 
It's just public information--not creepy stalker at all.
It's the one of the first bits of information that appear when you look up the school LOL
Supermodel56
SILVER ELITE
Well, they don’t call USC “University of Spoiled Children” for nothing...
I think the reason this story is so fascinating is because it covers so many topics and has so many implications:
1) The lengths some parents will go through to prevent their kids from experiencing failure - how are these kids going to deal with failure as adults? (Maybe they won’t have to because they have that financial safety net?)
2) This is going to draw significant attention to college athletics and admissions criteria - such as why are athletes prioritized to begin with? should coaches even have the authority to offer admission to recruits? Recruiting is going to get more difficult and stringent.
3) Will involved programs be penalized for a few years and lose NCAA eligibility?
4) Philosophically, does it really matter that people can buy their way in if they didn’t actually take up a roster spot? If the argument is that these kids didn’t earn it or weren’t as competitive as others, isn’t that the same as affirmative action? We’re talking about 50kids in the US out of 2.2 million incoming freshman each year - that’s .002%. I mean given the choice, would you rather pay $500k to get your kid into USC or just teach your kid to work hard and get their grades up so they earn it?
5) Assuming these kids graduated and are doing well, it says a lot about how you do on theses tests really don’t mean anything in terms of your potential.
I think the reason this story is so fascinating is because it covers so many topics and has so many implications:
1) The lengths some parents will go through to prevent their kids from experiencing failure - how are these kids going to deal with failure as adults? (Maybe they won’t have to because they have that financial safety net?)
2) This is going to draw significant attention to college athletics and admissions criteria - such as why are athletes prioritized to begin with? should coaches even have the authority to offer admission to recruits? Recruiting is going to get more difficult and stringent.
3) Will involved programs be penalized for a few years and lose NCAA eligibility?
4) Philosophically, does it really matter that people can buy their way in if they didn’t actually take up a roster spot? If the argument is that these kids didn’t earn it or weren’t as competitive as others, isn’t that the same as affirmative action? We’re talking about 50kids in the US out of 2.2 million incoming freshman each year - that’s .002%. I mean given the choice, would you rather pay $500k to get your kid into USC or just teach your kid to work hard and get their grades up so they earn it?
5) Assuming these kids graduated and are doing well, it says a lot about how you do on theses tests really don’t mean anything in terms of your potential.
Supermodel56
SILVER ELITE
pooka
SILVER ELITE
This is not the same at all as affirmative action.
Watch Olivia talk about how fired up she is to be on the squad... fast forward to 5.12 or so.
True. In the old days for colleges, people used to flunk out all the time, including a segment of kids that went to Ivies. But now with grade inflation, getting in is pretty much the entire ticket. To fail, something really big has to happen like a breakdown, addiction, abuse accusation, learning disability or cheating. Getting in is pretty much getting past the velvet rope.
College is now viewed as a marker. It's a way the fellow members of the "in" crowd judge you, for positions of power, for jobs, and for marriage. Employers were prohibited from doing aptitude tests (for a variety of reasons, including discrimination), so college became the stand in for the seal of approval In the old days too, college educated dad might marry his secretary or the stewardess he met on the plane. Now days high powered dad marries high powered mom, and college educated mom would never marry someone who is a drag on her income. Successful people marry each other, pool their resources, and tend to have kids that will also be successful (whether by genetics or environmental advantages).
Meanwhile, the superrich have been pouring money into universities (which now have high tech dorms, wifi, tons of administrators, and facilities galore). To compete, the very rich (but not superrich) throw their money, influence and connections too (sometimes, like those in the story, not entirely on the up and up). The upper middle class looks at it, and feels their children are now at a disadvantage, with all this money being thrown at the kids, and are worried about the shrinking opportunities in the economy caused by globalization, and realize that now a lot of college slots are going to for example kids from overseas (that's another iceberg that's coming...it's been a percolating secret that some foreign admissions from some countries might be doing similar cheating)....they get upset. The working class looks at this, and it's just another reason for them to get ticked off at the arrogant coastal elites, that's not only throwing 2 incomes they can't compete with at the problem, but that seems to look down on them too, and they don't get some of the safety valves afforded to the poor such as affirmative action.
People having fewer children means that you also have your eggs in fewer basket. Back when people had 3-6 kids, the odds are one would be successful (by hard work, athleticism, charisma, intellect or just plain old luck). Every family had a black sheep, and even if you wanted to you couldn't stay on top of all your children. Remember the film "Parenthood"? Plus we became more scared about our children, even though the world hadn't really become more dangerous, so we got helicopter parenting to protect these fewer eggs.
The story resonates because it goes directly to who were are as a society, and really plays into why the events of the last 12 or so years have unfolded the way they have. It touches everything as mundane as youth soccer, to why presidential politics operates the way it does, to our own children's futures. Dersh in the interview I posted above called it a watershed event....I think it really is and we're just seeing the tip of the iceberg right now.
