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F.B.I. uncovers college entrance exam scam

I wonder how many other coaches at "elite" colleges and universities have tightening sphincters right now. You just know this guy can't be the only one that was running this kind of scam business. There must be, what, 10 or 20 more across the country? Another guess is they also exist for "non-elite" schools on a lesser economic scale.
 
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If you think about it, this faux athlete admissions angle shouldn’t be a surprise. Athletics are a notorious money pit. Only a select few athletic departments actually operate in the black?

I have always wondered how the small, academic elite New England schools like Amherst, Williams, Colby, Bates & Bowdoin etc can field so many teams with great facilities.
Great facilities? Have you ever seen Williams football field or amhersts rink?
 
Yeah, her tweets about school have aged well.

She said she wanted to go to USC for parties and football games, but not so much for classes. She was also concerned college would interfere with her vlogging . She had a video shoot in Tahiti or Figi the first week of school and was hopeful the profs and Dean would understand if she missed classes.
 
The hubris of these so called elites is mind blowing. After paying ungodly sums to get their kids accepted to these schools they just can't help themselves and defraud the government and the taxpayer by making the payments to a charity to get the tax deduction. Clawbacks are going to be the least of their problems. Willfully defrauding the IRS is 10 to 20 behind bars.
 
Actually, Yes!...And Bowdoin and Bates and Colby and Trinity and Tufts. I have toured all of them. My daughter was recruited to play lacrosse. The NECAC’s didn’t work out but she landed in a good place just the same. For the size of school (2000 students), the academic rigor and the full slate of competitive D3 sports, I was impressed. I understand Art’s point about operating efficiently but they generate little or no revenue and I don’t know how the do it. It would be interesting to see a balance sheet and budgets.

The money to pay for the athletic programs at place like Amherst and Williams is mainly covered by endowment income and student fees. Any shortfall is covered by a few phone calls.
 
ex Penn hoops coach Jerome Allen took $300K to make some rich guy's kid a "recruited athlete" and get preferential treatment on admission. He then made the kid a walk on and put him on the end of the bench.
 
The hubris of these so called elites is mind blowing. After paying ungodly sums to get their kids accepted to these schools they just can't help themselves and defraud the government and the taxpayer by making the payments to a charity to get the tax deduction. Clawbacks are going to be the least of their problems. Willfully defrauding the IRS is 10 to 20 behind bars.

Most large charities are the same... although the donation / effect isn't as clear cut in many cases.
This is one of the biggest reasons I want corporations out of the charity game.

LdN
 
The hubris of these so called elites is mind blowing. After paying ungodly sums to get their kids accepted to these schools they just can't help themselves and defraud the government and the taxpayer by making the payments to a charity to get the tax deduction. Clawbacks are going to be the least of their problems. Willfully defrauding the IRS is 10 to 20 behind bars.
Ah, so this is what the parents are being charged with?
 
It will be interesting to see if any other cases come to light. I also wonder if some schools were approached and refused to play ball.
 
The hubris of these so called elites is mind blowing. After paying ungodly sums to get their kids accepted to these schools they just can't help themselves and defraud the government and the taxpayer by making the payments to a charity to get the tax deduction. Clawbacks are going to be the least of their problems. Willfully defrauding the IRS is 10 to 20 behind bars.
Exactly right. They are going to get the most jail time for the tax fraud. In Laughlin's case, that is a fraudulent $500K deduction, probably worth about $200K. I hope she likes orange.

Hard to believe they just didn't write a very large check to get there kid in school, happens all the time and is never prosecuted.
 
Turns out my fiancees cousin dated Olivia in high school. Getting a kick out of this lol.
 
I was thinking the same thing. I am interested to learn more about the faux athlete angle we’re the bribes, kept by the coaches? How did the money flow to the coaches through the coaches camp/club? We’re any athletic department personnel involved? Did the bribe money end up in the athletic department accounts? Etc etc etc. how does a faux athlete get processed through the athlete academic evaluation process of admissions?

The coaching community is pretty small so I’m pretty sure this faux athlete thing is known and used by more than those caught yesterday.

My guess is that recruits for obscure olympic sports just aren't scrutinized, especially for what are basically preferred walk-ons. I doubt it takes some big internal group to add 1-2 kids to a rowing recruiting class. Kids dropping off sports teams after enrolling isn't uncommon and it doesn't sound like this was massive enough in any one recruiting cycle to raise red flags. I doubt the kids knew. 17/18 year olds keeping that kind of secret seems unlikely.
 
Phonies and criminals. Rules are for the unwashed masses in flyover country
totally agree. like they don't already have enough advantages over a kid graduating from a public school with a chip on his/her shoulder and a great work ethic.

As someone said on twitter, perhaps a better plan would be to keep the $5m cost and put it in a trust for the kid.
 
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I was thinking the same thing. I am interested to learn more about the faux athlete angle we’re the bribes, kept by the coaches? How did the money flow to the coaches through the coaches camp/club? We’re any athletic department personnel involved? Did the bribe money end up in the athletic department accounts? Etc etc etc. how does a faux athlete get processed through the athlete academic evaluation process of admissions?

The coaching community is pretty small so I’m pretty sure this faux athlete thing is known and used by more than those caught yesterday.

Some of the money went directly to the coaches, some through other entities they controlled. In some case money went directly to the school, earmarked to support the port over which the coach presided.

From available reports the only place where athletic department staff other than coaches were involved was USC , where there was an AAD.

Regardless of the admissions process for athletes at any given school, the people doing the review take the coach's word that the candidate is a bona fide prospect (why would they not?). Since most of the sports are minor, there isn't anything like Rivals against which to check. And, again, why would an admissions person do this, why would they think that there was some sort of scheme at play?
 
My guess is that recruits for obscure olympic sports just aren't scrutinized, especially for what are basically preferred walk-ons. I doubt it takes some big internal group to add 1-2 kids to a rowing recruiting class. Kids dropping off sports teams after enrolling isn't uncommon and it doesn't sound like this was massive enough in any one recruiting cycle to raise red flags. I doubt the kids knew. 17/18 year olds keeping that kind of secret seems unlikely.

Why would admissions drones "scrutinize" the athletic credentials of an applicant for whom the coach vouched?Oh, yeah, they are supposed to be on the look out for side door schemes to subvert the admissions process which no one not involved in the investigation knew about until yesterday.
 
As far as I know every athlete gets eval’d by AD academic staff. I’m certain the ivies, NESCAC’s and most elite schools do. I know the swim team at my daughter’s school has no schols but each potential swimmer gets an academic evaluation by the AD.

At most places there are designated readers in the admissions department who handle athletes. Whatever review that takes place in the the athletic department is cursory e.g. does the applicant have the minimum amount of high school credits, do they have the right course work distribution, are the test scores and GPA high enough so that further review isn't a waste of time?
 
In full disclosure, this scandal would have been so much more personally useful if Lori Loughlin would have had sex with college coaches to get his kids into schools.

Lori-Loughlin-Sexy-Celebrity-Legs-Zeman-00013.jpg
 
As far as I know every athlete gets eval’d by AD academic staff. The score is based on an academic index (AI). I’m certain the ivies, NESCAC’s and most elite schools do. I believe they refer to it as a “likely letter”. I know the swim team at my daughter’s school has no schols but each potential swimmer gets an academic evaluation by the AD.

Yea and once those kids are given a thumbs up by the staff I'm sure its never given a second thought/revisited. The staff is just looking at academics, if everything is in order academically how much deeper are they going to prob every fencing/rowing/judo recruit. Kids enroll and never compete for the teams they "commit" to all the time. If USC rowing had 20 extra kids, yea thats a red flag, I'm not sure 1-2 is.
 
Some of the "elites" and privileged may be going to jail for buying their little darlings' way into colleges that they would not have gotten into otherwise.... Hopefully some get some jail time!

https://www.insidehighered.com/admi...ndicted-alleged-massive-case-admissions-fraud

I think there are four threads about this - all with different takes from the OP. One focused on the celebrities, one focused on the school, and yours is about 'elites'. Any sociologists here? :D
 
I would agree with most of what you said but add that those items reviews are not trivial bits.

My point is that there is a process and it involves several people ....”internal controls”

No, it's not that complicated. An athlete's application goes through the same review process, we're talking process here, not standards, as any other applicant's. That's the "internal control." There may be a superficial review in the athletic department to highlight deficiencies that an athlete can work on to gain admission or to weed out lost causes. Once that happens, the review process is the same until the admissions department renders a go/no go decision. At that point, they go back to the coaches to determine who gets an offer of admission (any sport is going to have more applicants than slots and the school isn't going to admit all of them).

There is nothing mystical about the AI. You can find the formula on-line and calculate it yourself. It's not a thumbs up/thumbs down indicator. It's primary use is as a guideline for the coach to determine the composition of his recruiting class. There are Band I kids who are admitted (over kids in higher bands that are not), but there aren't many of them. As for "likely letters" don't know about other schools or conferences, but in the Ivy league, they are only issued by the admissions department (and are not limited solely to prospective athletes).
 
I was thinking the same thing. I am interested to learn more about the faux athlete angle.
- Were the bribes, kept by the coaches?

- How did the money flow to the coaches?...through the coaches camp/club?

- Were any athletic department personnel involved?

- Did the bribe money end up in the athletic department accounts?

- How does a faux athlete get processed through the athlete academic evaluation process of admissions?

The coaching community is pretty small so I’m pretty sure this faux athlete thing is known and used by more than those caught yesterday.

As far as athletes in the Ivies, since there are no athletic scholarships coaches are usually wary about athletes who appear to be using athletics to get into a school. The burden for most Ivy coaches is trying to determine whether a prospective student/athlete is serious about the sport. If they aren't, a coach can find him/herself with kids who quit the team in the first few weeks but as accepted students, have earn admission to their dream school.

I believe that most of these coaches are straight shooters, want kids to do well athletically and academically, and do not abuse the system. That was what I saw when my son was recruited to play football at Penn. He had the academic chops, but without football, would have been one of thousands who were qualified but not accepted. He spend 20 hours a week for four years working with the football team in addition to his class/study time for his major.
 
As far as athletes in the Ivies, since there are no athletic scholarships coaches are usually wary about athletes who appear to be using athletics to get into a school. The burden for most Ivy coaches is trying to determine whether a prospective student/athlete is serious about the sport. If they aren't, a coach can find him/herself with kids who quit the team in the first few weeks but as accepted students, have earn admission to their dream school.

I believe that most of these coaches are straight shooters, want kids to do well athletically and academically, and do not abuse the system. That was what I saw when my son was recruited to play football at Penn. He had the academic chops, but without football, would have been one of thousands who were qualified but not accepted. He spend 20 hours a week for four years working with the football team in addition to his class/study time for his major.

This is true. But there are ways of dealing with that. They usually happen four years later.
 
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