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There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life?

There's so much discussion from the perspective of the parents, but what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life? If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole. If you're in the GPA/SAT range to get into Stanford, but end up attending UC Irvine instead, you'll be just fine. You might even graduate with less debt and at the top of your class. On the other hand, if your parents bail you out and buy your way into Stanford when you're not qualified, it sets you up for a life of disappointment. You'll likely struggle to keep up with classmates, and won't know what it feels like to achieve on your own. It teaches reliance on mommy and daddy rather than reliance on yourself, which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world.

jedberg 8y ago
> The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole. In most cases yes. But when we're talking about elite colleges, it has significant bearing. Living in the dorm with a future CEO may be helpful in your future job search, and if you go to an elite college, you have a much better chance of having done that. Going to Stanford or Berkeley or MIT or UW and doing CS there will mean that when you graduate, a whole lot of hiring managers will see that you attended the same college they did and give you an automatic boost. And if you go to USC film school, you're pretty much guaranteed to know someone who will one day be very successful in the film industry and will help you get jobs or connections to have your own projects produced. Heck, the school does that for you. So yeah, in most cases it doesn't matter, but in some very specific cases it does.
- aliston 8y ago
  My point is not that going to a top college isn't a great opportunity. My point is that for someone who could have gotten into Stanford, the actual admission it isn't defining. Someone with that sort of intelligence and drive will find a way to meet the future CEO, get a great job and so on regardless of whether they attend. I went to Stanford. I love my undergrad. But I also have faced plenty of rejection and adversity on the way and since graduating. What matters is how you respond to that rejection, which is what the struggle to earn admission reflects. Having your parents bail you out means you will never learn those lessons.
  - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
    You really believe that a person with the same intelligence and drive who goes to say Stanford vs a mid tier state university will have the same outcomes in life? Unless this person has an exceptional will, this will never be the case. The kind of network that you will probably build at Stanford without noticing is vastly superior to the one at a mid tier state university. You probably personally know many people who've started up XYZ company, work for FAANG, top hedge funds, scientists etc... No one is saying that life is easy for a Stanford graduate, i'm sure any ambitious person will face a ton of rejection in their life time regardless of where they went to school but a lot of doors will open for you in your life time just because you went to Stanford vs going to UC Irvine.
    - akhilcacharya 8y ago
      You're right. But I'm more curious as to the people that can't get into Stanford and have to go to lesser schools like I did - what exactly are we to do? It's pretty clear that our outcomes are not going to be as good by any means, and it seems like political correctness limits any discussion of that.
      - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
        It just means you are gonna have to initially work a bit harder, be a bit more resilient to rejection, and be a bit more creative in trying to build those networks. I.e You are going to have to force those doors to open for you.
        akhilcacharya 8y ago
        But yet...outcomes seem like they're destined to be worse overall.
        strikelaserclaw 8y ago
        If you discount that different people value different things in life, and take a viewpoint of money as being the sole measure of success, then the median Harvard salary after 10 years is like 90k? Certainly not every Stanford/Harvard/whatever graduate is killing it regardless of how many opportunities they have had. At the end of the day, success is really on an individual level. You make your own outcomes in this world. I could name countless people who've done very much without a degree from a prestigious university, David M. Solomon, the ceo of Goldman Sachs, Andy Rubin, etc... Certainly guys who went to HYP/X/Y/Z will have it easier in many regards, but you can also think of clawing your way to desired outcomes as teaching you life lessons that those guys will never have learned.
NavyNuke 8y ago
> If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. Many people are happy to take advantage of these unfair "bumps" that happen to be in their favor. Simply look at elite school admission rates by race and LSAT/GMAT/SAT/ACT scores [1]...you'll notice that it is a lot easier to get in if you're Black or Latino compared to Asian or White...Maybe they feel like they don't deserve it, maybe they do, who really knows? > ...which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world. The real world if full of unfair advantages metered out by race/gender/alma matter/cultural background/etc...Some people are fine taking advantage of it and some aren't...In the Navy they have something informally called the "Filipino Mafia" which basically means that there is an overrepresentation of Filipinos that kind of control things and give out good deals to fellow Filipinos...as a Filipino I sure as hell took advantage of this...I got the good assignments and the poor White kid with no racial support system in the Navy got stuck swabbing the deck...that is just how it goes...There are "good old boys" clubs, there are "diversity hires", as well as many other kinds of unfair, unjust, and undeserved rewards. That is the real world, racial groups sticking together, genders sticking together, rich people sticking together, etc... [1] https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sat-cutoff-scores-based-on-race/ https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sa...
- bright9as0 8y ago
  It may be "real world" but it's unfair and what you're suggesting is racist. Honestly if I were to join a "[race] mafia" like your "Filipino mafia" my family would shame me, because that's immoral. Just like those who joined the Nazis for professional advancement were supporting a racist system, even if they didn't personally commit crimes themselves. Hope you have some morals to not go along with those sort of systems.
britch 8y ago
> would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. I think a lot of people (arguably the majority of people) view a degree as a piece of paper you need for a job. What you learn doesn't matter as much as having a high GPA from the right school and getting a job. I think if you polled parents, it'd be a split of those willing to do fake scores, bribe officials, whatever it takes to give their kid a leg up. An officially sanctioned form of this is retaking standardized tests and super-scoring. For those who can afford it, you can retake the test as many times as it takes to get the score you "deserve." If you can't get the right score in one sitting, you can cherry pick the best scores from the 4 or 5 times you took the test. It defeats the whole purpose of a standardized test. It no longer a random sample of an estimate of a student's knowledge/ability. It's how well did you prepare. How much did you spend on tutors. How many times can you afford to take it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that SAT scores are all bullshit, especially for top schools.
- aliston 8y ago
  That’s a pretty miserable way of looking at the college experience. Anecdotally, most college students I’ve encountered care a great deal about what they learn and appreciate college for more than a rubber stamp. But, likely depends on where you go and who you’re associating with. The issue you raise with standardized testing could be addressed by subsidizing the cost for low income students or making the test free. The wealthy girl in the article apparently couldn’t get a good enough score regardless of how many times she could take the test. Personally I think we need some form of standardized testing because it’s the only standardized measurement tool that exists.
a3n 8y ago
> what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life? Maybe they don't think they're cheating. Maybe they've just grown up thinking they deserve whatever they can buy.

jedberg 8y ago

> The reality is that the college you attend, especially for undergrad, has relatively little bearing on your life as a whole. In most cases yes. But when we're talking about elite colleges, it has significant bearing. Living in the dorm with a future CEO may be helpful in your future job search, and if you go to an elite college, you have a much better chance of having done that. Going to Stanford or Berkeley or MIT or UW and doing CS there will mean that when you graduate, a whole lot of hiring managers will see that you attended the same college they did and give you an automatic boost. And if you go to USC film school, you're pretty much guaranteed to know someone who will one day be very successful in the film industry and will help you get jobs or connections to have your own projects produced. Heck, the school does that for you. So yeah, in most cases it doesn't matter, but in some very specific cases it does.

aliston 8y ago
My point is not that going to a top college isn't a great opportunity. My point is that for someone who could have gotten into Stanford, the actual admission it isn't defining. Someone with that sort of intelligence and drive will find a way to meet the future CEO, get a great job and so on regardless of whether they attend. I went to Stanford. I love my undergrad. But I also have faced plenty of rejection and adversity on the way and since graduating. What matters is how you respond to that rejection, which is what the struggle to earn admission reflects. Having your parents bail you out means you will never learn those lessons.
- strikelaserclaw 8y ago
  You really believe that a person with the same intelligence and drive who goes to say Stanford vs a mid tier state university will have the same outcomes in life? Unless this person has an exceptional will, this will never be the case. The kind of network that you will probably build at Stanford without noticing is vastly superior to the one at a mid tier state university. You probably personally know many people who've started up XYZ company, work for FAANG, top hedge funds, scientists etc... No one is saying that life is easy for a Stanford graduate, i'm sure any ambitious person will face a ton of rejection in their life time regardless of where they went to school but a lot of doors will open for you in your life time just because you went to Stanford vs going to UC Irvine.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    You're right. But I'm more curious as to the people that can't get into Stanford and have to go to lesser schools like I did - what exactly are we to do? It's pretty clear that our outcomes are not going to be as good by any means, and it seems like political correctness limits any discussion of that.
    - strikelaserclaw 8y ago
      It just means you are gonna have to initially work a bit harder, be a bit more resilient to rejection, and be a bit more creative in trying to build those networks. I.e You are going to have to force those doors to open for you.
      - akhilcacharya 8y ago
        But yet...outcomes seem like they're destined to be worse overall.
        strikelaserclaw 8y ago
        If you discount that different people value different things in life, and take a viewpoint of money as being the sole measure of success, then the median Harvard salary after 10 years is like 90k? Certainly not every Stanford/Harvard/whatever graduate is killing it regardless of how many opportunities they have had. At the end of the day, success is really on an individual level. You make your own outcomes in this world. I could name countless people who've done very much without a degree from a prestigious university, David M. Solomon, the ceo of Goldman Sachs, Andy Rubin, etc... Certainly guys who went to HYP/X/Y/Z will have it easier in many regards, but you can also think of clawing your way to desired outcomes as teaching you life lessons that those guys will never have learned.

NavyNuke 8y ago

> If you could get into USC with a ~1000 SAT score like Huffman's daughter, would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. Many people are happy to take advantage of these unfair "bumps" that happen to be in their favor. Simply look at elite school admission rates by race and LSAT/GMAT/SAT/ACT scores [1]...you'll notice that it is a lot easier to get in if you're Black or Latino compared to Asian or White...Maybe they feel like they don't deserve it, maybe they do, who really knows? > ...which is not a sustainable approach to life when you get into the real world. The real world if full of unfair advantages metered out by race/gender/alma matter/cultural background/etc...Some people are fine taking advantage of it and some aren't...In the Navy they have something informally called the "Filipino Mafia" which basically means that there is an overrepresentation of Filipinos that kind of control things and give out good deals to fellow Filipinos...as a Filipino I sure as hell took advantage of this...I got the good assignments and the poor White kid with no racial support system in the Navy got stuck swabbing the deck...that is just how it goes...There are "good old boys" clubs, there are "diversity hires", as well as many other kinds of unfair, unjust, and undeserved rewards. That is the real world, racial groups sticking together, genders sticking together, rich people sticking together, etc... [1] https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sat-cutoff-scores-based-on-race/ https://nypost.com/2018/10/17/harvards-gatekeeper-reveals-sa...

bright9as0 8y ago
It may be "real world" but it's unfair and what you're suggesting is racist. Honestly if I were to join a "[race] mafia" like your "Filipino mafia" my family would shame me, because that's immoral. Just like those who joined the Nazis for professional advancement were supporting a racist system, even if they didn't personally commit crimes themselves. Hope you have some morals to not go along with those sort of systems.

britch 8y ago

> would you even want to go? I wouldn't. It is shortchanging the achievement, and really missing the point of what admission to such a university represents. I think a lot of people (arguably the majority of people) view a degree as a piece of paper you need for a job. What you learn doesn't matter as much as having a high GPA from the right school and getting a job. I think if you polled parents, it'd be a split of those willing to do fake scores, bribe officials, whatever it takes to give their kid a leg up. An officially sanctioned form of this is retaking standardized tests and super-scoring. For those who can afford it, you can retake the test as many times as it takes to get the score you "deserve." If you can't get the right score in one sitting, you can cherry pick the best scores from the 4 or 5 times you took the test. It defeats the whole purpose of a standardized test. It no longer a random sample of an estimate of a student's knowledge/ability. It's how well did you prepare. How much did you spend on tutors. How many times can you afford to take it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that SAT scores are all bullshit, especially for top schools.

aliston 8y ago
That’s a pretty miserable way of looking at the college experience. Anecdotally, most college students I’ve encountered care a great deal about what they learn and appreciate college for more than a rubber stamp. But, likely depends on where you go and who you’re associating with. The issue you raise with standardized testing could be addressed by subsidizing the cost for low income students or making the test free. The wealthy girl in the article apparently couldn’t get a good enough score regardless of how many times she could take the test. Personally I think we need some form of standardized testing because it’s the only standardized measurement tool that exists.

a3n 8y ago

> what about the message this sends to the kids that it's OK to cheat your way through life? Maybe they don't think they're cheating. Maybe they've just grown up thinking they deserve whatever they can buy.