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Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?
- resalisbury 8y agoFrom the article: "It may be legal to pledge $2.5 million to Harvard just as your son is applying — which is what Jared Kushner’s father did for him — and illegal to bribe a coach to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, but how much of a difference is there, really? Both elevate money over accomplishment."
- massivecali 8y agoThe first is for the benefit of all the other students in the form of reduced tuition grants, a new library, lab equipment etc. The other is for the benefit of the bribe taker. There are lots of situations that elevate X over accomplishment, but this seems like one with actual benefit on a large scale. That said, I hope they all get punished for it.
- YeahSureWhyNot 8y agoI dont think a monetary donation means a new lab or a library for all students to use that otherwise would have not been built. these universities have excess budget and easily afford to carry out new construction and procurement as planned regardless of donations. Im sure if the said parent had not donated the 2.5 million dollars, not a single thing would have been different for the students. not one.
- smallgovt 8y ago>> I'm sure if the said parent had not donated the 2.5 million dollars, not a single thing would have been different for the students. Not one. That's definitely false. Most universities tie annual endowment spending to total endowment size. Just because you can't directly tie the dollars to a specific project, doesn't mean it didn't contribute to the general student body's quality of education.
- cshimmin 8y agoWhat are you talking about, of course sourcing new endowments allows them to build more things/provide more services/etc. Approximately half of Yale's operating budget comes from revenue generated by its hospital system (which is a whole 'nother contentious issue, but besides the point). The other half largely comes from drawing a "safe amount" on it's endowment principal, i.e., small enough to be sustainable in the long term without depleting the fund. A relatively small part comes from tuition. Obviously, increasing the endowment (be it $2.5MM or $250MM at a time) increases the amount that can be put towards budgeting in the future -- enabling, for example, the University to grow its student body (which Yale is currently doing) while maintaining the ability to privately subsidize student tuition.
- magpi3 8y agoIf the bribe taker donated all of the money to charity, would that make it any less unethical for the University/basketball coach? A bribe is a bribe, and the spot that was taken in the University could have and should have gone to someone more deserving.
- EpicEng 8y ago>If the bribe taker donated all of the money to charity, would that make it any less unethical for the University/basketball coach Yes, it would. That wouldn't make it ethical or legal of course.
- smallgovt 8y agoThis is a classical "ends justify means" argument. Though most people won't admit it, I think it's a valid argument, but requires a rather perverse value system.
- dakial1 8y agoPeople who claim that top schools have excess budget have no idea how expensive it is to run them. Pledges are a total ok way of funding scholarships and other benefits for the student community on those schools. One "stupid rich" student enabling "smart poor" ones.
- zarkov99 8y agoIf the money goes towards scholarships for the deserving but poor its a good trade. Less so if it ends up in the pockets of corrupt paper pushers.
- 0_gravitas 8y agoAnd if I had to bet I would put money on the money not 'trickling down' as we would hope.
- cshimmin 8y agoAbout 65% of students at Yale receive need-based financial aid from the University. Students coming from households making less than $65k don't pay anything at all for tuition/room/board. So clearly some of that endowment money is "trickling down". Source: https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability
- whatshisface 8y agoAt the university of Whatshisface, tuition is $10^12/semester, and everyone receives $(10^12-10^3)/semester in needs-based financial aid. I assure you that I have a karmatic license to do anything I want - after all, summed across all students I give more than the GDP of many small countries.
- cshimmin 8y agoRight... From the stats from Yale linked above, the median net cost after financial aid is $12.5k. That's a lot less than I paid to go to a public university. As for a "license to do anything", it's not clear what exactly you're complaining about here? They get some money through non-merit based admissions, sure, and then use the money to build nice things for students, and to help cover most students' tuitions. The point of this thread is that there's a difference between private schools accepting donations for this purpose, vs. corrupt individuals accepting bribes. The latter case benefits only the unmeritious student and the corrupt individual, and not the university has a whole.
- burtonator 8y agoHow about completely blind job admissions, school admissions, etc. No names, no race, no age, etc. Just raw test scores. Test them against problem solving skills objectively, etc.
- mehrdadn 8y agoI mean this still disadvantages poorer people, who don't have money to fund their kids' preparations for exams. The point of holistic admissions is to try to factor things like that in.
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- gph 8y agoGoodheart's law. Besides what employer wants to hire someone based just on their intelligence scores? If someone is an uncooperative egoist prick I don't think many companies will want to hire them no matter their test scores.
- bobthepanda 8y agoPure test prioritization also encourages rote learning and optimizing for the test, which is not great for creativity.
- skrap 8y agoDid you read the article? The fixer just paid the folks administering the test to let someone else take it, or to let them fix the answers after the fact. Also, agree with the person who mentioned Goodhart's Law.
- LanceH 8y agoDo you really think these schools would have the same prestige and endowments if money and connections didn't get peole in? People want the prestige and connections of a legacy/endowment driven school, but don't seem to realize that it comes with legacy admissions.
- SlipperySlope 8y agoPrivate colleges should be free to charge rich kids lots more, and let them in even if they are dumb. Someone has to get the low grades and why not a rich dumb kid that pulls the grading bell curve down. Plus the rich kid could meet smart kids in class and later fund their startups.
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- 40acres 8y agoThis is why, to me, the entire debate about affirmative action at elite colleges is a complete red herring. The amount of kids, regardless of race, who can be considered "deserving" of a spot has been reduced more so by legacy admissions and these bribes than by any effort of individual institutions to even out racial or gender demographics.
- NavyNuke 8y agoThat is why it stings for poor or working class Asians and non-Jewish Whites...you don't get the affirmative action or legacy leg up...
- jachee 8y agoOi. What's with the antisemitism?
- NavyNuke 8y agoUh...that wasn't antisemetic...when talking about Ivy league representation, Jews are disproportionately represented which is why I distinguished between "Jewish Whites" and Non-Jewish Whites...
- jachee 8y agoBigger question: Why bring race up at all, then? Class has demonstrably larger effect. The 1% are very disproportionately represented in the Ivy League, too.
- mikemotherwell 8y agoIs that how the system works? I'm not American, but it seems like race does get factored in. Or am I just sorely mistaken?
- _red 8y agoA couple of interesting questions: 1. Is being Jewish a race or a religion? 2. Being Jewish is also strongly correlated to class. 44% of Jews earn 100K+. Thats compared to ~20% for Christian, 19% Catholic, 20% Islam. (Interestingly Hindus are close at 36%). Source: http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/income-distribution/ http://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/income-dis...
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoIts called a "return on investment". You don't 'donate' millions of dollars, and have a building named after you out of love for education. You do it for your name, your legacy, and to guarantee spots for your family.
- solomatov 8y agoThe article isn't about this. It's about literal bribes.
- crankylinuxuser 8y agoAnd "Donations" like what I describe aren't bribes? This is only slightly different classes of bribes. They both are bribes.
- mehrdadn 8y ago> slightly different This is ridiculous. One benefits lots of students, one benefits just your kid.
- an-allen 8y agoThe whole plot seems pretty stupid to me. I mean if I am a college admissions official for Yale and I see an application with an essay about what the real story of growing up as William H Macy's kid is - the kid is getting in regardless of how stupid a standardised test makes them appear to be.
- burtonator 8y agoMy company foolishly donated data to Stanford for nearly a decade. We asked them for an 'in kind' license to OpenNLP and were basically completely rebuffed. They're taking in money hand over fist. We need to stop thinking of these as universities anymore. They're cash cows...
- Simulacra 8y agoTax their endowments.
- phonon 8y agoDo you mean https://github.com/stanfordnlp/CoreNLP https://github.com/stanfordnlp/CoreNLP ? Why would you expect them to relicense GPL libre software to you? What does "in kind" mean?
- nordsieck 8y ago> What does "in kind" mean? in-kind (adj): consisting of something (such as goods or commodities) other than money https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in-kind https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in-kind
- phonon 8y agoI scored a 800 V on my SAT, I'm familiar with the term. In this context, what does it mean? Equity? Code contribution? Training data?
- hannasanarion 8y agoHe's asking, how do you give a good as a gift or payment that is public, free, and open? It's like asking for an "in kind" license to the Declaration of Independence, it just makes no sense.
- solomatov 8y agoThey mention on their site that they can give it to you under a commercial license. In order to contribute to it, you should follow their CLA: https://github.com/stanfordnlp/CoreNLP/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md https://github.com/stanfordnlp/CoreNLP/blob/master/CONTRIBUT... which transfers copyright to them.
- DigiMortal 8y agoI personally know some that have paid 100k+ to get into ivy league school
- LarryDarrell 8y agoMeritocracy for thee, but not for me. As the upper echelons continue to cordon off segments of the economy and education for just themselves, will the "Bootstraps and Personal Responsibility" mythology finally start to die out?
- steve76 8y agoI'm a heart surgeon! I can't find work because, ... you know ... ... ... the rich!
- maxxxxx 8y agoWe are in the process of building up a new aristocracy. This process has repeated itself over all of history.
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoHell yea, look at our presidents, we got legacy admissions for the biggest job in America.
- maxxxxx 8y agoIt would be nice if somebody like Truman got elected. Somebody who had real experience how the regular citizen lives.
- InitialLastName 8y agoYou're right. Now, if only we could agree on what the "regular citizen's" life looks like. a) It's probably a woman, since they're the majority of the population and have a distinctly different life experience to men b) It's probably someone who lives in a city, since that was 80% of Americans in the 2010 census.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI would be happy if that person didn’t come from an Ivy League school and whose parents aren’t multimillionaires.
- jcadam 8y agoJust reinforces my belief that an ivy league degree is much more an indicator of socioeconomic class than it is intelligence or aptitude.
- bobthepanda 8y agoAs of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. The mode was an A. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/04/harvard-colleges-median-grade-is-an-a-dean-admits/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a8ff4f750887 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/... Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason.
- anoncoward111 8y agoAgree. Anecdotally, I had a sales manager who graduated from Harvard. He was literally no different from any corporate manager I've ever had and just parroted whatever unattainable goals trickled down from the top, providing no clear way to meet said goals
- maxxxxx 8y agoI have worked with people from MIT media lab. I didn't notice them being better than any other engineer. The VCs loved them though and talked pretty much only to them when they visited.
- tehlike 8y agoTry mit csail, or some other depts. Some undergrads in particular made me feel rather stupid :)
- lcuff 8y agoIt's a bizarre situation. In grad school, at least where I went (no place elite), a 'C' was a failing grade, because we were supposed to be doing outstanding work by virtue of being in grad school. I suppose elite schools could argue analogously. "Being here means your work is top drawer". Personally I'd solve the problem by giving written evaluations, which is what my undergrad school did. Useful, nuanced information.
- smallgovt 8y agoA smaller subset of this problem is paying people to take standardized tests for you. I graduated from an ivy and had a couple peers who got a perfect score on their SAT's but could only speak broken English. If you're willing to pay someone to cheat on standardized tests, I'm not surprised you're willing to bribe someone to gain admissions also.
- rtpg 8y agoYou can totally get a perfect score in the SATs and have bad spoken English. Having trouble speaking a language is only loosely correlated to being able to understand written language, especially when it’s language of tests. People who have gone through learning a second language seriously get this. The SATs are also stupidly easy compared to entrance exams in any other place on the planet. If you are gifted and study seriously for a week you can get yourself a very good score no problem I’m sure that there are cheaters, but if your reference is “bad spoken English” that’s not at all conclusive
- zachguo 8y agoI know you are referring to Chinese students. But the reality is that SAT and GRE are stupidly easy, especially math. Almost every Chinese student I know achieved full score in GRE math, and yes, more than half of them spoke broken English.
- smallgovt 8y agoI'm in no way implying my anecdata is conclusive, but I'm mainly suspicious of the verbal scores. And, if the verbal section of the SAT is stupidly easy, I guess I'm stupid, shucks :(.
- apta 8y agoIt doesn't have to be bribing others to take the exam for you. I heard that they write down the questions they got asked during the Verbal part of the exam and collect them so other students can memorize them and get good scores. It's been happening for quite a long time actually, a professor of mine told me the same when he went to school in the 80s or so. On a side note, the notion that a private company conducts all these tests for profit in order for students to get admission into schools quite bizarre and laughable to say the least.
- guelo 8y ago"I bet that more than a few of those charged are proud liberals" WTF!? Just a random dig at liberals based on nothing. Right-wing ideologues have convinced themselves that liberals are all "rich elites" when available evidence is that wealthier people are more conservative.
- h3ckr 8y agoIs it really surprising that the upper class is isolating itself from the rest, as the gap gets bigger and bigger in time? That happens in all areas of life, school included. The admission system of many universities just makes this very easy.
- paulkon 8y agoIf the goal is to graduate alumni which will donate the largest amounts, then a large donation up-front from a well-connected individual is one such filter which achieves that goal without delay.
- cwkoss 8y agoIt's exciting that the national conversation is finally becoming directed at classism.
- grecy 8y agoAmerican society functions on bribery, and anyone that thinks otherwise simply has their eyes closed. "Contributing" to a congressman is literally giving them money so they make decisions favorable to you. That is identical to me giving a policeman $50 to look the other way. Unlimited campaign contributions is just newspeak for "legal bribery".
- SlumptonFidget 8y agoYour "legal bribery" is another's first amendment right to support someone else's candidacy. Or so I was once told.
- grecy 8y agoOf course. In America money is speech, another indicator that the entire society is built around the idea that money can get you what you want.
- nr0man1011 8y agoSUCK MY FUCKING DICK YOU CORRUPT POS MOD
- oyebenny 8y agoI'm sad to say that I know one of these students that had it arranged for them through what might have been this service.
- dsiegel2275 8y agoIt is sad to think that for every one of these students that got in this way, another deserving applicant got denied.
- yodon 8y agoI used to have a lot of friends in the MIT admissions office. They felt tremendous pride working at a school that didn't give precedence to legacy admits or children of donors (the quote I remember was "if you give a building, when your son or daughter is turned down for admittance you get a phone call from a Vice President telling you the news" instead of just a form letter).
- guga42k 8y agoDo you expect them to tell you that they are taking bribes to admit certain students?
- lembandro 8y agoThe discussion about 'who deserves a spot at a prestigious university x' misses the issue. Acceptance at one of these universities is not based on who is the most intelligent, hardworking, or accomplished. These universities, just like any other institutions, have their own goals and agenda. They accept you not because you deserve it or you have earned it, but because accepting you promotes the kind of ideals that these institutions espouse (e.g. money, but could also be racial diversity). Inferring someone's intelligence based on their university, therefore, is highly unreliable at best.
- bsanr 8y agoThe question that always occurs to me when these kinds of discussions come up is why there is such a huge disparity between educational institutions in this country in the first place. If schools were funded to meet a certain level of performance, instead of based on who was attending or on past performance - like the military is funded - maybe that would be a step in the right direction.
- sjg007 8y agoCouple of reasons.. class sizes, access to cutting edge technology and research and professors. Undergrad is probably more uniform except for some degree requirements etc... at a smaller school you may get more hand holding or at least a concerned advisor. At a bigger school that may be impossible. Not to mention your peer group.
- strikelaserclaw 8y agoOut of all my classmates that went to really prestigious schools, like 20% were genuinely a cut above the rest. The other 80% just gamed everything, taking easier AP classes to boost GPA, random "resume" building activities, these folks just left a sour impression on me.
- j-c-hewitt 8y agoWhat does this mean for the future of fake sports that no one watches or cares about that exist purely to help students from a certain class get into prestige schools?
- dang 8y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19368815
- Tsubasachan 8y agoThis seems inevitable to me when your university is funded by private money and donations.