5 ms·

College admissions scandal fallout: Stanford students sue UCLA, USC and Yale

41 points by ilamont 8y ago

akhilcacharya 8y ago
Someone at Stanford suing because they couldn’t get into Yale honestly sounds post-satire. Stanford is pretty universally considered better...and if it isn’t it’s the same. This sort of lawsuit sounds insulting to people like me who had no chance at any of the above.
- lgleason 8y ago
  Exactly. Sounds like someone trying to go for a big payout.
- nafizh 8y ago
  Stanford is also included in the lawsuit. And it is not about getting admission, it's about the application fee they paid without getting a fair process. Read the article.
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    I’ve never applied to a school without an application fee. I wasted $240 on schools I didn’t go to and $160 on schools I didn’t get into. I know lots of folks that got fee waivers too. It comes with the territory.
  - debt 8y ago
    I mean in light of the scandal the fee seems mostly symbolic.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Have they ever been to New Haven? Yeah, the whole affair is beyond yuck but even if you're mostly OK with all the other ways that college admissions isn't some perfect meritocratic process, this suit is beyond silly.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Who says they are mostly okay with the other problems? OTOH, the other problems mostly don't violate the law, so there is no legal remedy.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      I am mostly OK with a lot of things factoring into college admissions including legacies etc.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        Unless you are one of the two names plaintiffs in the lawsuit, I'm not sure how that's relevant here.
        ghaff 8y ago
        “They” referred to people generally, not the students filing the lawsuit.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        The implication of hypocrisy only works for people on record supporting the suit, if it works at all. Which, IMO, it doesn't anyway, since the other things you mention are generally overt parts of the admission process, and thus factually distinguishable from the undisclosed distortion at issue in the suit, in ways which can reasonably viewed as relevant to both the deceptive trade practices law on which the claims against the universities in the suit are based and the reasonable ethical principle that it is unethical to p accept payment resulting from false representations one has made regarding a service one is selling, and that such ill-gotten gains should be disgorged when discovered even if the false representation was not intentionally false.
- phlakaton 8y ago
  Maybe not universally: https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-high-school-senior-choose-Yale-over-Stanford https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-high-school-senior-choose-... It's the student that chose Stanford as a fallback from USC that has me scratching my head. Different strokes I guess. :-)
  - akhilcacharya 8y ago
    Reading these sorts of posts Quora is already a fascinating window into the elites. Truly amazing how different their bubbles are.
lgleason 8y ago
I'm a little confused with this one. It would be one thing if these students didn't make it into an ivy league college because of this....but they did. A class action is good, but seems like it would be more powerful if it was students who did not make it into and Ivy.
- ryanhuff 8y ago
  The article explains the rationale. If I was one of the students who played by the rules, and found out that somebody sitting next to me in class got a pass, I'd be upset. And, now, who's to say that somebody won't question every Stanford grad whether they really qualified? It tarnishes the brand that these students bought in to.
  - abtinf 8y ago
    Of course, this is the exact same issue created by affirmative action/diversity/inclusivity campaigns.
    - kxyvr 8y ago
      No, it's not. I worked with a diversity program associated graduate programs at an "elite" university, so I have some insight into the application process, which differs from undergraduate admissions. The first golden rule in these programs is never go after nor accept any student that is not qualified for the program. This does not benefit anyone. It doesn't benefit the student because they will ultimately fail. It doesn't benefit the department because they lose a slot for the student and the time investment. It doesn't benefit the school because it harms its reputation. Within the program that I worked, the idea that we had lax or easier admissions criteria for underrepresented students is categorically false and I mean this is the strongest possible sense. Alright, so what did the program provide? A variety of things, but largely a support system for students who did not have peers from the same cultural background, which is important when you move away from your support system. It also provided resources for us to recruit at conferences, schools, and events that were overlooked by the departments themselves. Finally, it provided money to the departments assist in the cost of the tuition waivers for the students. And, look, these programs are not perfect. However, let me be extremely clear, any notion that these students were not qualified and somehow tarnished the brand of the university are false. They were and are good and have been an asset to the university as well as their employers after graduation.
pyronite 8y ago
This hardly seems right – UCLA, USC and Yale are victims of the bad actors involved just as much as the students are. I haven't seen any indication that the colleges involved were aware this was happening in a way they overlooked. You can file a lawsuit for anything in the United States. I would love to hear how this lawsuit isn't frivolous or (at worst) searching for a payday.
- teej 8y ago
  Given that some of the bad actors worked for the universities, specifically athletic staff taking bribes, I think it’s not crazy to sue them.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    Athletics has been a hotbed of corruption for decades; it's surprising there isn't closer monitoring there. On the other hand, rowing....
- zelon88 8y ago
  Maybe the universities should have some system in place to catch this behavior. You can't be in the industry for that many years and be surprised by it's dark side. The colleges knew about it and looked the other way. There's no two ways about it. Do you really think they bought the photoshopped pictures and fabricated high school transcripts? Is there no due diligence required on their part to vet their self-declared athletes before admitting them? Everyone else jumps through hoops to provide all the data needed to submit an application. This has been going on for how long and admissions department never once found this scandal before now? Isn't that literally, in every sense, their job? What else does admissions do other than vet potential students? They are guilty and my guess would be a lawsuit discovers as much. If not they are still responsible for complacency and should be punished.
- will_brown 8y ago
  >I haven't seen any indication that the colleges involved were aware this was happening in a way they overlooked. No doubt the colleges involved are aware when someone is admitted whose credentials don’t measure up. That’s not something the colleges can bury there head in the sand about. We are talking about billion dollar institutions with entire admissions departments that pride themselves on a standard of student...you can’t just say in some instances rouge actors took bribes to allow students in school and no one knew anything about it.
DoubleCribble 8y ago
What standing could these students possibly have? They didn't get in to all the colleges they wanted to because the admissions process wasn't "fair"? It never was fair nor does any admissions office I've ever heard of claim to be.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > What standing could these students possibly have? The fact that they paid for something, via the application fee, that was advertised with features it doesn't have, and the fact that there are consumer protection laws that call that a deceptive trade practice and provide a remedy for it. (Also, the lawsuit is much broader than the universities and includes claims, including civil RICO pclaims, against the parties more directly involved in the core bribery scandal.)
  - DoubleCribble 8y ago
    What features didn't the application process have? Every college I've ever seen advertises "diversity" in their admissions process. If we peek under that diversity umbrella, we can see: Legacy, Donors Kids, Athletes, Full-Tuition Payers, Hard-Luck-Feel-Good-Stories, Employees' Children, Political Backscratching & everyone else. Please show me one college that says "we _only_ use this list of criteria to determine admission". None do because they need the wiggle room for the aforementioned higher-value candidates. New buildings/NCAA titles/Sponsored Chairs don't cost nothin'!
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > What features didn't the application process have? See Count II of the suit, commencing on p.21, and the preceding factual allegations referenced within that Count. https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/College-Suit.pdf https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Co...
      - DoubleCribble 8y ago
neonate 8y ago
https://outline.com/sCMqJj https://outline.com/sCMqJj
jkravitz61 8y ago
It would be very poetic if it turns out that one of these students actually had their test scores flipped by their parents without their knowledge.
- moftz 8y ago
  Most schools require the organization that administers the exam to send the official scores. I can't imagine any school worth going to would allow for self-reporting of scores. It seems like the guy in charge of all of this had everyone from the exam proctors to heads of athletic departments to look the other way or just out right lie. I would be extremely pissed if I had been given an SAT or ACT by either of those two exam proctors, my college would instantly have a good reason to be suspicious about my exam scores. I doubt these kids did any of the actual college application. If you are paying that much to get your kid into school, you are paying for someone to fill in the app, take the exams, write a bogus personal statement, and to pay off anyone to vouch for the lies. It's probably very turn key, you write a check and your kid gets an acceptance letter in the mail 6 months later. I'm sure these kids aren't in regular highschool either, they probably have "tutors" faking homeschool transcripts and credits for them. I wonder how well these kids do in college if they had to fake their application so badly.
wiggumspiggums 8y ago
I like that these students are making a statement and trying to put pressure on universities to have greater integrity and accountability for making admissions truly merit based.
Simulacra 8y ago
Something else that's not mentioned here which I've seen in other coverage is the issue of financial aid. Students who did not require financial aid were given preference over more qualified students, simply because they could afford the full ride in cash. Had I known this when applying for college, I would've checked no on the financial aid intention.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

41 points by ilamont 8y ago

Someone at Stanford suing because they couldn’t get into Yale honestly sounds post-satire. Stanford is pretty universally considered better...and if it isn’t it’s the same. This sort of lawsuit sounds insulting to people like me who had no chance at any of the above.

lgleason 8y ago
Exactly. Sounds like someone trying to go for a big payout.
nafizh 8y ago
Stanford is also included in the lawsuit. And it is not about getting admission, it's about the application fee they paid without getting a fair process. Read the article.
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  I’ve never applied to a school without an application fee. I wasted $240 on schools I didn’t go to and $160 on schools I didn’t get into. I know lots of folks that got fee waivers too. It comes with the territory.
- debt 8y ago
  I mean in light of the scandal the fee seems mostly symbolic.
ghaff 8y ago
Have they ever been to New Haven? Yeah, the whole affair is beyond yuck but even if you're mostly OK with all the other ways that college admissions isn't some perfect meritocratic process, this suit is beyond silly.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Who says they are mostly okay with the other problems? OTOH, the other problems mostly don't violate the law, so there is no legal remedy.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    I am mostly OK with a lot of things factoring into college admissions including legacies etc.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      Unless you are one of the two names plaintiffs in the lawsuit, I'm not sure how that's relevant here.
      - ghaff 8y ago
        “They” referred to people generally, not the students filing the lawsuit.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        The implication of hypocrisy only works for people on record supporting the suit, if it works at all. Which, IMO, it doesn't anyway, since the other things you mention are generally overt parts of the admission process, and thus factually distinguishable from the undisclosed distortion at issue in the suit, in ways which can reasonably viewed as relevant to both the deceptive trade practices law on which the claims against the universities in the suit are based and the reasonable ethical principle that it is unethical to p accept payment resulting from false representations one has made regarding a service one is selling, and that such ill-gotten gains should be disgorged when discovered even if the false representation was not intentionally false.
phlakaton 8y ago
Maybe not universally: https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-high-school-senior-choose-Yale-over-Stanford https://www.quora.com/Why-would-a-high-school-senior-choose-... It's the student that chose Stanford as a fallback from USC that has me scratching my head. Different strokes I guess. :-)
- akhilcacharya 8y ago
  Reading these sorts of posts Quora is already a fascinating window into the elites. Truly amazing how different their bubbles are.

lgleason 8y ago

I'm a little confused with this one. It would be one thing if these students didn't make it into an ivy league college because of this....but they did. A class action is good, but seems like it would be more powerful if it was students who did not make it into and Ivy.

ryanhuff 8y ago
The article explains the rationale. If I was one of the students who played by the rules, and found out that somebody sitting next to me in class got a pass, I'd be upset. And, now, who's to say that somebody won't question every Stanford grad whether they really qualified? It tarnishes the brand that these students bought in to.
- abtinf 8y ago
  Of course, this is the exact same issue created by affirmative action/diversity/inclusivity campaigns.
  - kxyvr 8y ago
    No, it's not. I worked with a diversity program associated graduate programs at an "elite" university, so I have some insight into the application process, which differs from undergraduate admissions. The first golden rule in these programs is never go after nor accept any student that is not qualified for the program. This does not benefit anyone. It doesn't benefit the student because they will ultimately fail. It doesn't benefit the department because they lose a slot for the student and the time investment. It doesn't benefit the school because it harms its reputation. Within the program that I worked, the idea that we had lax or easier admissions criteria for underrepresented students is categorically false and I mean this is the strongest possible sense. Alright, so what did the program provide? A variety of things, but largely a support system for students who did not have peers from the same cultural background, which is important when you move away from your support system. It also provided resources for us to recruit at conferences, schools, and events that were overlooked by the departments themselves. Finally, it provided money to the departments assist in the cost of the tuition waivers for the students. And, look, these programs are not perfect. However, let me be extremely clear, any notion that these students were not qualified and somehow tarnished the brand of the university are false. They were and are good and have been an asset to the university as well as their employers after graduation.

pyronite 8y ago

This hardly seems right – UCLA, USC and Yale are victims of the bad actors involved just as much as the students are. I haven't seen any indication that the colleges involved were aware this was happening in a way they overlooked. You can file a lawsuit for anything in the United States. I would love to hear how this lawsuit isn't frivolous or (at worst) searching for a payday.

teej 8y ago
Given that some of the bad actors worked for the universities, specifically athletic staff taking bribes, I think it’s not crazy to sue them.
- mcguire 8y ago
  Athletics has been a hotbed of corruption for decades; it's surprising there isn't closer monitoring there. On the other hand, rowing....
zelon88 8y ago
Maybe the universities should have some system in place to catch this behavior. You can't be in the industry for that many years and be surprised by it's dark side. The colleges knew about it and looked the other way. There's no two ways about it. Do you really think they bought the photoshopped pictures and fabricated high school transcripts? Is there no due diligence required on their part to vet their self-declared athletes before admitting them? Everyone else jumps through hoops to provide all the data needed to submit an application. This has been going on for how long and admissions department never once found this scandal before now? Isn't that literally, in every sense, their job? What else does admissions do other than vet potential students? They are guilty and my guess would be a lawsuit discovers as much. If not they are still responsible for complacency and should be punished.
will_brown 8y ago
>I haven't seen any indication that the colleges involved were aware this was happening in a way they overlooked. No doubt the colleges involved are aware when someone is admitted whose credentials don’t measure up. That’s not something the colleges can bury there head in the sand about. We are talking about billion dollar institutions with entire admissions departments that pride themselves on a standard of student...you can’t just say in some instances rouge actors took bribes to allow students in school and no one knew anything about it.

DoubleCribble 8y ago

What standing could these students possibly have? They didn't get in to all the colleges they wanted to because the admissions process wasn't "fair"? It never was fair nor does any admissions office I've ever heard of claim to be.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> What standing could these students possibly have? The fact that they paid for something, via the application fee, that was advertised with features it doesn't have, and the fact that there are consumer protection laws that call that a deceptive trade practice and provide a remedy for it. (Also, the lawsuit is much broader than the universities and includes claims, including civil RICO pclaims, against the parties more directly involved in the core bribery scandal.)
- DoubleCribble 8y ago
  What features didn't the application process have? Every college I've ever seen advertises "diversity" in their admissions process. If we peek under that diversity umbrella, we can see: Legacy, Donors Kids, Athletes, Full-Tuition Payers, Hard-Luck-Feel-Good-Stories, Employees' Children, Political Backscratching & everyone else. Please show me one college that says "we _only_ use this list of criteria to determine admission". None do because they need the wiggle room for the aforementioned higher-value candidates. New buildings/NCAA titles/Sponsored Chairs don't cost nothin'!
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > What features didn't the application process have? See Count II of the suit, commencing on p.21, and the preceding factual allegations referenced within that Count. https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/College-Suit.pdf https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Co...
    - DoubleCribble 8y ago

neonate 8y ago

https://outline.com/sCMqJj https://outline.com/sCMqJj

jkravitz61 8y ago

It would be very poetic if it turns out that one of these students actually had their test scores flipped by their parents without their knowledge.

moftz 8y ago
Most schools require the organization that administers the exam to send the official scores. I can't imagine any school worth going to would allow for self-reporting of scores. It seems like the guy in charge of all of this had everyone from the exam proctors to heads of athletic departments to look the other way or just out right lie. I would be extremely pissed if I had been given an SAT or ACT by either of those two exam proctors, my college would instantly have a good reason to be suspicious about my exam scores. I doubt these kids did any of the actual college application. If you are paying that much to get your kid into school, you are paying for someone to fill in the app, take the exams, write a bogus personal statement, and to pay off anyone to vouch for the lies. It's probably very turn key, you write a check and your kid gets an acceptance letter in the mail 6 months later. I'm sure these kids aren't in regular highschool either, they probably have "tutors" faking homeschool transcripts and credits for them. I wonder how well these kids do in college if they had to fake their application so badly.

wiggumspiggums 8y ago

I like that these students are making a statement and trying to put pressure on universities to have greater integrity and accountability for making admissions truly merit based.

Simulacra 8y ago

Something else that's not mentioned here which I've seen in other coverage is the issue of financial aid. Students who did not require financial aid were given preference over more qualified students, simply because they could afford the full ride in cash. Had I known this when applying for college, I would've checked no on the financial aid intention.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]