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UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

• rlewkov 6y ago
  Shocking, just shocking .... NOT
• nirajd 6y ago
  Not surprising at all; however, I am curious how someone who didn't meet the admissions criteria is able to graduate CAL with a passing GPA...
  • dpflan 6y ago
    I presume they are average students or pick an easy route through the school, considering they had an _easy_ route into the school.
    • dpflan 6y ago
      FTA: an example: """In regard to this engineering applicant, the associate dean stated that he was concerned that the applicant’s math test scores were low, but when he considered those scores together with the applicant’s holistic rating and GPA, he believed that the applicant would be successful as an engineering major and admitted the applicant. """
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  • phone8675309 6y ago
    If they can manage to make "student athletes" pass classes they’ve never been to (and who they pay tuition for) then how hard do you think it would be for someone that’s actually paying to go there?
  • sokoloff 6y ago
    For most top schools, getting in is much harder than graduating for a student who would remotely reasonably consider the school. In this case, the students are alleged to have been less qualified which does not imply unqualified.
  • andreilys 6y ago
    Colleges rarely if ever fail students. There’s a known phenomenon of grade curving (adding +x% to exams if it was difficult for some students) which I never understood during my time in higher education. Yet it makes sense because universities want to lessen liabilities and have rich alum give back (esp. the case with the children of wealthy donors).
    • babesh 6y ago
      I went to Berkeley and this wasn’t true for Berkeley. Popular majors were very competitive and were designed to filter students out of majors. Many classes were based on a curve such that effectively 1/3 of people ended up at least leaving the major. Sample popular majors: computer science, chemical engineering, molecular cell biology. I knew of at least one person who effectively failed out after one semester and of community college transfers in danger of failing out.
      • kenhwang 6y ago
        Same experience at my UC. Popular/impacted major courses aren't even allowed to curve up (only down). The universities will defend the reputation of their top majors by aggressively filtering out people not meeting the bar. It's not unheard of for a majority of a class to be given non-passing marks, and it's in their financial interest to do so since the student will have to retake the class, thus pay more in tuition. They'd just rather you waste your time and money in an non-impacted major (and so it doesn't impact their graduation rate stat used for major rankings). Definitely have my share of friends that did 6-8 year stints at the UC for a 4-year degree from constantly failing out of classes, but never forced out.
  • currymj 6y ago
    i guarantee you there are a number of people every year who get rejected from Berkeley but accepted to Stanford (or equivalent) -- just a lot of noise in the process and after a certain point it becomes pretty arbitrary. i bet this fact is how the admissions officials rationalized this corruption -- if the line between acceptance and rejection is arbitrary anyway, how much worse could it be to try to get some money out of it? (a lot worse)
    • curiousllama 6y ago
      > Just a lot of noise in the process Agreed. I was accepted to a top-5 school and rejected from more than one school ranked 25+ (one was >50). I know someone for grad school applied to 5 schools: they got rejected from all 5 schools, reapplied the next year, and got accepted to 3/5.
  • criddell 6y ago
    The admissions criteria for universities don't make a lot of sense. The standardized tests select for students that are good at writing those tests. Malcolm Gladwell (yeah, yeah, I know) did a podcast series about the admissions process for law schools and the role that test taking speed plays in the admission process. This is one of the papers he referenced: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=facpub https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
  • fiftyfifty 6y ago
    One of my kids applied to Cal a few years back...at Cal you apply to the individual college (such as the college of engineering) when you apply. Some colleges are much easier to get into than others and it's very difficult to change colleges once you are admitted, it's like applying to get into the school all over again. Obviously getting into the CS or Engineering programs at Cal is very hard but many of the other programs are much less competitive. I don't know if that's how all the UC schools are or not, but the difficulty of admissions seems like a mixed bag at UC Berkley.
  • vkou 6y ago
    Admissions is a rat race, where you have to run as fast as you can just to keep up. You may have a 4.0 GPA, and 1550 on your SAT, and are the quarterback of the hockey team, but you'll be passed over for someone with a 4.0 GPA and a 1550 SAT, who is both the quarterback of the hockey team, AND spent three weeks building orphanages in East Oblastan. Once you're admitted, you no longer need to participate in the rat race. You just need to meet the criteria for passing your classes, which do not scale up, just because the person sitting next to you in lecture is an orphanage-builder.
  • redwood 6y ago
    Easier majors
• MiroF 6y ago
  Good thing affirmative action is illegal at least /s
  • google234123 6y ago
    You want racial discrimination to be legalize in California?
• phone8675309 6y ago
  In other news, water is still wet. Welcome to the US. They call it the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it.
• whalesalad 6y ago
  I am really impressed by the reporting format here. The illustrations are fantastic.
  • blakesterz 6y ago
    Wow. I wasn't really sure what to expect, but you're right. Whoever designed this did a GREAT job.
    • kneel 6y ago
      Academia is filled with administrators who make powerpoint presentations, it's not a complete waste.
      • compiler-guy 6y ago
        It was not written by anyone in academia. It was written by the Auditors of the State of California.
  • compiler-guy 6y ago
    It was not anyone from within the UC System, nor anyone from within higher education. The Auditors of the State of California wrote it. A body of auditors who are officially part of the executive branch, but wholly independent of it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Auditor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Auditor They are extremely professional.
    • IA21 6y ago
      > The Auditors of the State of California I didn't look at the page header, only the domain (.ca.gov) and skimmed the illustrations and was wondering why a Canadian govt body is researching an American university. I didn't know California had its own domain.
• adaisadais 6y ago
  Upon close examination I think we would find the ALL schools do this. This is just a symptom of the underlying problem with our education system in the US. It’s no longer about educating but about $. When the almighty dolla gets in the way judgment is clouded. Come to think of it... maybe this happens in politics and medicine too? ;)
  • asciident 6y ago
    I would be careful about following this line of thinking too much. Like a few politicians are corrupt, they're all corrupt. It's no longer useful to vote. Or some Hacker News commenters made up stuff on the spot. So all Hacker News comments are garbage. It dismisses the vast majority of people who are doing the right thing.
    • suprfsat 6y ago
      >all Hacker News comments are garbage this isn't a controversial opinion
    • wegs 6y ago
      The vast majority of people are doing the right thing. The vast majority of people in highly-competitive positions are not doing the right thing. * A statement like "all politicians are corrupt" is to a first order accurate. You can't get elected without money, and you can't get money without doing donor bidding. * A statement like "all executives are psychopaths" is not accurate, but becomes pretty close to accurate as you look at organizations with more than 1000-people who are no longer led by founders. You don't make it to the top of the corporate ladder without outcompeting people fighting dirty. People who are clean don't make it to the top. * Not all academics fabricate data, but a growing number of academics at elite schools do. MIT has 1000 applicants for each faculty slot at CSAIL. You don't make it through that level of competition without cheating at least a little bit, and that makes it into the culture. * Not all universities are corrupt, but by similar logic, most universities with massive endowments are. Dirty money goes to institutions willing to accept it. Same thing goes across the board. Most religious leaders are deeply ethical people. Televangelists tend to be corrupt. Most lawyers who make partner tend to be a little bit unethical. Etc. Anytime you get high enough on the ladders, bad behavior goes up.
• q3k 6y ago
  I thought this was common practice in US universities, in the form of so called 'legacy admissions' [1]? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences
  • Ericson2314 6y ago
    Goverment-run universities presumably have slightly less ludicrously corruption-condoning rules in place.
    • basementcat 6y ago
      If one considers a university as a hedge fund with an education and research division, then it is rather sensible to have policies designed to increase the likelihood of wealthy individuals providing incoming capital. I was in graduate school when I first learned that writing good grant proposals (and other skills related to acquiring large quantities of money) was arguably more valuable than doing good science.
  • joncp 6y ago
    Since Berkeley is public, there's an expectation of more fairness. ... I'm more surprised it was only 64 kids.
    • worstestes 6y ago
      That's only counting those who were caught
    • compiler-guy 6y ago
      They were extremely conservative in their counting. It wasn't enough to have suspicious circumstances, they had to be able to prove it. The real number is likely much, much higher, and they say so.
  • WillPostForFood 6y ago
    You can get a legacy preference (child or relative of a graduate) without being a donor, though both often come into play.
• google234123 6y ago
  Meanwhile, the same California government is trying to legalize discriminatory race-based admissions.
  • czzr 6y ago
    How is that related to this?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • throw_m239339 6y ago
      Because universities such as Berkeley claim they are a bastion of "diverse admission policies" as opposed to meritocracy which they call "a tyranny" which make them hypocrites as they have corrupt admission policies and practice cronyism.
      • jrochkind1 6y ago
        So there are tons of people in this thread saying "it seems fine to me, of course wealthy people should get special treatment, that's fine." It was never a "meritocracy". Wealthy people and well-connected people have always had an advantage, and still do. This seems to me an argument for things like affirmative action. To try to balance the scales a bit. Not sure why you see it as an argument against.
        • throw_m239339 6y ago
          > It was never a "meritocracy". Of course it wasn't meritocracy since it was cronyism and nepotism like what happens at Berkeley. But neither is "affirmative action", a racist policy which isn't going to end nepotism and cronyism, just make things even more arbitrary. No need to be an "athlete" now, just put "latino" or "black" on your registration form and don't forget the bribes. That's the system you are rooting for.
• jasoneckert 6y ago
  This should not be surprising, especially considering that popular culture has portrayed this practice overtly for decades. For example, how many movies or sitcoms have you heard a phrase a long the lines "My boy is going to ____ just like I did."
  • ffggvv 6y ago
    it’s a given at private schools but not public imo
• leafmeal 6y ago
  From a utilitarian point of view, I'm wondering if this could actually be beneficial. The extra revenue from donations could sponsor students with less income. I suppose the real problem is that UCs are no longer financed fully by the state. If they were, there would be no excuse for this.
  • dchest 6y ago
    https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2019-113/images/2019-113-figure5.svg https://www.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2019-113/images/2019-113-...
• btilly 6y ago
  I have failed to be outraged. 1/3 of them were admitted as student athletes. Everyone knows that it is official policy at most schools to accept people with athletic ability who would not qualify academically. Why? Because those athletic programs make the university a lot of money! How is admitting someone because their family gave a lot of money any different in principle? It is just a question of reducing how many steps there are to making a profit for the school.
  • orangecat 6y ago
    That's an excellent point. I'd be perfectly fine with eliminating both legacy admissions and athletic scholarships at public universities. It reminds me of the Lori Loughlin case, where she was arrested not because bribing a university to admit your child is unfair to other applicants and sullies the ideal of an academic meritocracy, but because she didn't follow the university's established process for bribery. (Matt Levine expounds on this with his usual hilarity at https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-13/you-have-to-pay-the-right-person https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-13/you-ha...)
    • btilly 6y ago
      I would as well. But if you accept the one, then it is inconsistent to object to the other.
    • libria 6y ago
      But why? What if one {football player|kid-with-rich-parents} can subsidize 10 other need-based students who otherwise would not have been offered a premier education? In terms of reputation, imposters tend to fade into obscurity in time while those 10 will go on to build the schools brand.
  • wyxuan 6y ago
    If you read the report, a lot of the student athletes aren't actually athletes, but have been designated as such to overcome poor scores in the admissions process. In any case, it might be negatively impacting the school's athletic program because real athletes have spots taken by opportunists.
• aqme28 6y ago
  Note that this is from "inappropriate" donations to school staff who did things like fudge athletic recommendations. It is entirely legal (though morally problematic) to "donate" your way into a school with a donation to the school directly.
  • dmurray 6y ago
    These appear to be for donations to "campuses", "the university" or "the athletic department". I don't see any allegations that payments were made directly to individuals. It's likely that the staff generally (and probably correctly!) thought they were acting in the university's interests. There have been other scandals in the last few years where officials were bribed directly, and that looked worse.
• CharlesMerriam2 6y ago
  Have a rule. Our republic, and the California state government, is based on rule of law. One group makes the laws, another enforces it, and a third interprets the conflicts. This works. What we have here is a 'no rules' set of actions. How about rules that say "we will take any student for $200K/year". This is enough money to supply extra supervision and also give a full scholarship to another student.
  • kenhwang 6y ago
    1 for 1 isn't worth it, and the UC system already plays that game with international students where one international pays for 3 in-states. Make the buy-in price pay for 10 and I'm in support.
    • gibolt 6y ago
      1 for 10 seems reasonable, assuming there is also a strict academic requirement for that privileged student. Even more points if it supports their housing and food plan.
      • Loughla 6y ago
        The incentive in that system is to ensure the wealthy student absolutely meets their academic requirements, regardless of ability. How can you fail out Timmy Upperclass, if 10 students lose their funding next year with him gone?
        • kenhwang 6y ago
          If you fail out Timmy, he has to pay for tuition again thus paying for even more students. Or just charge the 10x upfront + normal tuition/year after that.
        • selectodude 6y ago
          Replace him with Billy Upperclass Transfer student.
      • 6y ago
• DevKoala 6y ago
  So much virtue signaling from Berkeley and their leaders are as rife with nepotism as any other corrupt entity.
• modeless 6y ago
  Seems like they identified 108 (2+64+42) students. During the 6 years examined the 4 universities admitted over 200,000 students, if my calculations are right [1]. It's definitely a serious problem that needs to be fixed, especially since there may be more not yet identified. But the problem is not large relative to class sizes. [1] Current admission numbers are available for each university here https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors/berkeley/freshman-admit-data.html https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/campuses-majors...
• TrackerFF 6y ago
  In this day and age, with all the fierce competition, it's a real problem that elite universities are admitting rich kids on such unfair and uneven grounds. Going to the "correct" school can transform the life of some people, essentially pulling them up from the lower working classes, and opening up the doors to middle, or even upper-middle classes. And what's even worse, a lot of these rich kids could go pretty much anywhere, without it affecting their future finances or lifestyle - if anything, it almost seems like a vanity project from their parents side, where they get the bragging rights that their kids are studying at HYPS or whatever. And it's not that the kids of richer parents are necessarily worse, academically speaking - many of them get private tutors, go to private / prep schools, etc. from young age, but still the parents are so risk averse, that they feel the need to pour even more money, just to eliminate the stress of uncertainty. Even if it's illegal. I know these cases encompass a broad range of controversy (for example that top-tier Asian-American students can't get into certain schools, because of some nonsensical "personality" assessments) - but in the end, it's just plain old classism. Doesn't mater what skin color you have, where you come from; As long as you have the cash, the odds are increasing in your favor. Then you have rich folks like David E. Shaw. The guy spent literally tens of millions in donations, to all the top schools, just to increase the chance of his kids getting accepted (or rather - minimize the chances of their kids getting rejected)
  • jjeaff 6y ago
    And just in case anyone thinks the idea that an elite school won't help a rich kid, there have been studies indicating that is the case. The one that comes to mind was the study that compared long term outcomes of students who were accepted to Harvard and attended to those who were accepted but did not attend. Average future incomes were not statistically different. But the study did note that the starkest improvents in future incomes were found in poor and minority students.
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      Do you have a cite for this? Not saying you're wrong as it's my prior that selection bias is the most important factor in any difference in educational outcomes. But I'd love to have something solid to point to. I will say I don't totally understand how future income differences can be not statistically significant and also be "stark" between lower income students at the same time.
• tims33 6y ago
  The US university system is completely broken and ready for reformation. The endowments of so many of these schools are driving flawed behaviors that encourage these backdoor admissions. University athletics are in the same camp. These supposed money makers are just giant distractions from the universities missions to educate.
• afrojack123 6y ago
  This is well known and won't change. A couple months ago there was a scandal where celebrities were arrested for bribing college officials for their kids acceptance. How come the college officials weren't named and fined and arrested?
• jeffbee 6y ago
  The report isn't just about Berkeley, it is about 64 cases from across the UC system.
• lacker 6y ago
  This is bad, but 64 students isn't all that much. It pales in comparison to private colleges. For example, Harvard accepts about 1/3 of its students as "legacy". If you believe the lawsuits about Harvard's anti-Asian discrimination, that also affects hundreds of potential Harvard students every year. Once you consider that UC Berkeley is about five times larger than Harvard, and that there are at least a dozen top-tier private schools with similar policies to Harvard, this seems like a much smaller problem.
  • willturman 6y ago
    > It pales in comparison to private colleges. As it should. One student admitted in this fashion is too many for a public university.
    • pkaye 6y ago
      All private universities that do this should not qualify for non-profit status.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • jmoss20 6y ago
    Read the article. 64 students (from the tiny audited sample) met the highest bar (direct email evidence of connection to donations etc.), to say nothing of other "strongly suspect" students, and the rest outside of the audited sample.
• TedShiller 6y ago
  Rather than claim that students are admitted based on test scores and grades alone, why don't universities simply say that admissions are also based on factors such as how influential or wealthy the parents are? Doing so would not be a problem, the only problem is not being transparent about it. Stanford is very clear about the fact that "legacy" applicants (meaning their parents or siblings are at Stanford and presumably the family will be active donors) get priority.
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Rather than claim that students are admitted based on test scores and grades alone, why don't universities simply say that admissions are also based on factors such as how influential or wealthy the parents are? Doing so would not be a problem For public universities like those in the University of California system, to whom the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution (and, often, similar and sometimes more expansive provisions of state constitutions) apply, it probably would be a problem.
  • s17n 6y ago
    Better idea, let's outlaw legacy admissions.
    • TedShiller 6y ago
      Rich people can buy bigger houses than poor people. Should we also outlaw big houses?
      • rhizome 6y ago
        Sure, if they take the place of smaller houses. Admissions are a rivalrous good.
      • s17n 6y ago
        College admissions play a central role in determining where you end up in our society, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that they should be regulated.
  • 6y ago
• AcerbicZero 6y ago
  At the end of the day, why would I care what the rich waste their money on? If they want to pay twice as much for half the education, eh its their dollar. I'm pretty sure college is a business, and asking businesses to leave paying customers on the table is the kind of anti-market thinking that leads to situations like this. If you incentivize "anti-social behavior" (this seemed like a reasonable middle ground word), what else does anyone expect to happen?
  • ihumanable 6y ago
    For every purchased admission there are two parties, the rich person spending their money and the academically qualified candidate that loses out on the admission. I don't care what the rich person spends their money on, but I do care about the student that worked hard, played by the rules, and deserved to be admitted but because of corruption was denied their spot. UC is not a business, it's a public institution. Every Californian tax-payer pays for this institution, the administrators are there to be stewards of the public funds for the public good. As a Californian tax-payer, I care about the mismanagement of the institution that my tax dollars fund.
• ladberg 6y ago
  That sucks. As a (recent) alumnus I was always proud of the fact that no one at my school was a legacy admit or bought their way in. Both of my parents went to Cal, which at an Ivy might guarantee admission but in my case didn't affect my chances at all (which is a good thing!). I hope this doesn't taint the school's reputation too much.
• beervirus 6y ago
  Abolish legacy admissions. Abolish race-based admissions. Pure meritocracy.
  • amithassan 6y ago
    But who decides what merit is, and who deserves it? And certain kinds of merit can come primarily/only from high caste individuals. How do you choose merit that isn't coloured in race or otherwise?
    • beervirus 6y ago
      > But who decides what merit is, and who deserves it? Academic merit, evaluated by testing.
      • samatman 6y ago
        What you're proposing is testocracy. Which has a storied history, being the primary means of governance of China for millennia. But to call it meritocracy, we must do two things: elide the correlation between tested excellence and academic performance, which correlation is strong but not perfect, and then conflate academic merit with meritoriousness generally, which I firmly reject. Call it what it is: testocracy. A quick search shows that the word is not unknown. I'd accept a better one, so long as it doesn't involve pretending that grinding ones life away for a chance at the top is equal to merit.
        • beervirus 6y ago
          College is an academic pursuit. What other type of "merit" besides academic merit could possibly be relevant when we're talking about college admissions? I mean maybe alcohol tolerance, but...
          • samatman 6y ago
            You're affirming the consequent. If college were a merely academic pursuit, and if standardized testing were a perfect proxy for academic achievement, then yes, we could collapse testing into academic merit, and academic merit into merit, and voila! Meritocracy. But college is not merely an academic pursuit. I would argue it isn't even centrally an academic pursuit. Instead, it is a gatekeeper to the higher echelons of society. The -cracy refers to ruling, let us keep in mind. You propose rule by those who are best at standardized testing, and wish to pass that off as some sort of merit. Basta. I reject any sort of one-size-fits-all criterion for admission. If a college wishes to be testocratic, as CalTech is, so be it. If they wish to strongly favor black people, as the historically black colleges do, fine. This sort of localism is more robust and flexible, and I think this leads to better outcomes.
• danbr 6y ago
  “Applicant babysat for a colleague of the former director of undergraduate admissions” I understand how donations or children of prominent alumni got around admissions...but babysitting can get someone entry over others? That seems like a bit of a stretch.
• 60secz 6y ago
  Don't know if I'm just jaded -- but I'm seriously not bothered by people making large donations to a university to have their kid admitted. It's a transaction which benefits the university and the student. Granted -- it should be above board and there should be formal policies. Not justifying the specific actions in this case just curious at the outrage.
  • chaostheory 6y ago
    Yeah, if one family donates millions to have their child admitted, those millions of dollars can help subsidize the university's costs for other students or it could be used for special projects like libraries. This is probably why many schools have buildings named after people who usually tend to be donors.
  • syspec 6y ago
    The problem is that if we normalize it, then they will get addicted to the money and ONLY let in people who's parents can make a large donation. Finally what will be considered a large donation, will go up rapidly.
    • curiousllama 6y ago
      Good point - before long, tuition will be something ridiculous like $50k a year! :)
    • t-writescode 6y ago
      I argue that this isn't going to go away 100%, so I propose we make a more honest rule. "No more than 1% of students" or "No more than 10% of students" can get in this way and the rest have to be through normal means.
  • goodluckchuck 6y ago
    It can be fraud against other students. Applicants are told that admissions decisions are based on qualifications. Students pay tens of thousands of dollars for that qualification. They pay $50-100 to apply. Then it turns out that the qualification isn’t real... That admission can simply be purchased. If admissions can be purchased, the the degrees can likely be purchased too. Fraud is a crime.
• ffggvv 6y ago
  i think we tend to blow these things out of proportion. while it is bad, it sounds like it was 64 students.. when they had 40k students on 2019 so no this doesn’t really have a systemic effect on anybody. and perhaps the money donated actually paid for scholarships for poor kids
• whiddershins 6y ago
  I get that this is offensive to everyone. I’m not saying that world should work this way. But I’m not remotely surprised. Didn’t everyone in this thread, or basically everyone everywhere, kind of assume that donors get some sort of perks? Even if it is corrupt, isn’t it the most obvious and predictable corruption? Would donations drop without this corruption? Are the donations vital to the school’s budget? Should we do away with donations to Universities somehow? These are all things that come to mind.
  • s17n 6y ago
    We should do away with legacy admissions and quid pro quo. If people still want to donate, great, otherwise universities will have to find a different funding model.
• centimeter 6y ago
  Letting in a few subpar students to raise millions of dollars that can help more qualified students is a perfectly reasonable tradeoff.
  • ihumanable 6y ago
    Was it millions of dollars? I saw one donor give a few thousand and one person get admitted for babysitting. Almost all the donations in the report went directly to athletic departments, which would only seem to help student athletes and not academically qualified students that were bumped.
    • centimeter 6y ago
      Yeah usually the donations at a school like Berkeley are a couple mil at least. Some schools are a lot more
    • fiftyfifty 6y ago
      You've got to admire the kid that got in for babysitting for the director of undergraduate admissions...maybe they are smarter than most of the other applicants or they just happened to live next door.
      • ihumanable 6y ago
        Yea, that kid had some strong hustle game.
• setgree 6y ago
  If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%. But this report seems to suggest otherwise: > In Violation of University Policy, the Campuses We Reviewed Admitted 64 Applicants Because of Their Families’ Donations and Connections > UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted 42 other applicants the UC schools as a whole have ~226K students, and at Berkeley, it's ~17,000. I'm very surprised that the corresponding fractions are so small. Then again, if you get recruited to play a sport that is all-but-exclusively a rich person's leisure activity -- Water Polo, Crew, Golf, Volleyball, and Beach volleyball are all played at Berkeley -- and recruiting gave you an edge in admissions, does that count as "inappropriate?" I would say so, but I doubt this report would. The line between corruption and "that's just how we do things around here" is not self-evident to me here.
  • MiroF 6y ago
    > If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20% I don't think it's in the double digits for any school. You need large amounts of wealth to donate your way in.
  • jbullock35 6y ago
    > if you get recruited to play Water Polo, Crew, Golf, Volleyball, or Beach volleyball at UC Berkeley, and ~95% of kids who play those sports come from wealthy families, and recruiting gave them an edge in admissions, does that count as "inappropriate?" I would say so, but I doubt this report would. The report comes close: "the average grade point average for the bottom quartile of applicants whom UCLA admitted for academic year 2019–20 was 4.15, but the average grade point average for its admitted student athletes was 3.74. Similarly, two‑thirds of the admitted student athletes whom UC Berkeley evaluated through its holistic review process for academic years 2017–18 through 2019–20 received the lowest possible rating from its application readers—which is equivalent to a recommendation that the applicant be denied admission."
    • setgree 6y ago
• mywittyname 6y ago
  People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admissions into two pots: people who pay their way in and the other who earns it. And they announce ahead of time what the size of each bucket is. When you apply, you chose which path you will take and that's it, you're stuck. The people who choose the merit path take the standard entry exams, have their grades review, etc. And the ones who do the best get in. Those who choose to pay for admission participate in a silent auction, and those willing to pay the most are admitted. This system isn't "fair", but the outcome is effectively the same as our current setup. With the most notable difference being that, at least this system is transparent and acknowledges that X% of incoming students paid for their post.
  • MiroF 6y ago
    The problem is that you can only sell prestige if there is strategic ambiguity between the two categories.
    • rhizome 6y ago
      And that ambiguity is an economy: the rich slackers are seen as smart by association with the achievements of (past) students admitted by merit, and the rabble students acquire aristocratic social cache by the same token. I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a self-powering machine.
      • acruns 6y ago
        That is an absolutely wonderful use of the word cache.
        • arcticbull 6y ago
          You're looking for cachet ("the state of being respected or admired; prestige") not cache ("hidden away for future use").
• legerdemain 6y ago
  Colleges and universities are corrupt dinosaur institutions that indoctrinate students in subjects that working devs basically never use, like calculus, Java, and recursion. COVID can't kill them off fast enough. People like Haseeb Qureshi[1] amply demonstrate that you don't need a fancy degree to break into the top echelons of FAANG. It's 2020, not 1920: just do a bootcamp, self-study using one of the free open-source curricula,[2] and projects/a high-quality portfolio are all you actually need! [1] https://haseebq.com/how-to-break-into-tech-job-hunting-and-interviews/ https://haseebq.com/how-to-break-into-tech-job-hunting-and-i... [2] https://github.com/ossu/computer-science https://github.com/ossu/computer-science
  • ladberg 6y ago
    > subjects that working devs basically never use, like calculus, Java, and recursion I don't know about you, but I've used all of those in real software. Additionally, I'm happy teaching myself skills needed for programming that I wasn't taught in college, but I'd much rather learn something like calculus from a teacher than on my own.
• blobbers 6y ago
  I have not attended an american school. People seem to want robotic admission standards. Is there no room for circumstance? Does a donation to the school that helps improve the quality of the school and the research need to come without strings attached? Should the rich be required to have such purity of intention? Or should they only donate to private schools where they can legally have influence? By being the child of a wealth donor, does the person being admitted (through this side channel) not have more potential impact on the world and thus more reason to be admitted? On the other side, does the education have the most impact on the person who was denied entrance (bottom of the applicant pool), assuming they would get through to graduation. (utility of education) I think the person writing this report clearly has an agenda, as can bee seen in the level of sensationalism in the clip art.
  • syspec 6y ago
    > I think the person writing this report clearly has an agenda, as can bee seen in the level of sensationalism in the clip art. It is a non-editorialized factual report by the office auditor of CA. It's literally their job to audit things
  • jackedtheripped 6y ago
    > Is there no room for circumstance? There is and there should be. Affirmative action has already been help up by the US supreme court. > Does a donation to the school that helps improve the quality of the school and the research need to come without strings attached? Yes. > Should the rich be required to have such purity of intention? Or should they only donate to private schools where they can legally have influence? A donation should not be used as a way to get one's child into a university. That's not a donation. That's an entrance fee. > On the other side, does the education have the most impact on the person who was denied entrance (bottom of the applicant pool), assuming they would get through to graduation. That seems reasonably true, though I have no source to back this up.
    • blobbers 6y ago
      So unqualified applicants have to pay a higher entrance fee than qualified applicants? Now it is starting to sound like capitalism at work!!!
• barkingcat 6y ago
  I don't think it's inappropriate and also not unexpected. It is inappropriate to pretend to have an impartial process when money drives the admission process for as long as the American universities (either public or private alike) have existed. It's a part of the nature of these schools that money/donors get kids into school. That's the way it's always been, and it's worth saying it up front. That's the first step. And face it, this is the reason UC Berkely, etc are so great. It's because there are donors supplying a huge stream of funding dollars. Without these kinds of favours, UC Berkeley will be a 4th or 5th rate school. You want that new lab or that new library wing? Accept some kids with rich families. That's how it works.
  • morpheuskafka 6y ago
    It violated the policy of the Board of Regents which is the democratic governing board of the taxpayer funded UC System. If they want to establish a policy of selling seats to raise money, there's nothing inherently unconstitutional about that. But, they need to change the policies, and if necessary, state law to allow this to happen legally and with the consent of the taxpaying citizens.
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• Upvoter33 6y ago
  Here's the real problem: Universities are expensive places to run and need huge resources to build buildings, hire and retain faculty, and other costly endeavors. Hence, the need for donors. Once you have donors, it is VERY hard to avoid this sort of tit-for-tat deal. The best way to get around the funny business: have a system where students are classified into bins. Be very clear with donors: if a student isn't in the "top bin", they will not get in. However, in that bin, allow the "donor connection" to influence admission. Is this perfect? No, of course not. But it accepts the reality of the world without perverting it too much. And honestly: can you really predict if one student is going to do better than another because of 1pt on some standardized test?
  • curiousllama 6y ago
    I can't speak for Cal schools, but for most private schools, this is already what happens. If you're not already competitive, the required donation is truly immense (think "Kenneth C Griffin Department of Economics" big). Most donation-influenced admits are borderline to begin with - it just eliminates the randomness of the admissions process. The issue here is that Cal is public, and so more laws apply.
  • mas3god 6y ago
    Im pretty sure universities only became expensive once student loans got subsidized and every 18 year old kid in America could jump 100k in debt at the taxpayers expense.
• crumbshot 6y ago
  I'm somewhat surprised at how many commenters here are shrugging off or even supporting this blatant corruption by these wealth-defiled crooks. I wonder how this comment section would look if it was revealed that people from a low income background had hacked the admissions system to gain entry. I expect the tone would be much more critical, calling for prosecutions and sanctions, and lamenting the sheer unfairness of it. I'm pretty sure it would be in stark contrast to all the bribery apologism we can see in these threads.
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• x87678r 6y ago
  Can we stop foreign students too? They're effectively the same, paying above average fees is the main justification for allowing them to take places.
• throwawayay02 6y ago
  Sigh, this again. This is a solved issue. Many countries, large countries, with lots of rich people and smart kids have figured this out. Standardized tests for every single student at the same time. Once per year, no exceptions. Best graded students have first pick, nationwide, to all universities in the country. No other factor in place. Yes, rich kids will on average have the advantage because they are more likely to afford good studying conditions and a tutor, nothing to do about this, rich kids will always have some advantage on average. This system motivates everyone, rich or poor, that what matters most to climb the social ladder (or just not fall) is effective studying. It really is a great system, you can see what were the grades the previous year for your dream university and course, and give it your all with knowledge that it is solely in your hands, and not depending on alumni, quotas, distance, wealth, etc.
  • rkique 6y ago
    The college admissions process is actually moving away from weighing the SAT or ACT as heavily as it has in the past -- for this year's admissions cycle, most schools are going test-optional. The best correlation for American standardized testing scores isn't study habits, but zip code. I personally don't believe that moving to a system like China's gaokao would solve any of the issues to do with wealth, because the American university system is more than an academic system. It can't simply test for academics (although GPA is the #1 factor considered in admissions across the board), because the strength of American universities is also in community and intellectual diversity. Most applicants to top schools are academically qualified to attend.
• jdkee 6y ago
  The fact that universities in the 21st century place such a great importance on athletics is anachronistic and regressive.
• jwilber 6y ago
  Can’t wait to bring this up whenever they call for alumni donations! Never giving a penny. (In all seriousness, the people who call are usually just students working a job, so be respectful of you plan to do the same. Just ask to mark that as the reason for no donation).
• mrharrison 6y ago
  Umm.. hmm.. well I thought this was obvious and think there is benefit to the students who don't come from elite backgrounds. The point of these universities is to not only give an education but socially connect students. If you are a student without a family that has powerful connections you could potentially meet one of these students and become friends, thus increasing your social power. Going to a top notch University is not just about learning. I learned more and had better instructors at city college, because they cared more and were more available. Speaking with busy TAs at a top notch school weren't nearly as helpful. Going to a top notch school is about socially enriching yourself with others who are ambitious and connected. It's about synergy and having a diverse student body only increases that synergy.
• vonwoodson 6y ago
  I am uncertain why this is such a travesty. Everything else is free market. If these folks want to pay more for school... so be it. If a school is willing to accept sub-par students then they will see their own stats decline, and maybe schools with standards will excel and the free market schools will... have nicer buildings? Whatever.
  • bencw 6y ago
    > I am uncertain why this is such a travesty > If a school is willing to accept sub-par students then they will see their own stats decline I think you just answered your own question.
    • vonwoodson 6y ago
      Free markets don’t care about quality. So, no. My question stands. Why is this a problem worth discussing.
• spiritplumber 6y ago
  I went to a Marianist university in the US. This was right after 9/11 when it had suddenly become a lot harder for international students to come in. I had no problems. Why? Because I also went to a Marianist high school in Italy, and it so happens that the principal of that school had in the meantime (I worked for a few years between high school and university) become procurator-general for the Marianists in Rome. He was also my Latin teacher. So he basically told the president of the university "This person is a good student, got 99% on their maturity exam, let them in, tell your USCIS liaison to sort it out". I was given a provisional visa, took the SAT, got a nearly perfect score, and they let me in. For whatever reason, I always got enhanced screening and questioning whenever I got on an airplane or went through US customs, after that, until I got my green card, but they let me in. Was this abuse of power? Not being sarcastic or rhetorical; I'm asking if what my principal did at the time was an abuse of power/authority.
  • throw_away 6y ago
    It seems like a different scenario with a religious school vs. a public, state-sponsored school. Even with other, secular private schools, I feel the issue is different.
• csours 6y ago
  I thought that was the point of being a donor? Is it a problem because it's a state school?
• monadic2 6y ago
  No shit.
• SMAAART 6y ago
  I am shocked! SHOCKED!
• dannykwells 6y ago
  I know I'm out of sync with the mainstream here but I think it should be fine to buy your way in to a school like UCB. The price tag should be so high that it would support say 10 or even 20 low income, highly talented students. Say 1M/year. If a family can pay, fine. If they cant, well, they can get in line like everyone else. This really just makes the process transparent and put a price tag on it. And now, if a professor or dean takes a lower donation for admittance, they're stealing from the school and would be put in jail, not given some wrist slap or administrative leave.
• musicale 6y ago
  Many other universities are clear that there are classes of applicants who get special consideration based on non-academic factors, such as: geographically desirable (including out-of-state tuition payers), demographically desirable, athletes, extracurricular stars, children of alumni (=donors), children of faculty and staff (=laborers), and children of donors. Moreover, universities want students with a wide variety of academic (and other) interests. Is the issue that Berkeley has to comply with state laws and regulations that mandate that admissions be based solely on academics rather than other considerations? Or is it that they put on a facade of solely considering academics without acknowledging the (many) non-academic considerations that may override admissions decisions?
• omgwtfbyobbq 6y ago
  UC Berkeley you're not Berkeley enough. :(
• gamechangr 6y ago
  This seems very expected.
• ygmelnikova 6y ago
  The majority of offenders are white, so we'll mention their race, but not the races of the minority? 64% of Americans are Non-Hispanic white. Do the math.
• jmpman 6y ago
  Surprised to see that they disclosed the race of the perpetrators. California typically goes to such length to not include such details when crimes are committed.
• mas3god 6y ago
  I dont see why its a problem as long as Berkeley isnt publicly funded
• erostrate 6y ago
  In France to get into an elite STEM university ("engineering school") students all take the same maths/physics/CS exams and the overall grade is the only factor deciding admission. Everything is state funded. It's not perfect, but it levels the playing field a lot more than other systems. And it's good at making sure talented but poor students have access to the best programs. At those the level is high, for example the best math program probably has the highest Fields medal per student ratio of any university in the world. The downside is that universities and engineering schools are small and underfunded so they don't stand out in worldwide rankings. How do rich people game the system? They can to some extent game it earlier, putting their kids in better high schools. But the kids will still have to take the same exams. So generally they just avoid this system and put their kids into business schools, which are not state funded and where admission is based on much softer and game-able criteria. Or they send them to US universities.
  • koonsolo 6y ago
    Same in Belgium and Netherlands. There is no reason to send your kids to private schools, since the state funded schooling system is already good enough. Same goes for universities (don't know about the impact on research though, just talking about education here) And I also highly doubt that graduating a "prestige" university really makes much difference here. If you want to make more money, start your own business. In my opinion, a lot of problems in US come from the fact that they don't offer proper education to the lower class. In Europe it's great to share a class with kids from all kinds of backgrounds.
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  • bzb5 6y ago
    You are comparing European culture to Anglo culture. That’s pears to oranges. Not saying one is better than the other, but they work differently.
• dehrmann 6y ago
  When it's private schools doing it, or coaches at private schools doing it as a side hustle, I really didn't mind--private schools can do what they want, and if they want a rigged system, go for it. There's a reason Jack on 30 Rock called USC "the last bastion of the incompetent rich." When a public school does this, it's a violation of the public trust and taking advantage of taxpayers.
• dbuder 6y ago
  I used to audit people for a living, my take is that bad behaviour is an indicator of more bad behaviour. UCB has been straying from their education mission and that leads to straying from its other values.
• habosa 6y ago
  This should be considered tax fraud for the donors. The donations they made are charitable contributions, which they surely deducted from their income taxes. When you donate to charity you can only deduct the amount in excess of the benefit provided to you. For instance if you buy a $50 ticket to a charity dinner where they give you $50 of food and drinks, you can't deduct that at all. So these people donated and then got admission to UC Berkeley in exchange. Surely that has some value! I don't know how you determine that figure, but it's >>$0
  • corin_ 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with the American tax system, but couldn't they just not claim that charitable donation when filing their tax returns? Surely it's not illegal not to tell the IRS about a charitable donation you made, and therefore not get any tax deduction for it, regardless of whether or not you received benefits from the organisation you donated to? (Of course, that wouldn't mean that nobody ever does report this sort of thing to make tax savings, in which cases I would assume you're right it would be tax fraud but again I'm not the person to answer that.)
    • habosa 6y ago
      I truly can't imagine someone donating a large sum in the US and not reporting it on their taxes. The tax preference for donations in America is the primary driver of large individual donations.
• mathattack 6y ago
  The irony that as this is happening the school gives up on standardized testing.
• jl2718 6y ago
  Looking for dollar values, found only “thousands” for Berkeley. This sounds like a low price.
• known 6y ago
  "Behind every great fortune there is Crime" --Balzac (b. 1799)
• csense 6y ago
  If a rich guy's willing to pay a lot of money to get his dumb kid into a university, enough to fund scholarships for two or three smart-but-poor kids, what's the ethical problem? I see no problem with universities having an admission tier for rich people that's like 10x as expensive as normal tuition, but completely bypasses the application process. Or maybe they auction off 5% of their seats and let the market set the price for those no-qualifications-required seats.