7 ms·

First of all - wow, what a talented writer. No wonder her clients have done so well. Forgery of college admissions essays is rampant not just in China but also

First of all - wow, what a talented writer. No wonder her clients have done so well. Forgery of college admissions essays is rampant not just in China but also in the US (and I suspect in many other places), but actually the problem is really much worse than that. With the boom of the "college consultants" industry, professionals are essentially "forging" entire high school careers on behalf of their clients - telling them what classes to take, which clubs to join, where and how many hours they should volunteer, etc. The end result is that these clients look like amazingly productive students with a superhuman sense of self-initiative, whereas in reality these kids simply followed a script written by some adult their parents paid large sums of money for.

jacquesm 12y ago
The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards compared to their honest brothers & sisters who also entered those same colleges and compared to those that didn't make the cut because of them. At a guess, they'll do better in life than the ones that didn't make it but not as good as the ones that were honest and made it but I have zero proof for that. It's just that they will get some of the benefits from these colleges but not all of them while the group that didn't make it gets none.
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  > they'll do better in life than the ones that didn't make it but not as good as the ones that were honest and made it If this is true, then less-than-deserving children will have successfully used their parents' wealth to artificially improve their station in life. Which means that our higher education system is helping to perpetuate class divides (even though it claims to be greatly interested in not doing so).
  - hkmurakami 12y ago
    Legacy admissions (which is alive and well at my alma mater) definitely helps to perpetuate this as well.
    - w1ntermute 12y ago
      That's true, but legacy admissions is out in the open - universities acknowledge the existence of the practice. But the inequality created by ghostwriting and admissions coaching is particularly pernicious because it occurs through a system that the universities claim is meant and supposed to give everyone an equal shot.
  - joesmo 12y ago
    Of course it does. Look at the price of tuition. That perpetuates class divides more than any other factor.
    - w1ntermute 12y ago
      The top universities (such as those in the Ivy League) typically give full financial aid to any admitted student who comes from a middle or lower class socioeconomic background. The "tuition problem" primarily exists at mediocre private universities (as well as those public universities that have significantly hiked tuition in recent years) which depend on squeezing every last penny from their students.
      - WoodenChair 12y ago
        This is absolutely true and often shocks applicants that I meet in alumni interviews (although some know it well). Most of the Ivy League offers a full ride (as an official policy) for students who come from families with <$100k/year in income. This is not merit-based, it's need-based. It's a nasty misconception of "anti-elitists" that the Ivy League is only for the rich (although as others have pointed out there are certainly legacy biases and donation biases that get some in + a need to have a certain percentage of paying students).
        ploxiln 12y ago
        Not necessarily true. My family made about that amount, but went without some luxuries and saved for my (and my sister's) high school ($25k/yr) and college ($45k/yr). There were a few years where tuition+room+board for my sister and I was more than their after-tax income. And no, we don't have a large amount of wealth from a previous generation, my parents started near zero just a couple years before I was born. But we never got any financial aid. I had friends who's parents made more, but got 50% financial aid. The financial aid system would appear to be just another bullshit-gamed system.
        w1ntermute 12y ago
- DanBC 12y ago
  > The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards I'm amazed this question is being asked. It's obvious that bullshitters do well.
- analog31 12y ago
  >>> The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards As they move up in life, they will move up in consultants, so long as they have access to the wealth necessary to pay for it.
hkmurakami 12y ago
While the college consultants certainly increased the number of such students, such students have always existed, at least in the past couple of decades. I myself can't say that 100% of my extracurricular activities were free from wanting to look good for college applications. My GPA was definitely boosted by my somewhat misplaced desire to get into the best university I could possibly get into, rather than through a pure passion for learning. I totally kissed a teacher's butt in one class because 20% of the grade in that class was "participation", and was entirely based on how much said teacher liked you (she was subsequently let go -- private school). I sold my soul in order to get an A in that class. And I'm definitely not an isolated case.
mathetic 12y ago
Exactly but I see nothing wrong with this. If universities are willing to accept students not based on merit but on a touching story, then they had it coming. People who admit one to these universities in general are not alumni of that school, did not go through the same experience and are not experts in the subject one wants to study. It is ludicrous to expect them to differentiate good candidates from bad ones. Also general criticism to above seems to be that it is not feasible to deal with all the applicants. That claim is bogus since Oxford and Cambridge professors are conducting multiple technical interviews with each candidate for centuries for both domestic and international students. EDIT: Loving down voting without explanation for a reasonable opinion on the subject.
- sehr 12y ago
  Exactly but I see nothing wrong with this. I'm sure those other applicants who were turned down in favor of these are fine with it as well
  - mlvljr 12y ago
    u must be a communist, right?
    - sehr 12y ago
      Yes, I am a communist for thinking that complete dishonesty in an admissions essay of all things is pitiful and wrong. Same goes towards those who had theirs heavily edited by family members/friends/consultants etc..
    - blink281 12y ago
      I'm not sure if you're joking or not but in case you're not this mindset is exactly what happened under communist regimes where children of the inner "party members" were given every advantage possible over their "prol" counterparts. But no, destroying an ecosystem you depend on in the long term and subsequently your future with it because some cynical foreign money-bags type holds out a few extra dollars they no doubt obtained through lucrative government connections is a great example of ... what is it you would call the counter-example of what you think the above poster is? A capitalist?
rayiner 12y ago
> With the boom of the "college consultants" industry, professionals are essentially "forging" entire high school careers on behalf of their clients - telling them what classes to take, which clubs to join, where and how many hours they should volunteer, etc. I don't really get this perspective. If colleges are going to base admissions on amorphous things like what clubs someone joined, or what organizations they volunteered for, why shouldn't a student hire a consultant to navigate those waters? Is the student who hires a consultant to tell them what classes to take, or what clubs to join, or what organizations to volunteer for, and then follows through with those, less deserving of a spot than someone that happens to randomly fall upon the right combination of activities? Or, more to the point, has an uncle who went to an Ivy-league school that can give them the same advice? If anything, admissions consultants level the playing field. Who else is going to tell a bright midwestern student that Ivy-league schools don't respect locally popular clubs like Future Farmers of America? Who else is going to tell a bright lower-income student that they should spend their summers "volunteering" in Africa instead of working all summer to make some spending money? The families with Ivy-league alums already know what boxes to check.
- canjobear 12y ago
  It's hard to see how this levels the playing field in practice. The "bright lower-income students" you mention don't have access to these expensive services.
  - rayiner 12y ago
    These admissions consultants are a lot more attainable than the Ivy-league family members that would be able to give the same guidance.
    - foobarqux 12y ago
      The real problem is that they don't know the game, which is most of the battle.
  - delg 12y ago
    Not necessarily true. I personally know 2 Ivy League grads from low income families who, through a combination of luck and high standardized test scores, lucked into a position of getting this kind of counseling. Lots of consultants do some amount of pro bono. Most poor kids wouldn't know to ask, though.
austenallred 12y ago
I was paid $50/hour for quite some time to do "marketing consulting" for a company started by a douchebag studying at Harvard. It was vaguely interesting work, and I over delivered on every expectation, but grew tired of his increasingly demanding explanations (pages long at times) of why I did what I did and who the market was. Those two questions were asked of me obsessively. Eventually, after I told him I was sick of doing write ups that were completely unnecessary, he admitted he was taking a marketing class at Harvard. I was unknowingly doing all of his exercises, and he would turn my write ups in to the Professor. Apparently he got an A.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Weren't you tempted to inform the professor?
- elwell 12y ago
  What? That's a crazy story.
- ganeumann 12y ago
  I assume he was getting his degree in "management".
- blackbagboys 12y ago
  In a similar vein, one of my bosses at a major investment bank would gleefully tell interns about how, in undergrad, while working part-time for a Congressman, he would call up the Congressional Research Service and commission reports that he would later doctor up and hand in as term papers
- TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
  Please tell me you reported him to the professor?

jacquesm 12y ago

The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards compared to their honest brothers & sisters who also entered those same colleges and compared to those that didn't make the cut because of them. At a guess, they'll do better in life than the ones that didn't make it but not as good as the ones that were honest and made it but I have zero proof for that. It's just that they will get some of the benefits from these colleges but not all of them while the group that didn't make it gets none.

w1ntermute 12y ago
> they'll do better in life than the ones that didn't make it but not as good as the ones that were honest and made it If this is true, then less-than-deserving children will have successfully used their parents' wealth to artificially improve their station in life. Which means that our higher education system is helping to perpetuate class divides (even though it claims to be greatly interested in not doing so).
- hkmurakami 12y ago
  Legacy admissions (which is alive and well at my alma mater) definitely helps to perpetuate this as well.
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    That's true, but legacy admissions is out in the open - universities acknowledge the existence of the practice. But the inequality created by ghostwriting and admissions coaching is particularly pernicious because it occurs through a system that the universities claim is meant and supposed to give everyone an equal shot.
- joesmo 12y ago
  Of course it does. Look at the price of tuition. That perpetuates class divides more than any other factor.
  - w1ntermute 12y ago
    The top universities (such as those in the Ivy League) typically give full financial aid to any admitted student who comes from a middle or lower class socioeconomic background. The "tuition problem" primarily exists at mediocre private universities (as well as those public universities that have significantly hiked tuition in recent years) which depend on squeezing every last penny from their students.
    - WoodenChair 12y ago
      This is absolutely true and often shocks applicants that I meet in alumni interviews (although some know it well). Most of the Ivy League offers a full ride (as an official policy) for students who come from families with <$100k/year in income. This is not merit-based, it's need-based. It's a nasty misconception of "anti-elitists" that the Ivy League is only for the rich (although as others have pointed out there are certainly legacy biases and donation biases that get some in + a need to have a certain percentage of paying students).
      - ploxiln 12y ago
        Not necessarily true. My family made about that amount, but went without some luxuries and saved for my (and my sister's) high school ($25k/yr) and college ($45k/yr). There were a few years where tuition+room+board for my sister and I was more than their after-tax income. And no, we don't have a large amount of wealth from a previous generation, my parents started near zero just a couple years before I was born. But we never got any financial aid. I had friends who's parents made more, but got 50% financial aid. The financial aid system would appear to be just another bullshit-gamed system.
        w1ntermute 12y ago
DanBC 12y ago
> The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards I'm amazed this question is being asked. It's obvious that bullshitters do well.
analog31 12y ago
>>> The big question then is how do they make out in real life afterwards As they move up in life, they will move up in consultants, so long as they have access to the wealth necessary to pay for it.

hkmurakami 12y ago

While the college consultants certainly increased the number of such students, such students have always existed, at least in the past couple of decades. I myself can't say that 100% of my extracurricular activities were free from wanting to look good for college applications. My GPA was definitely boosted by my somewhat misplaced desire to get into the best university I could possibly get into, rather than through a pure passion for learning. I totally kissed a teacher's butt in one class because 20% of the grade in that class was "participation", and was entirely based on how much said teacher liked you (she was subsequently let go -- private school). I sold my soul in order to get an A in that class. And I'm definitely not an isolated case.

mathetic 12y ago

Exactly but I see nothing wrong with this. If universities are willing to accept students not based on merit but on a touching story, then they had it coming. People who admit one to these universities in general are not alumni of that school, did not go through the same experience and are not experts in the subject one wants to study. It is ludicrous to expect them to differentiate good candidates from bad ones. Also general criticism to above seems to be that it is not feasible to deal with all the applicants. That claim is bogus since Oxford and Cambridge professors are conducting multiple technical interviews with each candidate for centuries for both domestic and international students. EDIT: Loving down voting without explanation for a reasonable opinion on the subject.

sehr 12y ago
Exactly but I see nothing wrong with this. I'm sure those other applicants who were turned down in favor of these are fine with it as well
- mlvljr 12y ago
  u must be a communist, right?
  - sehr 12y ago
    Yes, I am a communist for thinking that complete dishonesty in an admissions essay of all things is pitiful and wrong. Same goes towards those who had theirs heavily edited by family members/friends/consultants etc..
  - blink281 12y ago
    I'm not sure if you're joking or not but in case you're not this mindset is exactly what happened under communist regimes where children of the inner "party members" were given every advantage possible over their "prol" counterparts. But no, destroying an ecosystem you depend on in the long term and subsequently your future with it because some cynical foreign money-bags type holds out a few extra dollars they no doubt obtained through lucrative government connections is a great example of ... what is it you would call the counter-example of what you think the above poster is? A capitalist?

rayiner 12y ago

> With the boom of the "college consultants" industry, professionals are essentially "forging" entire high school careers on behalf of their clients - telling them what classes to take, which clubs to join, where and how many hours they should volunteer, etc. I don't really get this perspective. If colleges are going to base admissions on amorphous things like what clubs someone joined, or what organizations they volunteered for, why shouldn't a student hire a consultant to navigate those waters? Is the student who hires a consultant to tell them what classes to take, or what clubs to join, or what organizations to volunteer for, and then follows through with those, less deserving of a spot than someone that happens to randomly fall upon the right combination of activities? Or, more to the point, has an uncle who went to an Ivy-league school that can give them the same advice? If anything, admissions consultants level the playing field. Who else is going to tell a bright midwestern student that Ivy-league schools don't respect locally popular clubs like Future Farmers of America? Who else is going to tell a bright lower-income student that they should spend their summers "volunteering" in Africa instead of working all summer to make some spending money? The families with Ivy-league alums already know what boxes to check.

canjobear 12y ago
It's hard to see how this levels the playing field in practice. The "bright lower-income students" you mention don't have access to these expensive services.
- rayiner 12y ago
  These admissions consultants are a lot more attainable than the Ivy-league family members that would be able to give the same guidance.
  - foobarqux 12y ago
    The real problem is that they don't know the game, which is most of the battle.
- delg 12y ago
  Not necessarily true. I personally know 2 Ivy League grads from low income families who, through a combination of luck and high standardized test scores, lucked into a position of getting this kind of counseling. Lots of consultants do some amount of pro bono. Most poor kids wouldn't know to ask, though.

austenallred 12y ago

I was paid $50/hour for quite some time to do "marketing consulting" for a company started by a douchebag studying at Harvard. It was vaguely interesting work, and I over delivered on every expectation, but grew tired of his increasingly demanding explanations (pages long at times) of why I did what I did and who the market was. Those two questions were asked of me obsessively. Eventually, after I told him I was sick of doing write ups that were completely unnecessary, he admitted he was taking a marketing class at Harvard. I was unknowingly doing all of his exercises, and he would turn my write ups in to the Professor. Apparently he got an A.

DanBC 12y ago
Weren't you tempted to inform the professor?
elwell 12y ago
What? That's a crazy story.
ganeumann 12y ago
I assume he was getting his degree in "management".
blackbagboys 12y ago
In a similar vein, one of my bosses at a major investment bank would gleefully tell interns about how, in undergrad, while working part-time for a Congressman, he would call up the Congressional Research Service and commission reports that he would later doctor up and hand in as term papers
TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
Please tell me you reported him to the professor?