I might disagree with him. I'm sure there's some way to compute the impact of degree from let's say Harvard as opposed to CSUF.
I 100% agree with you. But from a practical standpoint, is there a way to really go back and know which specific person lost their spot at that school because one of these privileged children got it instead? But does that even matter? Isn't breaking the law enough to be considered a crime?
For some reason, the ones who went the route of the fake athlete profiles bothers me even more than the ACT test score cheating. Which, is still totally wrong. I guess maybe because it seems more straightforward - like, okay, you crossed the line and decided you're cool with cheating on a test. And the universities in those cases got duped because they made real decisions based on what they thought was real information from the ACT tests.
The athlete stuff just feels even more egregious to me, maybe because it involves staging fake photos, actually posing on a rower for pictures, fake athlete profiles created, fake competitions, fake teams or elite overseas clubs that never existed, photo shopping, conspiring with people on the inside of these athletic departments, who were making a nice salary, accepting bribes and pushing these applications through under false pretenses. It just seems like so many more layers of fraud involved. And also, so many more chances where any ethical parent would stop and say, whoa, this is really, really shady.
I don't know - neither situation is cool. I don't even know if one of these is actually worse than the other, I was just thinking why the athlete one annoyed me more and I think maybe just because of all the extra effort that went into carrying out fraud.
I do feel bad for some of the kids who didn't know what their parents were up to. There was one mother in the affidavit who was so insistent on her daughter not knowing because the girl would so not be okay with it. That the older sister had been, but this younger daughter was going to wonder what was up and protest, and so she definitely could not find out.
From the affidavit with defendant Michelle Janavs:
She’s smart, she’s going to figure this out. Yeah, she’s going to say to me--she already thinks I’m up to, like, no good.
She’s totally different than [my older daughter]. Like she needs to really think she d-- [my older daughter] is like, “This test is such . I don’t really care. I don’t ever want to take it.” But [my younger daughter] is like actually studying to try and get a 34.
So it would-- it would actually be a great boost to her. And [my older daughter] came to me and she says, “You’re not going to tell [my sister], are you?” I was like, “No.” Weird-- weird family dynamics, but every kid is different.
--
Then there were the two schools in West Hollywood and Houston where Singer had a person running those testing sites. He was paying the guy in West Hollywood (Igor something) like double what he was giving the woman in Houston (Niki Williams). She was getting "only" $5,000 per kid. But in that case, she was an assistant teacher at a public school in Houston and ACT administrator -- accused of accepting bribes.
Not cool, but it's probably the only person in this scandal that I can see being *tempted* by taking bribes. Like definitely not okay and needing money doesn't make it okay to do so illegally - just that she probably made a salary as an assistant public school teacher where it would be tempting. And it's like they knew she was desperate and could get away with paying her barely anything (relative to the whole scheme - he was raking in six figures from the parents, then giving this Niki a paltry amount in comparison). Meanwhile he was giving the guy in West Hollywood double that, for the same thing. She had the least amount of restitution ordered in the affidavit. She was wrong, but I have less sympathy for these college coaches and administrators who were already earning a very nice living doing it for pure greed.
This case both disgusts and fascinates me.
, as I can only think that she is looking at this same grid that we are looking at. Whose case sentences is she referring to
