FBI busts Massive exam ring

$25 million in bribes is an extensive fraud.  Sounds like some Yale father was offered the "assistance" and took it to the FBI.  The sting was to trap the Yale women's soccer coach who was taking bribes and also recruiting other coaches to join the fraud ring.  To the Yale father informant, the Yale coach demanded $450k ... $4k as a deposit was made to the coach by the FBI.  Once nabbed, the Yale coach has been helping the FBI broaden the ring and nail this thing. 

There are going to be some very prominent people going to jail.

"According to the Justice Department’s indictment, a college prep business run by William Rick Singer would create athlete profiles for kids — some of whom did not play sports at all — at the behest and payment from their parents. Then, with the alleged cooperation of USC senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel, the kids would be admitted into USC as athletes instead of as regular students.

Heinel has been charged with racketeering conspiracy as part of the wide-ranging indictment that also names actresses Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman. In addition to helping students get into USC as football recruits, Heinel allegedly did the same for kids positioned as basketball and crew recruits. Laughlin’s daughters were posed as crew recruits.

Per the indictment, Singer, identified as cooperating witness 1, told one of the defendants that positioning his son as a football player would increase the son’s odds of getting into USC by 90 percent thanks to Heinel’s cooperation. The son of William McGashlan was positioned as a kicker who would walk on at USC despite going to a high school that doesn’t have a football team.

The alleged scheme even went as far as photoshopping McGashlan’s son to make it look like he was a football player."

https://sports.yahoo.com/indictment-college-prep-business-faked-students-as-football-players-to-get-them-into-usc-165738633.html

The US isn't sliding towards a banana republic, it's already there. 

This is obviously very wrong.  But I have a couple questions.  What laws were broken? Why resort to outright bribery when you can just make a donation (to fund a building, etc.)?

Dirty

There's an elephant in this thread...no one can acknowledge. 

Not surprising at all. This starts at an early age, especially in youth sports, obviously on a much smaller scale. I remember my son noticing that my husband wasn't friends with all the other dads who were buddy-buddy with the coach who ran the travel program. He also noticed that their kids all played travel. I told my kid that earning your success is way better because you never have to question it. Parents get on that Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses achievement treadmill and can't get off. 

My fake test only cost $300 plus a handy

What a story, a bunch of Leftist Elite Parents gig the system by bribing to get their undeserved students into Schools they would not have been admitted to.   I hope they all get serious jail time for such moves.   One does not have to get into those schools (and not even UofM) to be successful in life, plenty of so called 2nd or 3rd or lesser schools put out fine grads with skill sets to succeed.    In a secondary note if you really want to get into one of those schools and can't out of HS, go to Junior college or another school, ace it for 2 years and then transfer.   I know of at least 5 young people who really wanted to go to Cal Berkeley but did not have the chops out of HS.  They all went to Junior College, aced it and applied after 2 years for a transfer, got in and graduated.  What is not known by many is that all those schools have varied levels of attrition so even 10% attrition on say an incoming class of 8000 means after two years that school is short 1600 and therefore can and will actively fill in with transfers.    Obviously entitled elites parents on this event who felt they did not have to play by the rules others do.  Again i will smile as this plays out to see the sentences, fines and jail time these parents get.  Karma is a bitch but fun to watch when she strikes down those that don't play by the rules especially when they are elitist rich snobs.

There's an elephant in this thread...no one can acknowledge political side of this issue.

There are a million different ways to cheat in life, but very few ways to do the right thing.

Someone from a more superior school tell me if I’m wrong here...but after your first two jobs out of school, does it really matter where you went?

It’s all about connections you make, opportunities your pursue, things you accomplish once you get into any school. Unless you’re a specialist of some kind?

James Van Der Beek, err Mox, weighing in "Operation Varsity Blues."

https://twitter.com/vanderjames/status/1105567685344030720

Of the many alarming things about this, what sticks out to me is that none of the schools audited athletic their admissions. If you viewed athletic admissions over time, and tracked the programs individually, what happened would immediately come clear. (E.g., 85% of the admitted golf students played, but 45% of the water polo players did). Also, if you randomly selected any of the incoming athletic class for further review if they never played their sport, you would likely discover that some of them never played the sport (or that their high schools did not have the relevant programs, etc.). 

I think it's funny that nobody bats an eyelash that, cheating aside, some retard would get into some of those schools because they're really good at volleyball or crew. Like that's somehow a great admissions system. At least with football/basketball you get brand recognition and revenue.

This should have been released as a housewives of Orange county episode.

For the record, while I've gotten a laugh out of this whole situation, it is depressingly sad for a ton of people.  Kids who got admitted who actually thought they did so on merit, the various student-athletes who now need to deal with the illegitimacy questions around their sports, and the numerous worthy students who got turned away so that the "social media influencer" daughter of someone from Full House could fuck around in college while getting sponsored by Amazon.  It's terrible, and should remind everyone complaining about "we don't need to play athletes" that literally everyone else is getting a piece of the pie, even in sports that don't generate the income.

Also, for anyone claiming "this just shows how bad it's gotten" regarding athletics and academics, this has been going on for EONs.  It was probably a bit better hidden/more socially ingrained so nobody noticed or cared, but this type of preference for the wealthy elites isn't new.

For the record, while I've gotten a laugh out of this whole situation, it is depressingly sad for a ton of people.  Kids who got admitted who actually thought they did so on merit, the various student-athletes who now need to deal with the illegitimacy questions around their sports, and the numerous worthy students who got turned away so that the "social media influencer" daughter of someone from Full House could fuck around in college while getting sponsored by Amazon.  It's terrible, and should remind everyone complaining about "we don't need to play athletes" that literally everyone else is getting a piece of the pie, even in sports that don't generate the income.

Also, for anyone claiming "this just shows how bad it's gotten" regarding athletics and academics, this has been going on for EONs.  It was probably a bit better hidden/more socially ingrained so nobody noticed or cared, but this type of preference for the wealthy elites isn't new.

After reading the responses, many don’t understand the alleged scam (dirty instigators, coaches/administrators, cheating on ACT/SAT tests). Apparently, reading comprehension at Michigan must not be our strong suit. 

/s

The comments on this matter verify the polls that indicate the most people only read or listen to headlines. They don't pother to read the article. 

This story does raise some questions.

Were the students who's parents bought and scammed their admission actually unqualified?   Michigan turns down about 80% of high school student applicants every year.  Are all those kids unqualified?  Is it good for a university to cull it's undergraduate student population via admission of only the extremely qualified?

If I am very rich and my kid is unlikely to gain admission to his private school of choice, why would it be illegal to offer that school big money (bribe) to have them educate the kid?   Assuming everything else was above board and they have not cheated on grades, SAT, etc.

So one thing I have not yet seen in this thread is any reference to IMG and likely shenanigans for its student athletes.

I have to believe that Mark Riddle has been taking SAT and ACT exams for scores of IMG athletes.  While I realize these athletes may be able to get into a school solely based on their athletic prowess, it does not hurt to have higher scores to qualify for enrollment to a better academic school. 

As fucking pissed as I am right about this (My all-A daughter was declined at UT on a stupid technicality), if these cock gobblers avoid jail time by paying a stupid fine in a plea deal, I will be absolutely livid.

Former Michigan coach Bruce Berque is now the interim men's tennis coach at Texas after longtime coach Michael Center was indicted and fired.