No clue. I never went to watch them. 
Did this catch your eye?
"In the end, Emmanuela was muscled out of the running by some superstars in her class and put on the wait list. The alums were furious. I got a testy voice mail from Hal the day after the decision letters went out. “For Pete’s sake, your office is sending us mixed messages. You tell us to find gems like Emmanuela with atypical backgrounds, but then you don’t accept them. What gives?”
Years later, I learned that Emmanuela graduated from Columbia, where she did impressive work organizing Harlem tenants against a local slumlord."
Is that what it takes to impress college admissions officers? If she had simply become a lawyer or a doctor, would it have been no-loss to wait-list her?
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The daughter of a CEO whose parents allegedly paid big bribes to get her into Georgetown University “gloated” about being fed the answers to her SATs, according to prosecutors.
Isabelle received a score of 1900 out of a possible 2400 on the exam — “an improvement of 320 points” over her own best score.
Only scored 1900 even after being fed the answers? 
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You can do better? Any Singaporeans can walk in and score a minimum of 2100, SAT is brain dead easy, no need to cheat.
Can’t do too well or the College Board (SAT) staff would have caught it.
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And now… a break for some good news:
Maybe as a minority, he won’t need a bribe to get into a good college.
I think the way the article was written leaves you to draw your own conclusions, depending on how you frame it. In the example of the single mom who was passed up, you could ask was it a “hard miss” compared to:
What other achievements she might have if she had if she did take a spot at Yale instead of Columbia?
What the “superstars” did with their Yale education?
The point I took was that it is very difficult to choose from the volume of top quality candidates they have, so they have to look beyond standardized test scores (even those don’t weigh as heavily as high school achievement, especially if there is a large discrepancy between the two). I see it as a mutual investment between student and uni varsity; both want to take advantage of the talent and resources of the other, to maximize their worth (not just monetarily). Like VCs selecting startups, they want hits and expand their success and scope of influence. The best startups can pick and choose the VCs that will offer resources to help them reach the highest goals.
The framing makes the difference. I see the parents bribing being prosecuted as good news.
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Gee! I remember once I said something about an Asian driver driving like crazy in the other Redfin forum and somebody called me a racist. I begin to observe some people on this forum are hypocrite. 
Anyway…
Mediocre middle class? What does that mean? Are you attacking people because they don’t earn enough? Or, by it you mean their kids are kind of rich but not that “smart enough”?
I wouldn’t berate any social class because of the assumption that their kids are dumb, we can’t assume they are because of how you feel in educating your kids, whom may be or not smart when they grow up and they will be facing with the uncountable challenges of the modern era, and are in “college”. Will they be that class you berate? I would hope for the best when it comes to our kid’s education, you never know what they can do, rob a bank, or create an app that will make them millionaires. You will never know, but hoping they succeed is all we can do, don’t we?
We also don’t know if their applications are going to be dumped because that rich and famous person got one of their own in by cheating. That’s is what we are discussing here. Cheating!
But we can berate and criticize what is in front of us, spoiled, rich, “mediocre” (according to your assessment) rich class in which parents are using their $ to get into an OK society of the rich and famous. And by doing that, they are destroying the lives of those kids who really deserve a spot into those colleges. How would you feel if your kids were it?
Whether universities are allowing spoiled kids to get in, that’s up to them, what is at debate here is the cheating, which seems to be something acceptable nowadays. That is something unacceptable in my world. By allowing such thing to happen, we are turning this country into a all rich go to heaven, poor people, mediocre societal people go to hell, they don’t deserve a chance.
And, that’s a lethal statement, things change in a minute, and those who think they don’t belong to that group are in for a big surprise. You can go from rich and famous to being broke or in jail for anything.
Are these parents going to jail?
They are rich, so, somebody is going to sweep that scum underneath the carpet, oh boy! As we haven’t seen enough criminals getting a slap on their hands. And that’s more lately than in the past. $ is turning this country into a blind, quick scheme to reach wealth, hypocritical society.
Who cares who is opening the door to your future wealth, being rich is all that counts. Hell with honesty, integrity and responsibility for creating a common and desirable near future. Jesus!
[quote=“Whoami, post:63, topic:6980, full:true”]
Ugh Rick Singer guy graduated from my college…embarassing 
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buyinghouse, you’re not white or Asian, so let me fill you in on something that maybe you’ve never thought about but that we do: white and Asian boys are at a disadvantage when it comes to college admissions because they are not a minority. It is not speculation, racism, classism, or sexism…it is a fact. It is something that I as a parent of a white boy and my friend who is a Korean parent of a white-Asian kid, worry about. We know that our kids have to be a level above everyone else because they are competing for the last few precious spots after the legacy kids, back-door kids, atheletic admissions kids, and minority kids. A white or Asian boy going into STEM is second to even a white or Asian girl going into STEM because everyone wants to increase girls in STEM.
Our boys have to be not just top-notch, but they have to be perfect to stand a chance.
So what do you think happens when they’re not top-notch and when we don’t have the money to do a back-door deal (ie, we’re not rich, we’re middle class–I think that’s the definition of middle class isn’t it?)? I’ll tell you what happens: They’re screwed. They don’t stand a chance.
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It’s not the end of the world if they can’t get into an Ivy. If the kids have the drive they will succeed in life. They don’t need a (prestigious) college degree for that.
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Totally true and it’s that type of parental thinking that the kid needs to be perfect and has to get into a top notch school that is driving so much anxiety, depression, and ultimately suicide in our youth. It is being driven by these unrealistic expectations that your whole life’s future rides on how well you do in HS and ultimately what top college you get into which just isn’t true.
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Ivy is not the ticket for STEM . Better off going to San Jose State. Being a Californian I have total contempt for East Coast snobbery and Ivy dominance. Let them choke on their legacies and liberal bias. They are irrelevant to success in SV. My niece went to Yale history major. Lives with her parents at 35.
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I don’t think they can get into a U/C here either though. Which means potentially having to forking out $200K for a mediocre student to get a Bachelor’s degree.
Yeah but they can get into San Jose State or ASU. There are is not enough room in the old standbys. The population has doubled while the Ivy League becomes stuck in the 19th century.
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If the kid lets the college degree define who he/she is then that is quite tragic. Bachelor’s degree is the new high school diploma.
I don’t think that’s what the problem is. The problem is that CA’s public universities don’t have enough spaces for the public. That means average kids in CA may not be able to get a Bach degree at an affordable price. If their earning potential isn’t that high, it puts them in the group of people who are in debt with less potential to pay it off.
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San Jose State is quite well known overseas, yes, more well known than a few UCs. Btw, is pretty hard to get in to San Jose State nowadays Btw, UC undergraduates are striking today instead of taking finals! overcrowdedUCs are for manymediocre not just the fewintelligent. People wants free college education and good life guaranteed.
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Average kids can’t even get into one of the many cal states? That seems they are below average.
How many spaces are there and how many kids in CA?
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