Gangster Capitalism/Admissions Scandal

[Coleman]

There is a great podcast out (Gangster Capitalism) that covers the admission scandal in detail, including audio of the phone calls from the affidavit. It is honestly shocking. Anyone with at least a passing interest in higher education should listen. Yes, Rick Singer and the celebrities who paid him should certainly go to prison, but the failures of the system of college admissions is even more profound than I first imagined. The system is truly broken, and favors the rich more than anyone imagines. It is largely the middle class that is being left out of the process of gaining entry to elite universities, whether through the back door of donations directly to the university or the "side door" that Singer invented.

I kept thinking about some people I knew at MU who came from incredibly wealthy families that were on the verge of failing out the entire time. It does make me wonder whether this is limited to truly elite colleges, or whether backdoor shenanigans are happening at the MUs of the world too.

[Benny B]

It's happening everywhere... the question is to what extent. 

Gross oversimplification alert, but if I were to categorize higher education into the following categories and then order them by frequency of shenanigans* (relative to the student body, not necessarily on an absolute basis) from the highest likelihood to lowest, my list would look like the following:

1) Notre Dame (hell, the only reason they won't accept a dog is because they'd have to accept the stupid bitch's puppies someday)
2) Elite Private
3) Small Private / Liberal Arts
4) Other D-I Private (e.g. MU)
5) Dash Schools
6) Flagship Public / Land Grants


[Excluded from the list are the for-profit institutions and the Ohio State University who will literally admit anyone who obtains a GED in their state.]

*Shenanigans being here defined as any effort to circumvent a completely objective admissions process, whether such actions are deemed "legitimate" or otherwise.

1 & 2 should be obvious.  3 is based on experience... having attended a few years of D-III private, you'd need more than a few hands and feet to count all of the kids who were clearly admitted based on their parents' checking account rather than their ability to count past 10.

Further, I'd put all of the publics at the bottom... logic being that the public schools generally know they're under high levels of scrutiny and subject to FOIA requests, so they go to great lengths to be objective.  That said, the dash schools are much more sensitive to swings in enrollment and are neither subject to nearly the same scrutiny nor the same admission standards of their big brothers.  In other words, if you're [insert name of wealthy Cheesehead] and you want to get your idiot kid into college despite his inability to read a college application, you'd probably stand a better chance of bribing his way into UW-Whitewater than UW-Madison.

That said, yes, I do think it would be easier to pull shenanigans at MU than UW-Whitewater... heck, a few years back, I was mailed "referral cards" to fill in the name of a HS senior who might be interested in MU.  Even if it was devised as a marketing campaign, I have a hard time believing that anyone who had their name referred didn't have his/her application or admission file marked in some capacity.

[Coleman]

It's happening everywhere... the question is to what extent. 

Gross oversimplification alert, but if I were to categorize higher education into the following categories and then order them by frequency of shenanigans* (relative to the student body, not necessarily on an absolute basis) from the highest likelihood to lowest, my list would look like the following:

1) Notre Dame (hell, the only reason they won't accept a dog is because they'd have to accept the stupid bitch's puppies someday)
2) Elite Private
3) Small Private / Liberal Arts
4) Other D-I Private (e.g. MU)
5) Dash Schools
6) Flagship Public / Land Grants


[Excluded from the list are the for-profit institutions and the Ohio State University who will literally admit anyone who obtains a GED in their state.]

*Shenanigans being here defined as any effort to circumvent a completely objective admissions process, whether such actions are deemed "legitimate" or otherwise.

1 & 2 should be obvious.  3 is based on experience... having attended a few years of D-III private, you'd need more than a few hands and feet to count all of the kids who were clearly admitted based on their parents' checking account rather than their ability to count past 10.

Further, I'd put all of the publics at the bottom... logic being that the public schools generally know they're under high levels of scrutiny and subject to FOIA requests, so they go to great lengths to be objective.  That said, the dash schools are much more sensitive to swings in enrollment and are neither subject to nearly the same scrutiny nor the same admission standards of their big brothers.  In other words, if you're [insert name of wealthy Cheesehead] and you want to get your idiot kid into college despite his inability to read a college application, you'd probably stand a better chance of bribing his way into UW-Whitewater than UW-Madison.

That said, yes, I do think it would be easier to pull shenanigans at MU than UW-Whitewater... heck, a few years back, I was mailed "referral cards" to fill in the name of a HS senior who might be interested in MU.  Even if it was devised as a marketing campaign, I have a hard time believing that anyone who had their name referred didn't have his/her application or admission file marked in some capacity.

I think I agree with you for the most part. Interestingly enough University of North Carolina, which is a flagship school, was one of the ones the podcast singled out. They were interviewing a woman from university advancement who said a million dollars was a guarantee for admission unless you had a felony. $500k got you most of the way there, as long as your test scores and grades weren't awful or hadn't been expelled from multiple schools. But maybe UNC is in the same bucket as Ohio State.

I guess I always knew that a big donation got your application "noticed," the same way knowing someone at a company gets your resume noticed. But I always assumed after it was noticed, it was still judged on its merits. You still had to be worthy of entry. But seeing it so brazenly described like a menu item, 1 million dollars for surefire admission, just kind of blew me away.

[StillAWarrior]

[Excluded from the list are the for-profit institutions and the Ohio State University who will literally admit anyone who obtains a GED in their state.]

Believe it or not, times have significantly changed.  When I moved here, OSU was known for its willingness to admit anyone with a pulse.  Now, they turn down a lot of kids (or at least defer them to their Mansfield campus).  As my kids started applying to college I was very surprised to hear how many kids were getting turned down at OSU.  I thought it was still easy to get in.

[JWags85]

Believe it or not, times have significantly changed.  When I moved here, OSU was known for its willingness to admit anyone with a pulse.  Now, they turn down a lot of kids (or at least defer them to their Mansfield campus).  As my kids started applying to college I was very surprised to hear how many kids were getting turned down at OSU.  I thought it was still easy to get in.

OSU is a fantastic example of what radical funding changes can do.  I went to Miami University outside Cincy for undergrad.  Entered in 2003.  At the time, it was as you mentioned.  EVERYONE's safety school.  I actually knew kids who went to OSU for 1-2 years in order to transfer to Miami cause they could easily get in and it would be fun (football, etc...) until they had grades to transfer.

Then the state started aggressively funding scholarships and grants.  I don't remember details but I believe National Merit semifinalists had nearly automatic academic full rides and otherwise aggressively recruiting kids that would otherwise go to Miami, IU, and some of the better private schools in Ohio.  By the time I graduated in 2008, it was a dogfight and Miami was losing out.

I dated a girl in Chicago that was an OSU grad.  Many of her friends had Miami as a backup plan to OSU, or were balancing money from the two when they were deciding.  And OSU started capping admissions from good in state high schools like UW does in Wisconsin.  Which was WILD for me to hear.

I imagine it was actually pretty easy cause every in-state student at Miami was on scholarship.  There was no in-state tuition, rather a pair of scholarships that everyone in-state was granted automatically.  OSU likely worked similarly and could just lever around their scholarship structure with a new aggressively funded pool.

[jesmu84]

There is a great podcast out (Gangster Capitalism) that covers the admission scandal in detail, including audio of the phone calls from the affidavit. It is honestly shocking. Anyone with at least a passing interest in higher education should listen. Yes, Rick Singer and the celebrities who paid him should certainly go to prison, but the failures of the system of college admissions is even more profound than I first imagined. The system is truly broken, and favors the rich more than anyone imagines. It is largely the middle class that is being left out of the process of gaining entry to elite universities, whether through the back door of donations directly to the university or the "side door" that Singer invented.

I kept thinking about some people I knew at MU who came from incredibly wealthy families that were on the verge of failing out the entire time. It does make me wonder whether this is limited to truly elite colleges, or whether backdoor shenanigans are happening at the MUs of the world too.

I hypothesize that that isn't limited to college admissions.

[Cheeks]

There is a great podcast out (Gangster Capitalism) that covers the admission scandal in detail, including audio of the phone calls from the affidavit. It is honestly shocking. Anyone with at least a passing interest in higher education should listen. Yes, Rick Singer and the celebrities who paid him should certainly go to prison, but the failures of the system of college admissions is even more profound than I first imagined. The system is truly broken, and favors the rich more than anyone imagines. It is largely the middle class that is being left out of the process of gaining entry to elite universities, whether through the back door of donations directly to the university or the "side door" that Singer invented.

I kept thinking about some people I knew at MU who came from incredibly wealthy families that were on the verge of failing out the entire time. It does make me wonder whether this is limited to truly elite colleges, or whether backdoor shenanigans are happening at the MUs of the world too.

I am a minority in my town and the general surrounding area....mostly Asian demographic.  I carpool with several Asians, friends of mine the last 15 years.  You should hear how much they feel they are being screwed in the college process.  They have pushed their kids hard to study, a common theme of Asian families, but are not being rewarded to the level they should.  Exceptional test scores and GPAs, but  admissions not happening at the level they should.  Within their community it is causing a rift because the promise of work hard, study hard, test well, get good grades is not manifesting into the payoff at the end.  As a result, some of the kids are rebelling and asking why they should put in the effort if it doesn’t pay off.

For racial groupings, no one performs better than the Asian community in terms of academic achievements, standardized testing, but it is not translating into the admissions rates it should.  Only in the last few years is this starting to gain some traction in the media, but with the typical poo pooing from some that that these families shouldn’t be pissed they aren’t getting into Stanford or Harvard because they are still getting into Penn and UCLA....but that isn’t the point at all and totally lost on those making that argument.

[StillAWarrior]

OSU is a fantastic example of what radical funding changes can do.  I went to Miami University outside Cincy for undergrad.  Entered in 2003.  At the time, it was as you mentioned.  EVERYONE's safety school.  I actually knew kids who went to OSU for 1-2 years in order to transfer to Miami cause they could easily get in and it would be fun (football, etc...) until they had grades to transfer.

Then the state started aggressively funding scholarships and grants.  I don't remember details but I believe National Merit semifinalists had nearly automatic academic full rides and otherwise aggressively recruiting kids that would otherwise go to Miami, IU, and some of the better private schools in Ohio.  By the time I graduated in 2008, it was a dogfight and Miami was losing out.

I dated a girl in Chicago that was an OSU grad.  Many of her friends had Miami as a backup plan to OSU, or were balancing money from the two when they were deciding.  And OSU started capping admissions from good in state high schools like UW does in Wisconsin.  Which was WILD for me to hear.

I imagine it was actually pretty easy cause every in-state student at Miami was on scholarship.  There was no in-state tuition, rather a pair of scholarships that everyone in-state was granted automatically.  OSU likely worked similarly and could just lever around their scholarship structure with a new aggressively funded pool.

It is interesting to read that and to have watched it develop over the years.  By the time my first was considering college, OSU already was the clear "leader" of the Ohio state schools.  My son had absolutely no interest in going to OSU, and didn't even apply.  He applied to Miami, and it was his No.2 pick (it was his parents' No. 1).  He got some money offered, but ultimately he got enough offered at an out-of-state school that made it pretty close in cost to Miami and he went there.  My oldest daughter had a unique college selection process that didn't include any of the in-state schools.  My middle daughter just completed the process.  She applied at OSU (and got in), but wasn't really that interested.  Once again, Miami was her No. 2.  Once again, an out-of-state school offered her enough money to make it workable and she went that route.

My wife and I have pushed Miami hard twice, and have one more chance.  I think for Ohio residents, it's an amazing value.

[Herman Cain]

I think I agree with you for the most part. Interestingly enough University of North Carolina, which is a flagship school, was one of the ones the podcast singled out. They were interviewing a woman from university advancement who said a million dollars was a guarantee for admission unless you had a felony. $500k got you most of the way there, as long as your test scores and grades weren't awful or hadn't been expelled from multiple schools. But maybe UNC is in the same bucket as Ohio State.

I guess I always knew that a big donation got your application "noticed," the same way knowing someone at a company gets your resume noticed. But I always assumed after it was noticed, it was still judged on its merits. You still had to be worthy of entry. But seeing it so brazenly described like a menu item, 1 million dollars for surefire admission, just kind of blew me away.

The back door method of paying for admission is perfectly fine. The school gets money which it can invest in scholarships for those who can not afford to pay. 

Obviously,where things broke down was this bogus side door routine. People either didn't have the money for the back door or were too cheap to pay.

 

[mu03eng]

The biggest negative of the backdoor is that nobody talks about it......

Butt seriously......

Ok, I'm good now. If a bad student gets in on the back of a $1M donation that then funds 5 scholarships for needs based kids not sure that's a bad thing as long as you're transparent about it

[TSmith34, Inc.]

I am a minority in my town and the general surrounding area....mostly Asian demographic.  I carpool with several Asians, friends of mine the last 15 years.  You should hear how much they feel they are being screwed in the college process.  They have pushed their kids hard to study, a common theme of Asian families, but are not being rewarded to the level they should.  Exceptional test scores and GPAs, but  admissions not happening at the level they should.  Within their community it is causing a rift because the promise of work hard, study hard, test well, get good grades is not manifesting into the payoff at the end.  As a result, some of the kids are rebelling and asking why they should put in the effort if it doesn’t pay off.

For racial groupings, no one performs better than the Asian community in terms of academic achievements, standardized testing, but it is not translating into the admissions rates it should.  Only in the last few years is this starting to gain some traction in the media, but with the typical poo pooing from some that that these families shouldn’t be pissed they aren’t getting into Stanford or Harvard because they are still getting into Penn and UCLA....but that isn’t the point at all and totally lost on those making that argument.

Setting aside how rough it must be for you to be a "minority"  ...

We know an admissions officer at Rice.  She has said that the number of perfect or near perfect SAT scores that they receive is ridiculous, and unfortunately that alone is not enough to guarantee admission.  It will certainly get them noticed, but they also want well-rounded kids and those that have shown leadership and initiative, not only great academics.  Obviously I do not know the situation of the people you know, but if families are focusing their kids only on academics to the exclusion of everything else they may not be working in their kids' best interests.

[UWW2MU]

OSU is a fantastic example of what radical funding changes can do.  I went to Miami University outside Cincy for undergrad.  Entered in 2003.  At the time, it was as you mentioned.  EVERYONE's safety school.  I actually knew kids who went to OSU for 1-2 years in order to transfer to Miami cause they could easily get in and it would be fun (football, etc...) until they had grades to transfer.

Then the state started aggressively funding scholarships and grants.  I don't remember details but I believe National Merit semifinalists had nearly automatic academic full rides and otherwise aggressively recruiting kids that would otherwise go to Miami, IU, and some of the better private schools in Ohio.  By the time I graduated in 2008, it was a dogfight and Miami was losing out.

I dated a girl in Chicago that was an OSU grad.  Many of her friends had Miami as a backup plan to OSU, or were balancing money from the two when they were deciding.  And OSU started capping admissions from good in state high schools like UW does in Wisconsin.  Which was WILD for me to hear.

I imagine it was actually pretty easy cause every in-state student at Miami was on scholarship.  There was no in-state tuition, rather a pair of scholarships that everyone in-state was granted automatically.  OSU likely worked similarly and could just lever around their scholarship structure with a new aggressively funded pool.

What's interesting to me about this commentary is that the students I met from Miami were always top notch and the people I've met who went to OSU were never very impressive to me.  This may have to do with being in a Sales and Marketing Business Fraternity where the Miami chapter was consistently one of the best in the nation, so I was just exposed to some of the better students.  However, anecdotally this has been my experience.

[mu03eng]

Seems relevant to the thread, MU is dropping admission tests as a requirement in certain cases.

[StillAWarrior]

Ok, I'm good now. If a bad student gets in on the back of a $1M donation that then funds 5 scholarships for needs based kids not sure that's a bad thing as long as you're transparent about it

Yeah, there is a reason that some schools have multi-billion dollar endowments and offer a great deal of scholarships and financial aid.  Schools like Stanford, Harvard and Yale are essentially tuition free for anyone making under $125k (or something like that).  And other schools to a lesser extent.  One place all the money comes from to provide those scholarships and make those educations accessible is private donations.  I honestly have a hard time getting too worked up about the fact that some people who make those donations expect their kids to be accepted (and then pay full freight for them).  Again, as long as it's transparent.

[Coleman]

I am a minority in my town and the general surrounding area....mostly Asian demographic.  I carpool with several Asians, friends of mine the last 15 years.  You should hear how much they feel they are being screwed in the college process.  They have pushed their kids hard to study, a common theme of Asian families, but are not being rewarded to the level they should.  Exceptional test scores and GPAs, but  admissions not happening at the level they should.  Within their community it is causing a rift because the promise of work hard, study hard, test well, get good grades is not manifesting into the payoff at the end.  As a result, some of the kids are rebelling and asking why they should put in the effort if it doesn’t pay off.

For racial groupings, no one performs better than the Asian community in terms of academic achievements, standardized testing, but it is not translating into the admissions rates it should.  Only in the last few years is this starting to gain some traction in the media, but with the typical poo pooing from some that that these families shouldn’t be pissed they aren’t getting into Stanford or Harvard because they are still getting into Penn and UCLA....but that isn’t the point at all and totally lost on those making that argument.

I think, at least in this instance, this is more about class than race.

[Coleman]

The back door method of paying for admission is perfectly fine. The school gets money which it can invest in scholarships for those who can not afford to pay. 

Obviously,where things broke down was this bogus side door routine. People either didn't have the money for the back door or were too cheap to pay.

I understand your point, but the big loser in all of this is the middle class. There are a finite number of spots in elite schools.

The rich, undeserving pay to get in, which benefits the poor, deserving students. The middle class gets completely left out. The rich student takes a place that a deserving middle class student could have had. I'm not sure I'm ok with that.

[Cheeks]

Setting aside how rough it must be for you to be a "minority"  ...

We know an admissions officer at Rice.  She has said that the number of perfect or near perfect SAT scores that they receive is ridiculous, and unfortunately that alone is not enough to guarantee admission.  It will certainly get them noticed, but they also want well-rounded kids and those that have shown leadership and initiative, not only great academics.  Obviously I do not know the situation of the people you know, but if families are focusing their kids only on academics to the exclusion of everything else they may not be working in their kids' best interests.

Where did I say it was rough?  As usual, you make up something that I never said.  I stated facts, you went somewhere else.

They are not focused only on academics.  In this situation, she was also the school’s athlete of the year, two sport star in basketball and track.  There is a reason why this particular demographic group sued Harvard and others.  They are being discriminated against.

[Cheeks]

I think, at least in this instance, this is more about class than race.

See the Harvard admissions lawsuit

[jesmu84]

See the Harvard admissions lawsuit

https://youtu.be/zm5QVcTI2I8

[Billy Hoyle]

Setting aside how rough it must be for you to be a "minority"  ...

We know an admissions officer at Rice.  She has said that the number of perfect or near perfect SAT scores that they receive is ridiculous, and unfortunately that alone is not enough to guarantee admission.  It will certainly get them noticed, but they also want well-rounded kids and those that have shown leadership and initiative, not only great academics.  Obviously I do not know the situation of the people you know, but if families are focusing their kids only on academics to the exclusion of everything else they may not be working in their kids' best interests.

My buddy’s sister was an admissions officer at Duke. 30% of incoming spaces were held for legacy admits, celebrities and their children and children who come from wealth. My wife’s friend went to a Duke with Ralph Lauren’s daughter. The Admissions Director got a $1 million/year seat on the RL board when she left (without graduating).

Now, many of these schools cap admissions, so when the lesser qualified child of a wealthy legacy gets in they’re taking a spot from a qualified individual. That I cannot support.

[Pakuni]

There is a reason why this particular demographic group sued Harvard and others.  They are being discriminated against.

So much so that the rate of admissions for Asian-Americans at Harvard has grown 29 percent over the past decade.

[mu03eng]

I understand your point, but the big loser in all of this is the middle class. There are a finite number of spots in elite schools.

The rich, undeserving pay to get in, which benefits the poor, deserving students. The middle class gets completely left out. The rich student takes a place that a deserving middle class student could have had. I'm not sure I'm ok with that.

I get the concept of being concerned about the middle class but the middle class by and large got themselves there and they have plenty of opportunities(I say that as someone who grew up lower middle class and was middle, upper middle by the time I went to college).

The rich by and large are generationally rich, the lower class is generationally lower class. It's very difficult to suppress the former AND raise the latter at the same time. If the middle class loses out on some opportunities because of that dynamic I'm fine with it. As long as its transparent, it's this shadowy stuff that really grinds my gears.

[MUBurrow]

I am a minority in my town and the general surrounding area....mostly Asian demographic.  I carpool with several Asians, friends of mine the last 15 years.  You should hear how much they feel they are being screwed in the college process.  They have pushed their kids hard to study, a common theme of Asian families, but are not being rewarded to the level they should.  Exceptional test scores and GPAs, but  admissions not happening at the level they should.  Within their community it is causing a rift because the promise of work hard, study hard, test well, get good grades is not manifesting into the payoff at the end.  As a result, some of the kids are rebelling and asking why they should put in the effort if it doesn’t pay off.

For racial groupings, no one performs better than the Asian community in terms of academic achievements, standardized testing, but it is not translating into the admissions rates it should.  Only in the last few years is this starting to gain some traction in the media, but with the typical poo pooing from some that that these families shouldn’t be pissed they aren’t getting into Stanford or Harvard because they are still getting into Penn and UCLA....but that isn’t the point at all and totally lost on those making that argument.

I would imagine that for states and schools using race as an admissions factor, "overperforming" minority groupings are very difficult to deal with - statistically speaking - when coming up with admissions standards.  Do you admit asians on a performance standard based on the % of applications coming from only asians (which in the case of most underrepresented minority groups, would actually boost their admissions and preserve spots in each class for those groups) or based on the pool of applicants as a whole (which would normally punish underrepresented minority groups, but here would actually give asians disproportionately higher admissions % vis-a-vis other groups)?

Ultimately it comes down to the word "should" doing a lot of work in your sentence bolded above.  And I would imagine its a very geographically diverse question. For me - if some kids from affluent asian communities in CA are having to settle for Penn instead of Harvard, I won't lose sleep over it so long as those spots are actually going to kids from more challenging environments. (I would also submit that asian is far too broad of a category - being asian from affluent tech communities on the west coast means something statistically very different than being asian from a Hmong community in the midwest, for example).  If those spots are going to Aunt Becky's kids, well then yeah that's also a problem.

[StillAWarrior]

So much so that the rate of admissions for Asian-Americans at Harvard has grown 29 percent over the past decade.

I'm guessing that the rate of admissions for African-American students at Harvard has also grown.  Are you contending that they're not being discriminated against?  I'm not sure I'd agree (I'd need more information)...and I'd be surprised if you're taking that position.

The rate of admissions -- without more -- tells very little about whether discrimination is occurring.

[Pakuni]

I'm guessing that the rate of admissions for African-American students at Harvard has also grown.  Are you contending that they're not being discriminated against?  I'm not sure I'd agree (I'd need more information)...and I'd be surprised if you're taking that position.

The rate of admissions -- without more -- tells very little about whether discrimination is occurring.

I am not accusing Harvard of discriminating against African-Americans. Not even sure where you came up with the idea that I might be.