The ivies can afford anything they want. They have ENORMOUS endowments. Harvard has $37 billion while Yale has a mere $30B. 15% is a huge number set aside for legacies.

The judge is right- most top tier private schools have need blind admissions- so if your daughter gets in, it could be cheaper than a state school depending on your income. It’s hard to get in, but it’s worth an application if she wants to go. You might even be able to get the application fee waived-again, depending…

In fact, white men benefit enormously. While a few women in fields that are male dominated get affirmative action, the application rate for men in general is so much lower than for women that a ton of men get in over women- schools want to keep an overall close to 50/50 ratio. 

She applied for the time and was granted it. But she likely knew she really shouldn’t have gotten that extra time.

Their grades probably matched up pretty closely. They wouldn’t have been far off the scale most likely and they’d just think they got lucky- good letters of rec, that great SAT score, etc. 

The proctors don’t seem to have helped the students. They waited until they turned the test in and then changed the answers after the kid left. It appears that the kids didn’t get those kinds of notifications, their parents intercepted stuff, and/or they were told it was a bureaucratic error. In the above documents…

The fathers almost certainly knew, but following time honored tradition, it’s pretty obvious that the moms did all the legwork re: the kids. 

He’s been around for a long time. Big at Target- I don’t know what his more upscale side is about. 

I think it said she was on a rowing machine and then it was photoshopped? A halfway savvy parent could set that up- “oh look, cool, a rowing machine! Sit on it and pretend to row- it’ll make such a cute picture!” done. The kid with the waterpolo gear had to know tho. 

I don’t think most of the kids are dunces, they just didn’t have the grades/scores for the schools they wanted to get into. They could have still been A students who would have done ‘well’ on the SAT/ACT. As you mention, the hard sciences are a different story, but they could probably do fine in a humanities major if…

They certainly should have gone that route, but depending on where she wanted to go, it might not have been enough. Apparently her PSAT score was about 1000- it’s average, but even over a couple of years, that’s a lot to make up. The tests are coachable, but within a range. A 1000 score suggests that she would need to…

I think that’s odd too. The famous mom’s seem to have more incriminating evidence against them, but that’s likely because all the normal work revolving around kids tends to fall to mom’s anyway. It def sounds like both Macy and Mossimo were involved, but neither of them have been arrested yet and the media is only…

The basketball kid (5'5") was a boy. It appears that the conduit there was not the basketball and football coaches tho. 

Most elite private schools have need blind admissions- so if you get in they may pay all or much of your fees. But, you have to know about that, have great grades, etc. You also won’t likely make the cut off if your family is solidly middle class. 

I know! Somehow they actually have (had) a good reputation now-a-days tho. I’ve never understood it- it was never a good school for anything but film. 

From what I’ve seen so far, Singer wasn’t changing transcripts. Based on the schools they were trying to get into- they’re probably all low A/high B students and they were almost certainly attending expensive private schools- those schools do a pretty good job at preparing students and they’re generally used to…

USC has not been known as University of Spoiled Children for decades for nothing. I have no idea how they have the national ranking they do (or did).

That does seem promising. I’m also wondering about all the mentions of suspicious high school counselors. It sounds like a fairly localized con. Some counselor who saw the third kid get into USC as an athlete and who was affiliated with Singer may have tipped off the feds.

I really doubt these kids had GPAs of 2.2. For the schools that they were looking at, they were likely at 3.5-3.9 with ACT scores in the the high 20s or low 30s to being with. They could be convinced they’d done unusually well on a good day- it happens (kids also score 35s on practice tests and go in and get a 31).

They weren’t necessarily poor students- just not outstanding students. USC’s average gpa is 3.73  and average SAT is 1400 (94th percentile). So a kid with a 3.6 (still A student) and a 1200 SAT is likely not going to get in. Stanford’s average is 4.18 (on 4.0) scale and 1400 is on the low end for admissions. I’m not…