Operation Varsity Blues

[hobbsyoyo]

I mean, most of these kids didn't even know their parents were doing this, so I'm not sure it'll nuke their confidence. And if your parents are super rich actors or hedge fund people, it's harder for me to think that these kids will be really likely to suffer from a lack of *confidence* as they go into their professional careers.

But yeah, they don't NEED college. They're rich, white and American. They'll probably be fine no matter what. It's a class thing.

It is unclear to what extend the kids were truly clueless of what was going on. In some cases, they definitely had to have known and it's implausible (to me at least) that the majority were clueless. The water polo 'superstar' clearly knew what was going on as he had to fake an injury to justify sitting out all games in the first semester, after which he dropped off the team entirely - which was exactly the plan that the fixer laid out to the parents via email when the parents worried they'd stick out like a sore thumb at water polo practice. At the very least I would have expected the parents involved to sit their kids down and tell them not to screw up at school because they had paid a lot of money to get them in, though that doesn't necessarily mean they told the kids the full story.

 

[Zkribbler]

, it's time to attack Hollywood because ı don't somehow think much of it will ever write checks for Trump.

Ben Stein was on Fox railing that this is a total Hollywood problem which makes it a toal Democratic Party problem because Hollywood is 100% Democratic.

 

[downtown]

It is unclear to what extend the kids were truly clueless of what was going on. In some cases, they definitely had to have known and it's implausible (to me at least) that the majority were clueless. The water polo 'superstar' clearly knew what was going on as he had to fake an injury to justify sitting out all games in the first semester, after which he dropped off the team entirely - which was exactly the plan that the fixer laid out to the parents via email when the parents worried they'd stick out like a sore thumb at water polo practice. At the very least I would have expected the parents involved to sit their kids down and tell them not to screw up at school because they had paid a lot of money to get them in, though that doesn't necessarily mean they told the kids the full story.

I'm just going by the official report by the Feds. They claimed the majority of the kids didn't know.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I'm just going by the official report by the Feds. They claimed the majority of the kids didn't know.

"Yes son, there is a reason that I'm taking your picture in a rowing skull, but you don't need to know what that is. Now, go get packed. We have to fly to Houston so you can take the SAT test."

I'm clear that these kids' abilities were being falsely inflated, but were they really dumb enough to miss what was happening?

 

[rah]

Of course if they weren't really that dumb they wouldn't have needed the service.

 

[downtown]

"Yes son, there is a reason that I'm taking your picture in a rowing skull, but you don't need to know what that is. Now, go get packed. We have to fly to Houston so you can take the SAT test."

I'm clear that these kids' abilities were being falsely inflated, but were they really dumb enough to miss what was happening?

Yeah, there were a few exceptions, of course, but a ton of those fake recruit profiles were photoshopped! All done behind the kid's back.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I'm just going by the official report by the Feds. They claimed the majority of the kids didn't know.

Yeah, there were a few exceptions, of course, but a ton of those fake recruit profiles were photoshopped! All done behind the kid's back.

Even with all this, I just find it stretches credulity to believe they were completely unaware. I can believe that it's going to be exceedingly difficult to prove they knew to the point of being able to prosecute them and that investigators are probably loathe to go after a bunch of kids on dubious evidence of their awareness.

 

[FriendlyFire]

There is a hard limit to the number of Asian students ivy league colleges will take.
The SAT scores only apply until an average of 16.5% of the student population is Asian.
This number has stayed constant for 25 years.

California switched to a merit based admissions and now everyone else is complaining about too many Asian students being admitted
Meanwhile you wonder how people like G.W.Bush even got admitted to Yale not that it did him any good

 

[Berzerker]

wasn't based on his merit

 

[Timsup2nothin]

California switched to a merit based admissions and now everyone else is complaining about too many Asian students being admitted
Meanwhile you wonder how people like G.W.Bush even got admitted to Yale not that it did him any good

Legacy. I haven't found any clear statement of how much that lowers the admission standards, but no one seems to question that it lowers them a bunch.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

A woman was sentenced to jail for using her sister's address to get her kids into better schools. I wonder if any of the people in this scandal other than the fixer will see jail time?

I kid, they won't

 

[Lexicus]

Hell, some Federalist Society judge will probably detemine that the fixer deserves three days in jail because he lived an otherwise blameless life, so don't worry, the American justice system is working as intended.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Hell, some Federalist Society judge will probably detemine that the fixer deserves three days in jail because he lived an otherwise blameless life, so don't worry, the American justice system is working as intended.

I am encouraged that Gorsuch sided with court liberals yesterday in a case over a Native American treaty but overall I think that was an exception rather than the rule. In general it seems the people Trump has appointed to various court levels are exactly the kind of activist judges that conservatives decry - but they are conservative activists so they get a pass.

For anyone interested, the Yakima tribe of Washington gave up their lands in 1855 but negotiated a clause in the relevant treaty that enabled them access to the US highway system to move goods to their market without paying taxes on said goods. Washington state wants to bill them for over $3 million in gasoline import taxes (they bought gas in Oregon and brought it to their lands in Washington) and the conservatives on the court argued that their access to the highways system means they have to pay import taxes even though the treaty specifically forbid it. And for once, 'original intent' was used rationally - clearly the tribe knew the magnitude of what they were giving up when they moved to a reservation and were able to extract meaningful concessions from the federal government. The other conservatives basically tried to argue that the tribe didn't know how valuable the concessions they negotiated were and therefore shouldn't be honored. Gorsuch said that's a bad re-reading of history and sided with the liberals.

 

[Lexicus]

Gorsuch has made a few surprisingly decent decisions. He's made plenty of terrible ones too though.

 

[Berzerker]

thats an interesting case... and some smart Indians who saw the writing on the wall 150+ years ago

 

[Zardnaar]

Gorsuch has made a few surprisingly decent decisions. He's made plenty of terrible ones too though.

Gorsuch isn't as bad as the other one. Federialists are big on original intent so if the Indians had it in writing yeah he will side with the liberals.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Gorsuch isn't as bad as the other one. Federialists are big on original intent so if the Indians had it in writing yeah he will side with the liberals.

The problem with original intent is that the people who profess allegiance to it are not really more inclined to follow it than the ones they critique. The other 4 right wingers on the court all took the line that the Indians didn't know what they were asking for so it doesn't count, which to me sounds patronizing as hell and another way of saying their own opinion right now counts more than the written word of long dead Indians.

And of course original intent has other issues - I mean those same originalists try and read egalitarian ideas into a racist constitution premised on the personal ownership of human beings which is pretty dumb on the face of it.

 

[Zkribbler]

I wonder if any of the people in this scandal other than the fixer will see jail time?

Because the defendants will all turn out to be rich white folks, I doubt jail time will be imposed except that the bribe payments were cloaked as charitable donations and then deducted from the bribers' income tax payments. Tax fraud is a big deal.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Because the defendants will all turn out to be rich white folks, I doubt jail time will be imposed except that the bribe payments were cloaked as charitable donations and then deducted from the bribers' income tax payments. Tax fraud is a big deal.

It's a big deal, but it's an "amended return, pay interest and penalties" big deal, not an incarceration big deal.

 

[Lexicus]

Ben Stein was on Fox railing that this is a total Hollywood problem which makes it a toal Democratic Party problem because Hollywood is 100% Democratic.

Guy should have stuck with peddilng Clearasil. He was good at that