A college admissions scheme involving celebrities, business executives, and other powerful figures rocked the news world on Tuesday. Too bad the scandal is old news.
Top News Today
According to court documents, a nationwide FBI probe has uncovered a massive bribery scheme which guaranteed the admission of celebrity children into some of the country’s most elite colleges and universities. At least 3 dozen parents — including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli — were charged with conspiracy and other crimes for allegedly using millions of dollars in bribery money to get their children into such schools as Yale, Georgetown, and the University of Southern California.
Here’s how the scheme worked:
William Rick Singer set up a sham charity in order to launder money received from high-profile parents for his services. He would then hire third-party individuals to fraudulently take the SAT or ACT college admissions exams on behalf of his clients’ children, or pay college coaches to admit the children under the guise of a made-up “impressive” athletic resume. In either scenario, the high-profile children would receive admittance to the college of their choice via the extremely impressive but faked SAT/ACT scores, or a fraudulent athletic ability they didn’t actually have.
On Tuesday, Singer pleaded guilty to all the charges against him, the actresses and other parents were formally charged, and the news media went bonkers over the news that a scheme to get unqualified kids into college could even exist.
Get real!
This so-called scheme/scandal is nothing new. Parents have been getting their “not-so-bright” children into Ivy League schools and other prestigious colleges and universities for decades simply by making a large donation to the School of Business or building a library with the family name attached to it. Perhaps this was the first time a 3rd party individual was used as somewhat of a “middleman,” but a go-between has never really been necessary for the right parents with the right amount of cash.
Celebrated playwright and screenwriter David Mamet, best known for the films Glengarry Glen Ross and Wag the Dog, issued perhaps the best response to the scandal via an open letter. Here is a portion of his words:
.
I worked for very many years in and around our Elite Universities. I am able to report that their admissions policies are an unfortunate and corrupt joke.
Harvard was once sued for restricting the admission of qualified Jews; a contest currently being waged by Asians.
The unqualified may be accepted for many reasons, among them, as Legacies, and on account of large donations made by their parents. I do not see the difference between getting a kid into school by bribing the Building Committee, and by bribing someone else. But, apparently, the second is against the Law. So be it.
.
And so, there you have it. The so-called college admissions scandal is nothing more than an old elitists trick that’s been around for decades. After all, does anyone actually believe that Donald Trump got into The Wharton School and Jared Kushner got into Harvard solely on their educational merits?
And so, there you have it. The so-called college admissions scandal is nothing more than an old elitists trick that’s been around for decades. After all, does anyone actually believe that Donald Trump got into The Wharton School and Jared Kushner got into Harvard solely on their educational merits? […]-DJ
Puleeze! What “educational merits”…? DJ, there you go again being much too kind.
Does anyone actually believe that Trump even graduated High School? Puleeze! Clearly the man is intellectually deficient -as probably, so too, are most of the people he surrounds himself with.
But you are so right….rich people have been running this game “for decades.” Their own version of “affirmative action” huh?/sarc