Mass College Admission Cheating Scandal

[Sbbruin 22087]

Some pretty damning details of how shit went down in the USC athletic department

https://reignoftroy.com/2019/03/12/usc-athletics-indicted-college-admissions-scam/

[Sbbruin 22087]

4 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

You too fucking lazy to cut and paste that behind a spoiler?

Fucking Bruins 

[LCHorn 2749]

44 minutes ago, Llano Estacado said:

 

I think it’s different for different colleges. And it is still late, but not 2 weeks out or last week of class. 6 Q-drops max across Texas.

 

2018-19 years Academic Calendar:

8/29 1st Class day

9/4 4th class day. Add drops may require school’s dean

9/14 12th class day. Last possible add/drop day. No refunds.

11/1 Last day for pass/fail change or Q-drop without extenuating circumstances and dean’s approval.

12/10 Last class day.

 

 

 

 

Thank you, I was about to correct Beau Vine’s poor recollection.  I was a veteran Q dropper, to the point that I don’t have “show up to school naked” nightmares, I have “I missed the Q drop deadline and I haven’t attended a class all semester” nightmares.

[TwiceHorn 31996]

2 hours ago, Beau Vine said:

One of my daughter's HS study buddies ended up at Stanford majoring in M.E.  Her freshman year, she complained that he kept calling her for help in his Calc 3 class because it was what she had done in Calc 2 at Mines.  

The other thing about Stanford is that you can (or used to be able to) drop a class as long as you didn't turn in the final exam.  At UT, you can drop in the final week of the semester, which is just maddening to deal with if you're a faculty member.  

 

The last semester I taught at UT, I had people dropping the class with B averages, because "I have to make an A in this class for my GPA."  

in the 80s, the deadline in the College of Engineering to drop without academic penalty was Thursday.  Start on Monday, you had til Thursday.

[CycleTex87 3005]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

in the 80s, the deadline in the College of Engineering to drop without academic penalty was Thursday.  Start on Monday, you had til Thursday.

This is what I remember also.  And they didn't just hand out A's, you had to work your ass off for them.  I don't remember any grade curving either.  You took the exam and whatever your grade was, that was it.  My son went to another school in ME, and almost every exam had a curve, like the exams were too hard (or something).

[SuingToGetAMessageBoard? 3861]

Engineering physics had to have curves. I feel like the median score one test I remembered was in the 30s.

[TwiceHorn 31996]

12 minutes ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Engineering physics had to have curves. I feel like the median score one test I remembered was in the 30s.

I got a B in PHY303K with a 28 average.  It was an honors section with a freak prof fresh back from the Max Planck Institut fur PlasmaPhysik.  There were lots of curves, but that doesn't diminish the work required to sit atop the curve.

I had a high school buddy that was a legacy to Stanford.  He was a smart guy and put in work the right way in high school, no doubt was qualified.  He came to Austin to check out the film scene one summer and took an upper division English course.He expected to show up, hand in the work/write the papers and get s smooth B at least.  He barely escaped with a C.  And, of course, getting a C in anything was pretty traumatic for a guy like him.

Edited March 13, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[Johnny Sack 8397]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I got a B in PHY303K with a 28 average.  It was an honors section with a freak prof fresh back from the Max Planck Institut fur PlasmaPhysik.

I could study that shit for 5 years in my academic prime and never crack a 15.  My brain just does not work that way.

[Brisketexan 106653]

Took Plan II physics - department chair taught it, and I walked in thinking "dude, F=MA, I got this shit."  First day, he launches into relativity and shit.  I remember getting a 21 on a test, and the curve made that a B.  It was fascinating, and I busted my ass....and I got a C.  Goddamned physics.

[CycleTex87 3005]

10 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

I got a B in PHY303K with a 28 average. 

I remember my first exam in PHY303K I got a 15/150.  A solid 10.  There was no curve.  That was my personal wake up moment in college that I needed to buckle the F down and work hard.  I worked every problem in the book from that point on, and pulled a B at the end of the semester.  

[Moby Ric 2058]

I took physics over the summer and gladly walked out with a C.  The curves were huge on the tests.

[TwiceHorn 31996]

7 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Took Plan II physics - department chair taught it, and I walked in thinking "dude, F=MA, I got this shit."  First day, he launches into relativity and shit.  I remember getting a 21 on a test, and the curve made that a B.  It was fascinating, and I busted my ass....and I got a C.  Goddamned physics.

Austin Gleeson?  I had him for PHY303L and wanted to drop it because of the fear and loathing from 303K but hell week was the first week of class second semester.  I went to Dean Margaret Baker on Monday (seventh day of classes) and almost cried to try to get out of it.  No dice.  She stopped short of calling me a pussy, but not by much.

I'm glad I stayed with it, Gleeson was/is one of the great profs at UT.  He started the Physics Circus and that's him in 2017;

Edited March 13, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[TexasBeta 1274]

I took physics over the summer and gladly walked out with a C.  The curves were huge on the tests.

I don’t think schools like SMU have grades on the curve. The one thing UT taught me was the test is a competition between you and the other students in the class. Bust the curve. Screw everybody else.

[Aqua Buddha 14783]

9 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

It's sad really, how all the poors around these parts just don't get it.

I learned the ways of the rich folk

Learned how they're livin' it up

[Machinator 32102]

 

 

[Brisketexan 106653]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Austin Gleeson?  I had him for PHY303L and wanted to drop it because of the fear and loathing from 303K but hell week was the first week of class second semester.  I went to Dean Margaret Baker on Monday (seventh day of classes) and almost cried to try to get out of it.  No dice.  She stopped short of calling me a pussy, but not by much.

Yep, Gleeson.  Was killing me that I couldn't remember his name.  I loved him -- he was engaging as hell, and next-level smart.  But goddamn, he may as well have been speaking a made-up hybrid of chinese and swahili.  This liberal arts kid was in DEEP water.

[52-80 19375]

Not sure how I managed a B in 303k, 316 (electricity and magnetism), AND 468k (geophysics)........given I know fuck-all about physics.

 

But hell, looking back on the transcript, I don't even remember having enrolled in half of those classes (much less attend them)

 

[Huckleberry 34407]

You non-engineers had it so easy. Ha.

 

I was surprised and ecstatic when my 81 was curved to an A in DiffEq's first test.

 

Physics was cake.

[Brisketexan 106653]

3 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Fucking nerd. Some of us were busy getting drunk, attending Longhorn games and occasionally getting laid.

Those factors MAY have also contributed to my C in Physics.  It's a real possibility.

[Machinator 32102]

 

[Moby Ric 2058]

15 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

You non-engineers had it so easy. Ha.

 

I was surprised and ecstatic when my 81 was curved to an A in DiffEq's first test.

 

Physics was cake.

I was busy having the "college experience" man.  My college transcripts don't mean shit anymore.

[ztejas 44114]

19 minutes ago, TexasBeta said:

I don’t think schools like SMU have grades on the curve.

Depends on the class but some definitely do. 

[Underdog 29107]

2 hours ago, BearSchlong said:

SIAP but Frank Gallagher NOT getting arrested for fraud seems ironic to me.

My sister enrolled for summer school at Yale as a HS JR and took 2 classes and made a 3.5, then she wasn't accepted to Yale as a freshman. .  .but was accepted to Dartmouth.  I always wondered if there was collusion involved.

Hope she at least got to enjoy Louis Lunch or sally’s or pepe’s while at Yale. 

[TwiceHorn 31996]

I wonder if the liberalized drop policy kind of attends the top 10/8/7 admission rules?  I think UT is more incentivized now to keep students around, whereas in the days of 1100 SAT and in, they gave not one single fuck about making it easy to make decent or even passing grades.

[Huckleberry 34407]

12 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Fucking nerd. Some of us were busy getting drunk, attending Longhorn games and occasionally getting laid.

You act like male engineering majors were dumb enough to try to date female engineering majors. My girlfriend was in nursing school.

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

Schools are judged on retention rates and how quickly they get kids to graduation. Makes for some strange policies.

[TwiceHorn 31996]

1 minute ago, ztejas said:

Depends on the class but some definitely do. 

There were no flies on SMU academics even in the 80s.  I think it kind of lost its way a bit after the death penalty, when it tried to become a boutique liberal arts school, but I didn't see much evidence of it being a blow-off, ever.  People from all the old SWC schools were amply prepared at UT Law School. 

[TwiceHorn 31996]

7 minutes ago, Moby Ric said:

I was busy having the "college experience" man.  My college transcripts don't mean shit anymore.

Engineers had plenty of fun.  It just started on Friday night instead of Wednesday like the rest of you troglodytes.

[Beau Vine 55835]

11 minutes ago, Machinator said:

 

I of all people completely understand that the administrators have to act like they're doing something in this situation, but what rules and procedures are you going to put in to prevent someone from taking bag with $60K cash bribe in a parking lot?  Maybe they could pay $9.95 for the Rivals recruiting ranking of HS tennis/soccer/water polo recruiting rankings?

[Machinator 32102]

3 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

I of all people completely understand that the administrators have to act like they're doing something in this situation, but what rules and procedures are you going to put in to prevent someone from taking bag with $60K cash bribe in a parking lot?  Maybe they could pay $9.95 for the Rivals recruiting ranking of HS tennis/soccer/water polo recruiting rankings?

Definitely not Rivals.

https://www.si.com/college-football/2019/02/14/fake-recruit-gets-ranked-rivals-247sports-change-composite-policy

[ToY 18]

 

[Blotto 23975]

Austin Gleeson....that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Fantastic professor. I actually had him for both engineering physics and Plan II physics. The plan II physics class was  comparatively easier, but both classes were enjoyable in their own way. That dude could flat out teach.

Edited March 13, 2019 by Blotto

[TwiceHorn 31996]

Just now, Blotto said:

Austin Gleeson....that's a name I haven't heard in a while. Fantastic professor. I actually had him for both engineering physics and Plan II physics. The plan II physics class was  a lot easier, but both classes were enjoyable le in their own way. That dude could flat out teach.

You're not one of THOSE are you?  Respek, if so.

[Paper_jam 846]

I had Gleeson as well, for 303K in ..Fall '89, I guess.  That was one of my top two or three favorite classes at UT, although it wasn't easy.  Managed a low 'A' somehow.

 

[AUinHsv 583]

1 hour ago, SuingToGetAMessageBoard? said:

Engineering physics had to have curves. I feel like the median score one test I remembered was in the 30s.

yeah I still remember one class my final quarter at AU in Chemical Eng.  Without a curve no one would have graduated. First test was 140 points(yep - not 100 for some reason). Class average was 17 ( that is seventeen out of 140).  Glad to have made around 30. Without a curve they would have flunked every senior.

[Blotto 23975]

3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You're not one of THOSE are you?  Respek, if so.

It was an interesting contrast in education. Engineering took 80+% of my time but grades were hard to come by. Plan II realized that most students were going to grad school, so they followed the same grade inflation found at Stanford, Ivy league, etc... I would wager that most classes were 70-80% A's. Only thing that kept my GPA over 3.0.

[Larry T. Spider 1747]

This thread turned into a bunch of nerds.

[TwiceHorn 31996]

2 minutes ago, Blotto said:

It was an interesting contrast in education. Engineering took 80+% of my time but grades were hard to come by. Plan II realized that most students were going to grad school, so they followed the same grade inflation found at Stanford, Ivy league, etc... I would wager that most classes were 70-80% A's. Only thing that kept my GPA over 3.0.

Seemed like a hell of a load, though. Other than the English and History and Government, engineers only had room for I think nine hours of electives, adding in a whole BA worth of stuff seemed brutal in four years, or even five. There was a gal in EE/Plan II that had a 4.0 when I was in school.

[Llano Estacado 1257]

From ABC13 Houston. “At least two Houstonians were indicted in the scheme: Martin Fox, who is the president of a private tennis academy in Houston; and Niki Williams, an assistant teacher at a Houston high school and test administrator for the College Board and ACT.”

So who has read the whole indictment? If they are charging a tennis coach and ACT admin there has to be at least one prominent Houston family involved. Does the indictment list the name of the individual Coach Center was talking to?

[Machinator 32102]

UT Has No Records Matching $500,000 “Donated” by Nonprofit Implicated in Bribery Scheme

https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/ut-nonprofit-donated-bribery-scheme/

Quote

A nonprofit that was allegedly used to funnel bribes allowing rich parents to fraudulently get their kids accepted to elite universities had earmarked more than $500,000 in “donations” to the University of Texas-Austin from 2015 to 2016, according to the nonprofit’s financial documents. That’s much more than the $100,000, identified in federal indictments, that was allegedly used to bribe a UT tennis coach—and it’s unclear where the money went.

Key Worldwide Foundation, a federal tax-exempt organization that federal prosecutors say was used as a front to facilitate a massive college admissions bribery scheme, claimed on its Form 990 (a U.S. Internal Revenue Service document that provides the public with financial information about nonprofits) that it had “donated” $294,000 to “University of Texas Athletics” in 2015, followed by $252,000 in 2016.

In hundreds of pages of court documents released on March 12, prosecutors alleged that a co-founder of KWF paid UT men’s tennis coach Michael Center $100,000 in 2015 on behalf of a parent of a prospective student, in order to ensure the student’s admission. Center was indicted and charged with mail fraud, and was fired by UT on March 13.

That alleged $100,000 bribe may be included in the dollar figure KWF claimed to have donated to UT in 2015, but federal prosecutors did not identify any other bribes that were allegedly sent to UT coaches or employees, raising questions about the $546,000 KWF claims to have donated to UT Athletics from 2015 to 2016.

UT spokesman JB Bird told Texas Monthly in an email that the university does not have records matching the large donation amounts described in KWF’s tax forms, and that the university is “in the process of reviewing other gifts that could be related to the 2015 incident, which could total several hundred thousand dollars.” Bird added that the university is sharing all information with federal investigators. Center was the only UT employee implicated in the indictments.

The university does have records of a $15,000 donation from KWF on June 10, 2015, money that Bird said went toward an outdoor tennis facility. “To our knowledge, this is the only record we have of a donation from or related to the organization,” Bird said.

That $15,000 “donation” came at the same time that federal prosecutors say Center received his bribe money. According to a federal indictment, on June 5, 2010 KWF mailed Center a $15,000 check, payable to “Texas Athletics Attn: Michael Center,” in exchange for allowing the son of wealthy parents to be admitted to UT as a recruited tennis player. The teenager hadn’t played on a tennis team since his freshman year of high school.

Three days later, KWF sent Houston tennis camp instructor Martin Fox a check for $100,000 for his role in allegedly brokering the bribe deal between a KWF employee and Center. Also in June 2015, a KWF employee allegedly flew to Austin, met with Center in a hotel parking lot, and gave him $60,000 in cash. The money had allegedly originally been “donated” to KWF by the parents of the student and funneled through KWF to Center to make it look like a charitable donation to the organization, rather than a bribe.

In a written statement on March 13, UT President Gregory Fenves said that the university is conducting a “thorough review” of the allegations against Center, and will investigate “whether the university has the necessary rules and procedures in place to prevent violations in the future.”

“The integrity of UT admissions is essential to our mission as a research university and to the students and families we serve,” Fenves said. “That is why any act of wrongdoing, no matter how singular, matters so deeply. At UT, tens of thousands of students, faculty and staff members, coaches and admissions officers conduct themselves with honor and distinction every day. Any ethical breach overshadows their accomplishments and violates our culture of service and distinction. Moving forward, we must continue to strive for the highest ethical standards at The University of Texas.”

KWF’s tax documents also listed donations to other schools, including Yale University, University of Southern California, DePaul University, Chapman University, New York University, University of Miami, and Baruch College. None of those “donations” topped the amount KWF claimed to have given to UT. Representatives of one of the organizations KWF supposedly donated to, “Friends of Cambodia,” a small charity based in California, said they had never heard of KWF until now. Elia Van Tuyl, the co-founder of Friends of Cambodia, told Palo Alto Weekly that his organization doesn’t even have a bank account. “We don’t exist as a nonprofit,” Van Tuyl said. “No one could write a check to Friends that we could cash.”

A total of 44 people have been charged in relation to the scandal, with crimes including mail fraud, racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice. Among those charged are Hollywood actors, prominent lawyers, and successful businessmen. Here’s a complete list of the names of people who were indicted. In addition to Center, three others face federal charges in Texas: Niki Williams, a college entrance exam administrator in Houston; Martin Fox, the Houston tennis instructor; and John Wilson, the CEO of a Massachusetts private equity and real estate and development firm.

“For every student admitted through fraud, an honest, genuinely talented student was rejected,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said during a press conference in Massachusetts on March 12. “The parents charged today, despite already being able to give their children every legitimate advantage in the college admissions game, instead chose to corrupt and illegally manipulate the system for their benefit. We’re not talking about donating a building so a school is more likely to take your son and daughter. We’re talking about deception and fraud. Fake test scores, fake athletic credentials, fake photographs, bribes to college officials.”

Lelling added that this is the largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice, that the investigation is ongoing, and others may still be charged.

 

[Slacks 7027]

It was an interesting contrast in education. Engineering took 80+% of my time but grades were hard to come by. Plan II realized that most students were going to grad school, so they followed the same grade inflation found at Stanford, Ivy league, etc... I would wager that most classes were 70-80% A's. Only thing that kept my GPA over 3.0.

Yeah, I thought of Plan II Honors as that hard shit I did in HS, so I passed... I learned (through the undefeateds ) that it was actually a lot less challenging than the name implies.

All of my engineering friends earned that shit. Even the ones that were probation at some point.... Spek on it.

[Beau Vine 55835]

4 minutes ago, Larry T. Spider said:

This thread turned into a bunch of nerds.

Yeah, I love it so much when the engineers get going. 

 

[Slacks 7027]

Oh, and Abi should file a suit, right?

[Sbbruin 22087]

2 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

Yeah, I love it so much when the engineers get going. 

 

[Rimbo 26859]

51 minutes ago, Moby Ric said:

I was busy having the "college experience" man.  My college transcripts don't mean shit anymore.

I still get asked my GPA on job applications, and that was nearly a quarter of a century ago.

[Rimbo 26859]

47 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

You act like male engineering majors were dumb enough to try to date female engineering majors. My girlfriend was in nursing school.

Yeah, you don't do that until graduate school. I swear, my graduate CSE experience was motherfucking Melrose Place. If you were to put students and faculty as dots and draw lines between who hooked up with whom, you'd have a connected graph.

[Js1 86967]

FUCK YES

 

[Hook1997 5487]

48 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

You act like male engineering majors were dumb enough to try to date female engineering majors. My girlfriend was in nursing school.

I use to hookup with the president of the student engineering department around 2002 ish, she was the hot nerdy type.

[Rimbo 26859]

3 minutes ago, Js1 said:

FUCK YES

 

You mean, the one school that has had an administrator arrested?

I have a suspicion USC may be in deep, deep doo-doo...

[Brisketexan 106653]

6 minutes ago, Js1 said:

FUCK YES

 

See....THAT'S how you do it.  Attractive young girl has sex with chairman of board of trustees, attractive young girl gets admitted to university.  These people and their fancy-ass shortcuts, when a simple sex-for-favors game is a time-honored way of getting shit done.