Petition calls on Georgetown to rescind degrees, admittance of students involved admissions scandal

[nitpicker]

https://wtop.com/education/2019/03/petition-calls-on-georgetown-to-rescind-degrees-admittance-of-students-involved-admissions-scandal/

Petition calls on Georgetown to rescind degrees, admittance of students involved admissions scandal

By Hallie Mellendorf
March 20, 2019 4:41 am

An online petition that calls on Georgetown University to rescind the degrees or admittance of students and alumni implicated in the nationwide admissions scandal has gathered over 15,000 signatures.

It is only a few hundred signatures away from its goal of 16,000. The petition was started by alumnus Mickey Lee, who said allowing those involved in the scandal to retain their degrees “severely degrades the standards and prestige of Georgetown University.”

Some 50 people have been charged in the college entrance bribery scheme involving wealthy parents and coaches at several elite universities. One of those people is former Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst.

Ernst would allegedly notify Georgetown’s admissions office he offered an applicant a spot on the tennis team. According to court documents, he offered at least 12 students a spot on the team despite knowing they were not competitive athletes.
(snip)

[HopeAgain]

1. You would think

It is a no-brainer. I think the kids had to know, and even if they didn't, a precedence has to be set.

[Loki Liesmith]

2. So if .people benefit by someone else breaking the law

Even if they knew nothing about it, they should have those benefits take away?

Just want to be clear on the principle here.

[HopeAgain]

3. Yes, make room

for transfer student who deserve yo be there.

[Loki Liesmith]

10. So why not deport DACA recipients then?

We all want to offer them benefits of an institution (US residency) which they’ve heretofore enjoyed based on an illegal act they did not participate in. And I think we’re right to do so.

[HopeAgain]

24. Apples and oranges

You have a picture of these innocent struggling kids to get an education at a top institution, victimized by their parents. When in reality I don't think for the most part that is what we are talking about. These are wealthy kids with parents rich enough to bribe their way in. I bet the vast majority got a private high school education and had every advantage available to get into a great school on their own. But they couldn't without their parent cheating for them.

They will all, I am sure, still get the opportunity for a college education while there are other young people who will not. But it should be a school that they were accepted to on the merits, not fraud. I think they should be allowed, after having their place revoked, to apply honestly with no preference over the other applicants. If it is clear they know about the cheating, they should be denied. If they merit admission, great. If not, they should not get benefit from extreme privilege.

[Loki Liesmith]

28. I don't care if the kids are struggling or not

I want a uniform standard of justice to be applied. I have one: if they can be shown to be complicit, toss’em.

All I see from anyone else is special pleadings.

[HopeAgain]

32. Most uniform way to handle it is as I said

Make them reapply and show they have the right to be there on the merits. What kind of message does it send if they are left to benefit from cheating. Oh, I can answer that: white privilege is alive and well.

[LanternWaste]

33. Only because you wish to see nothing else.

"All I see from anyone else is special pleadings...."
Only because you wish to see nothing else, though they have been provided... directly and easily.


“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall..."

That's pretty much what happens when we pretend A=B in every case... as you did. Again.

[Chin music]

4. They didn't know they weren't tennis athletes?

They knew.

[zipplewrath]

7. Yeah, those folks "knew"

I can give some leeway to a student who didn't know their SAT scores had been altered/faked. As long as they are performing academically now, I probably let them stay unless I have some solid info they were complicit. But it's pretty hard to ignore that someone "made" the tennis/crew/track/lacrosse/whatever team having never played.

[Loki Liesmith]

11. That's why I favor a case by case evaluation

of each student’s complicity.

[zipplewrath]

12. Yup

Each school should review their own admissions and look for these irregularities and investigate them to determine complicity.

[getagrip_already]

29. nope...

If they got in under fraudulent means, they should be discharged with no access to transcripts.

Period. Full stop.

Otherwise, the parents still win. Others will see that and do the same thing.

Sorry for your pending doom. But you will have the option to enroll somewhere else after you take new tests to assure you didn't get any advantage there as well.

[Ms. Toad]

38. Why would they?

My understanding is that the parents had the coach paid to say they were tennis athletes (in many instances withouth their knowledge). They were not getting scholarships. They were not ever expected to play tennis - the fake nomination did not pass through their hands.

It as merely a paid means to acquire a lower admission standard. So yes - they knew they weren't tennis athletes, but (as I understand the scheme), they had no reason to know anyone expected them to be

[mercuryblues]

39. The student would have to put Tennis

as a high school sport on their application.

[Ms. Toad]

41. Not necessarily -

The scheme, as I understand it, just requires the coach to include the student on their list of team recruits - triggering a more lenient admissions review.

[mercuryblues]

42. the coach

puts the student on the list for recruitment for tennis. Review board looks at application and tennis is not listed as a sport. No letters, awards or achievements of any type for playing tennis?

Again, applying to colleges is very thorough. As an example my daughter played softball in HS. When applying to her colleges she listed every trophy, every award, her state ranking, Her position on the team, being captain of the team her senior year. Where her team ranked in their division. Her averages. And she wasn't even being recruited as a player for the colleges she applied to. She did win a spot as a walk-on.

That was just for softball. She had many other activities and volunteer work she listed. She got letters of recommendations from her coaches and head of the volunteer program she participated in for 7 years.

High school transcripts, in a sealed envelope.

If you are applying for instate tuition you have to provide further proof that you actually live in state.

Then guess what she had to do, sign the application as being true.

You have to show photo ID when taking the SATs and ACT. Which they compare to the photo ID they have on file at the testing center. They compare signatures.

The student is involved at every stage.

[Ms. Toad]

43. You're making a lot of assumptions that do not line up with the phone transcripts

filed with the claims.

As to your last point, for example, the scam was not run by ringers sitting in for students. It was run by students applying for and obtaining special testing accommodations (in some instances by their parents via doctors who may not even have seen them in person). That permitted them to be tested at a special site, run by somoene charged in the scam, where a fixer adjusted their answers after-the-fact. In only one instance was the test actually taken by someone else and in that instance, the parents went through an elaborate ruse to ensure that their child would not know that the test was taken by a substitute. At the site where these students took the exam, because it was run by someone in on the scam - even if it involved a ringer taking the test - photos and signatures would not have meant anything.

Your daughter's experiences at one school, in one sport, are not necessarily indicative of all sports or all schools. The sports chosen seemed to be relatively obscure (crew, for example), a sport that most high schools do not have - so it would not have been listed as a sport, nor would any school awards have been won for it.

I'm basing my assessment on the actual documents filed in court. I have not read the complete file - but what I've read suggests that in many instances the students were not involved and were often intentionally kept in the dark by their parents.

[mercuryblues]

44. Did you miss the part where you sign up for the exam

you send a passport type photo along with your application. When you show up for testing the photos are compared. So the kid whose parents "went through an elaborate ruse" did so without the kid's knowledge that something was amiss? Even though they had to go to a Dr and get a learning disability diagnosis, then fly out of state to "take" the exam at a certain testing facility. Then they scored so high on the test that they actually believed they did it on their own? I have a bridge to sell you. They knew something was not right, they didn't care.

What I was getting at the sports profile and every other "achievement" that goes on an application, which the student then signs. They didn't notice all the awards listed for a sport thet didn't play?

Many of these kids had to go to a Dr to get a diagnosis to get specialized testing. They were told to act slow to be able to get more testing time. So they did. Which means they participated in the ruse.

Students did not know that their GPA went up because of on-line courses they never took? Use of their computers during testing? The proctor giving the kids answers during the testing?

[X_Digger]

6. If your dad steals a car and gives it to you, but you know nothing about it.. it's still stolen. n/t

[Chin music]

8. If my Dad steals a Jaguar and he works for Subway...then I should be suspicious.

Especially if I can't drive, or have no license. America is an honest nation. Things like this is how trumpism infects our country's ideals.

[Loki Liesmith]

9. Is a position in an institution property though?

A car is property. Is a position at a university?

[X_Digger]

13. Is a position at a university something that someone else could have honestly achieved?

Fucking duh.

[Chin music]

14. Thank you.

To argue if something bad is bad, well...is bad.

[Loki Liesmith]

15. I find that argument unconvincing

You lose the car because it is an illegal transfer of property. The property is either transferred to its owner or its value is transferred to those with existing property claims.

Who *owns* a slot at a university? Especially since such slots have no intrinsic scarcity?

[Loki Liesmith]

16. Why not just add slots to admit those wrongly down selected?

We can right this wrong without summary punishment

[HopeAgain]

25. If I take something that doesn't belong to you

that's not a punishment, that is just setting things right.

[X_Digger]

17. Are slots at a university an infinite resource? Of course not, silly.

A class can accommodate a certain number of students.

So taking one through subterfuge, deception, and bribery deprives an otherwise deserving kid from that spot, no?



The lengths that some will go.

[Loki Liesmith]

19. They are not an intrinsically limited resource

The limitations are based on a network of other resources that can be reallocated as well as policies that can be changed.

Are they infinitely available? No. Are they elastic? Yes.

[X_Digger]

20. No, a teacher's attention is not intrinsically limited. Yet each additional student..

.. detracts from the attention each one receives.

Let's degrade everyone's experience by a small but measurable amount so that some little rich shit can take advantage of Mommy and Daddy's crime.

Fuck that noise.

If a university has indicated that staffing, housing, administrative, etc resources can manage X students, then someone's ass is getting left behind when X+1 students apply.

Fucking duh. What's so hard to understand?

[Loki Liesmith]

21. Utterly unconvincing

You’ve made several claims about finite attentional resources. I’d need to see that quantified before I credit it at all. What’s the loss of teacher efficacy per pupil? This is a small number of individuals we are talking about here in a large pool of existing students. The percent change in number of students would be very small as would, one suspects, the change in effort level.

My suspicion here is the real desire is not to help those excluded wrongly, but to instead *punish* privileged students for their privilege.

[X_Digger]

22. I don't give a fuck if you're not convinced.

You seem bound and determined to excuse the little shits of their parents' crimes.

Fuck that noise.

[Loki Liesmith]

23. Why post then?

I support consequences for those who were knowingly complicit.

I have no idea if all kids involved are “little shits” or not. Certainly some are. “Investigate and find out” seems more just than simply lashing out blindly because we’re mad at their parents.

But that’s just me.

[HopeAgain]

26. You say "no intrinsic scarcity?"

Really? People don't use bribes to get things that have no intrinsic scarcity.

[Celerity]

40. +1

[LanternWaste]

34. I dog how you move the goalposts... but only when convenient to your unsupported premise.

[Skidmore]

27. So if someone takes

a test for someone else, how is there no knowledge of the crime? Or writes an essay. Etc.

[beachbum bob]

5. should no-brainer and all GT alumni should make it clear no more endowments will happen

if GT does not

[customerserviceguy]

18. I'd like to see

every college in America above the community college level examine itself for this sort of fraud. Yes, I'm sure that it's more rampant in so-called "prestigious" schools, but it seems that non-revenue sports coaches would be tempted in the ways that the ones who were caught were tempted.

[getagrip_already]

31. some are....

They are looking back at years of athletic admissions and verifying the kids were as they claimed.....

[customerserviceguy]

36. Good, they all need to do it

And while they're at it, they need to be transparent about what things get a person accepted to the school, besides good grades. If a college wants to give a preference to someone who is the son or daughter of a graduate of that institution, fine, but at least give out some numbers about what percentage do that.

We all expect that the football and basketball coaches are going to get students ushered into the schools, but those coaches aren't going to waste an admission on a bench-warmer, or worse yet, a nonparticipant.

[zaj]

30. That's ridiculous...

At least the degree part.

Anyone graduating earned the degree at the same standards as others. No way they should lose the degree.

And kick them out midway? Maybe, but still.

This reminds me of the steroids in baseball. So the small number of people caught get the punishment, but everyone knows there was a whole corrupt bargin going on, and many others who cheated, and everyone is working hard to look away.

[customerserviceguy]

37. Maybe

If Mommy and Daddy would bribe the water polo coach to get little Tad or Buffy into a school, wouldn't they also be tempted to do the same with a professor, or even a teaching assistant for a subject or two or ten that the little darling just couldn't "get"? After all, they were willing to sell the testing board on the bogus idea that their little affluenza sufferer was learning disabled, in order to be able to cheat on a test.

I'd bet that what we know now is just the merest tip of a mighty iceberg. Higher education has been about sucking down the big bucks any way they can get them. Increase the Pell Grant? Watch the tuition go up by at least as much.

[aikoaiko]

35. I think it is a reasonable response.

Colleges must show that beneficiaries of deceit will not benefit at all if caught.

Yes its a drag for the student, but to let the admissions or degrees stand is to say to parents, you're kids will still benefit from your fraud even if you get caught.