Badass Teachers Association Blog: The College Admission Scandal from a Public School Educator’s Perspective

Badass Teachers Association Blog: The College Admission Scandal from a Public School Educator’s Perspective

The College Admission Scandal from a Public School Educator’s Perspective

A particular news that otherwise would be of interest only to a small percent of Americans, carried too much drama for the media not to cover it widely— the largest college admission cheating scandal in history! Chiefly, the interest was triggered by the famous, wealthy, and well connected characters in this show. According to ABC Nightline, the operation “Varsity Blues” exposed a massive admission cheating scheme that included well known TV stars, Silicone Valley tycoons, a hedge fund CEO Manager, and a head of a prestigious law firm among others. All of them wealthy enough to pay generously a consultant company that guaranteed them to get their children into elite colleges.

If learning about the existence of private consultant companies dedicated to help candidates to enter elite universities was not interesting enough, the fact that this particular company showed no scruples whatsoever to achieve its client’s wishes definitely provided intriguing angles. For one, it is alarming to realize the wealthy clients’ disposition to pay up to hundreds of thousands of dollars on what it was clearly an illegal scheme. In addition, it amazes the extent of this company’s corruptive activities to guarantee success -- falsifying documents, altering SAT scores, doctoring photographs, bribing SAT proctors, coaches, and athletic directors, and even fabricating sports qualifications.

However, what tops it all is the win-win profitable financial scam for the clients. Cleverly, the head of that company, Rick Singer, created one fake college counseling non-profit to allow his deep pocketed customers to mask the potentially embarrassing nature of the payment, while allowing them to report the expense as a write off from their taxes. That information alone would be enough to hook, entertain, and inform the general audience. After all, as taxpayers we partially ended up footing the bill in this scheme. However, as an educator the scandal exposes the much larger issue of meritocracy and how it affects public education and millions of college students as well.

Although this illegal episode involves only wealthy and privileged characters in elite institutions, it has significant implications for students in public education. Mainly, it forces to reconsider the American notion of a meritocratic system so regularly invoked by politicians . So how important CONTINUE READING: Badass Teachers Association Blog: The College Admission Scandal from a Public School Educator’s Perspective