Outside Topic Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - Printable Version
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RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - terry - 03-12-2019
The allegation against Stanford's sailing coach, John Vandemoer, is that he accepted donations to the sailing program in exchange for designating certain applicants as sailing recruits for admissions purposes. It is alleged that the applicants weren't actually competitive sailors, but submitted fake profiles fabricating sailing credentials. The allegations describe two cases in which this happened. One of the applicants was admitted but did not enroll. Another student didn't end up applying. So none of the phony sailors actually enrolled. Nevertheless, the sailing program apparently kept donations in the amount of $270,000.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1142906/download
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Edit: As Embo pointed out below, the allegations don't actually say that the first student was admitted. So I was wrong to assume that. It would seem that neither student was admitted.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - TreeWeird - 03-12-2019
Here is a link to the official allegations against Coach Vandemoer.
https://www.justice.gov/file/1142906/download
Details are in paragraphs 9-15:
9. In or about the summer of 2017, VANDEMOER agreed to designate the child of one of Singer's clients ("Stanford Applicant 1") as a recruit for the Stanford sailing team, in exchange for a payment to Stanford sailing.
10. In support of the student's application. Singer's associate created a student-athlete "profile" that was sent electronically to Stanford, and that falsely suggested that Stanford Applicant 1 was a competitive sailor.
11. In or about May 2018, after Stanford Applicant 1 deferred his application to Stanford for one year. Singer mailed a payment of $110,000 from one of the KWF charitable accounts to the Stanford sailing program in exchange for VANDEMOER's agreement to designate Stanford Applicant 1 as a sailing recruit in the following year's recruitment cycle.
12. In or about the summer of 2018, after Stanford Applicant 1 decided to attend a different university, VANDEMOER agreed with Singer to use that same recruiting spot for the child of another one of Singer's clients ("Stanford Applicant 2"), in exchange for a $500,000 payment to the Stanford sailing program.
13. In support of the student's application, Singer, together with others, created documents falsely indicating that Stanford Applicant 2 was a competitive sailor, although the student in fact had minimal sailing experience.
14. Although Stanford Applicant 2 ultimately did not apply to Stanford, Singer mailed a payment of $160,000 from one of the KWF charitable accounts to the Stanford sailing program.
15. VANDEMOER agreed with Singer that the payment would serve as a "deposit" for a future student's purported recruitment.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - burger - 03-12-2019
Statement from Stanford. None of the HS students involved came to Stanford.
Quote:The U.S. Department of Justice today charged a number of people around the country in an alleged scheme in which payments were made to try to win the admission of prospective students to a number of U.S. colleges and universities. Stanford’s head sailing coach was among those charged in the case.
Stanford has been cooperating with the Department of Justice in its investigation and is deeply concerned by the allegations in this case. The university and its athletics programs have the highest expectations of integrity and ethical conduct. The head coach of the Stanford sailing team has been terminated.
The charges state that sailing head coach John Vandemoer accepted financial contributions to the sailing program from an intermediary in exchange for agreeing to recommend two prospective students for admission to Stanford. Neither student came to Stanford. However, the alleged behavior runs completely counter to Stanford’s values.
Based on the Department of Justice investigation to date, we have no evidence that the alleged conduct involves anyone else at Stanford or is associated with any other team. However, we will be undertaking an internal review to confirm that.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - Spiny_Norman - 03-12-2019
The linchpin in all of the allegations appears to be admissions consultant/counselor Rick Singer.
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article227457069.html
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - terry - 03-12-2019
John Vandemoer's name was removed from Stanford's website within the last 15 minutes.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - BostonCard - 03-12-2019
[tweet]https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1105493852578697217[/tweet]
In the words attributed to Winston Churchill, "We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price."
BC
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - chrisk - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 10:36 AM)terry Wrote: John Vandemoer's name was removed from Stanford's website within the last 15 minutes.
He has now pled guilty to racketering.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - Hank 91 - 03-12-2019
Kudos to the University for handling this so swiftly. What strikes me as odd, however, is that the indictment doesn't say the coach was paid directly. It doesn't make the scheme any less slimy, it's just weird that the corrupt coach didn't have his own hand out. Am I missing something?
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - oldalum - 03-12-2019
yes, he did it in exchange for donations to the sailing program (i.e., to Stanford). He was trying to help his program, but defrauded the admissions department to do it.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - donkey687 - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 10:46 AM)Hank 91 Wrote: Kudos to the University for handling this so swiftly. What strikes me as odd, however, is that the indictment doesn't say the coach was paid directly. It doesn't make the scheme any less slimy, it's just weird that the corrupt coach didn't have his own hand out. Am I missing something?
No mention either of whether Stanford is going to give the donations back. Sports like sailing depend on donations to buy new equipment and finance the program as they don't get allocated 100% of needed funds from the department. The coach may have been just trying to secure the financial security of the program rather than trying to enrich himself. It looks worse for Stanford that the money went to the athletic deparment rather than the coach.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - newguy - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 10:21 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: .........There are certainly very smart, talented and authentic high performing students, but I got pissed seeing many of the so called "good kids" cheat to get their grades, to get into bigger schools........
It sucks to see so much lying and cheating in society. This kind of academic fraud is more nauseating because it gives kids who were already given advantages over less fortunate, the chance to have a do-over if a lesser privileged kid worked his/her ass off to get an elite opportunity over a privileged one.
i have never read a post on this board with which i agree with more.
and i couldn't have said it any better.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - BostonCard - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 10:21 AM)OutsiderFan Wrote: I went to an elite high school and saw so much cheating that I mailed in my high school grades to go the JC route. There are certainly very smart, talented and authentic high performing students, but I got pissed seeing many of the so called "good kids" cheat to get their grades, to get into bigger schools, then party all the time. I know one of the cheaters went to USC of all places.
It sucks to see so much lying and cheating in society. This kind of academic fraud is more nauseating because it gives kids who were already given advantages over less fortunate, the chance to have a do-over if a lesser privileged kid worked his/her ass off to get an elite opportunity over a privileged one. The indictment is gross.
All we can do is try to hold cheaters and law breakers accountable.
Talent is everywhere; opportunity is not.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1081619342377156608.html
BC
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - terry - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 11:21 AM)donkey687 Wrote: No mention either of whether Stanford is going to give the donations back.
The donations came from the mastermind of the crooked scheme. So I don't think it would be appropriate to give the donations back. Maybe Stanford would consider donating the money to a worthy cause.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - Spiny_Norman - 03-12-2019
They tried to get at least one of the kids into Stanford through the football program. Stanford said no.
[twitter]https://twitter.com/ChrisVannini/status/1105520169709903873[/twitter]
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - Langdude - 03-12-2019
I'd totally expect this sort of thing out of Wisteria Lane, but I am fairly confident that Danny Tanner would not stand for anything like this.
-m.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - oldalum - 03-12-2019
well, if that info is accurate re: Stanford football, the university is going to have to investigate. I hope it is that the football coach who presumably was contacted did not know of the scheme, but just said in response to an "innocent" inquiry that no we can't get a student with that academic record through admissions.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - washingtonismoney - 03-12-2019
I mean certainly the university should be doing a comprehensive investigation but I think the Stanford football coach looks OK here. I suppose "can't make an exception now" might be vaguely treading into sensitive territory but keeping in mind it's a paraphrase from an individual speaking casually, with questionable credibility, I'm not terribly worried about this in of itself.
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - BobK - 03-12-2019
I don’t see this posted but the sailing coach was fired several hours ago
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - M T - 03-12-2019
This all is so sleazy. Tweets that speak of photoshopping leads me to believe these guys knew they were doing something wrong, not just that they thought they were giving a kid a break.
BUT, let me ask you, if you had a friend you play golf with, or a business associate that knows you went to a big-name school that his child was trying to get into, and he said,
Quote:"Listen, I know you went to --------. My kid's trying to get in there and I thought you could maybe write a recommendation. I know you don't really know him/her but maybe you could get to know each other at a [pro sports team] game next week. Would that work for you?"
Haggling over the price?
Would you be in favor of Stanford removing any admissions advantage for athletics, except as it was an extracurricular activity (like debate team, etc.) that the student excelled in? I had thought only a few money-making sports would be where fraud would be involved. I didn't think about how the other sports would be susceptible to it.
I wonder if some NCAA penalty might be assessed. If so, $C may lose men's & women's WP NCs. Would they then be awarded to the runner up, which I expect includes Stanford? Would Stanford lose any in sailing?
RE: Alleged large-scale test-cheating ring to get athletes into Stanford, other schools - terry - 03-12-2019
(03-12-2019, 12:18 PM)M T Wrote: I wonder if some NCAA penalty might be assessed. If so, $C may lose men's & women's WP NCs. Would they then be awarded to the runner up, which I expect includes Stanford? Would Stanford lose any in sailing?
Sailing is not an NCAA sport. So I don't think the NCAA would have jurisdiction to do anything regarding the Stanford sailing program.