Paying bribes to have their children in elite schools will send very wealthy people to prison



[ad_1]

Manicure salons across America are likely to enjoy a flourishing activity every year at this time, as it is a difficult time for parents of high school students who are waiting for letters of acceptance from the departments. admission of colleges. But until the indictments are issued this week by a grand jury that has gathered evidence in the course of the Varsity Blues investigation conducted by the lawyer. American Massachusetts, Andrew E. Lelling, at least 33 parents of children seeking admission to several prestigious universities did not bite them. .

This is because the parents thought they had put the solution for their children. They had paid a man named William Singer, founder of a college preparatory company called Edge College & Career Network, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to insure their children to receive positive letters of admission through the mail. Between 2011 and February 2019, parents of more than 700 children had paid Singer over $ 25 million to bribe university administrators, coaches and test administrators of the SAT and ACT. to guarantee the admission of their children to schools like Yale, USC. , Stanford and other elite universities.

For decades, wealthy parents have tried to bring their children to Ivy League and other exclusive schools by making large, often multi-million dollar cash donations to college endowments. . In some cases, they staffed professors' chairs and even gave money for the construction of new buildings for the purpose of placing their children at Yale, Harvard and other renowned schools. Jared Kushner's parents, for example, would have donated $ 2.5 million by the time their son applied to Harvard. Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, had neither the grades nor the grades needed to be admitted to Harvard as part of a normal admissions procedure, but he was nonetheless admitted.

Paying college money for their children to have a "second look" was not enough for some parents, though. This is where Singer, the man behind the scandal discovered this week, came into play.

"There is an entrance door where a student does it alone, then there is a back door where people go to institutional advancement and make big donations, but they are not guaranteed." said Mr. Singer, according to a report in the New York Times. "And then, I created a side door that guaranteed the entry of families. So that's what made it very attractive to many families, if I created a guarantee. "

Parents paid between $ 15,000 and $ 75,000 in bribes to college test administrators to help their children cheat on exams. Singer asked at least one parent, William McGlashan, a partner in the $ 103 billion TPG Capital investment fund, to say his son had learning disabilities to allow him to spend more than two days his college entrance exam … one, according to the court documents, "according to the New York Times report.

Mr. McGlashan is at TPG; a fuss is going on to find out if he leave or was fired – I guess the distinction between millions and millions of dollars of revenue is suspended. Manuel Henriquez, CEO of Hercules Technology Growth Capital, Inc. resigned from the venture capital firm this week after being indicted in the scandal. Gordon Caplan, co-chair of the mega law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, was put on leave Wednesday. Doug Hodge, retired chief executive officer of Pacific Investment Management Company, LLC (known as PIMCO on the street), is one of the largest bond fund groups in the world. Hodge's name was removed from the website of Sway Ventures, a venture capital firm where he was a partner. The actress Lori Loughlin was fired from the takeover of "Fuller House" at Netflix in which she was to play, and her contracts with Hallmark Channel were canceled. Felicity Huffman, star of Desperate Housewives, was also accused in the entry scandal.

What's going on with all these very, very wealthy hedge funders, venture capitalists and Hollywood stars who ended up in shit with the law this week? I think the answer can be found in a word used by the scam artist's admissions, William Singer: guarantee.

All those charged this week had the wealth and fame that would have been needed for their children to receive special treatment from university admissions officers. Many colleges are actively looking for celebrities and wealthy business people to help them focus on their programs and their financial health. But these parents were not satisfied with a "second look". It was not enough to put their kids ahead of the line of admission. These privilege pashas wanted guarantees that their children would be admitted to elite schools such as Yale, USC and Stanford.

To put in the chasm necessary for a guaranteed result is an act of essentially authoritarian law. Do you know who else wants guaranteed results? Leaders of dictatorial regimes, such as Russia and other countries, are altering the results of fake "elections" to ensure they remain in power.

Men like McGlashan are particularly hard to understand. The New York Times described him as lounging on Nekker Island, Richard Branson's private retreat in the Caribbean, with Laurene Powell Jobs, the widow of Apple's president and founder, Steve Jobs, and Jeff Skoll, the first president of Ebay. What did these captains of capitalism do a few years ago when they were sipping rum punch and sunbathing? They were developing a plan using "the engine of capitalism. . . to solve the big problems we face, "McGlashan told Barrons after the rally on Nekker Island. If that sounds a bit like how the super-rich talk when they scratch each other in Davos every year, you're right. Of course, Bono, the singer of the band U2, was waiting behind the scenes. In fact, he and McGlashan were photographed in Davos walking in their puffed jackets and ski skis this winter. They partnered with Ebay's Skoll and created a fund called "Rise Fund", which consists of "investing ethically" and investing a lot of money at work.

What happened between the island of Nekker and Mr. Singer, the impetuous man who does the housework at college? McGlashan and the rest of them have apparently lost their parental spirits. They may have convinced themselves that they were only trying to do what was best for their children by ensuring they were admitted to the "best" schools. But you must be wondering if any of them has consulted his children.

A few years ago, one of the parents of my daughter's kindergarten class in LA said, "Well, you know my daughter Ophelia will go to Harvard, so …" before getting into reviews from the school program or to wonder why did not yet teach the multiplication tables. The children were five! How did a five-year-old know which college he wanted to attend?

They could not, of course, and that's the point. Most of the children of parents charged in the Varsity Blues indictment had no idea that college coaches or college board administrators were receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them into schools. 39; elite. In many cases, children did not even want to attend colleges where their parents tried to guarantee admission.

Every parent wants what's best for their child. But parents should consult their children before they start making decisions for them. In at least some cases, the decisions that parents have made for the education of their children will eventually put them behind bars, where they will have no choice but to make any decisions except when they are in school. should eat boiled beans on their tray with a plastic fork or plastic spoon.

[ad_2]

Source link