Scoop: Silicon Valley VC out after hiring disgraced college “coach”
axios.com
axios.com
But Jesus, what's up with all these super-rich people who either (a) have totally incompetent kids or who (b) believe they have totally incompetent kids to the tune that they need all these hundreds of thousands of dollars to get into college. I always considered myself to have a privileged upbringing with relatively-upper-middle class parents, but I had to pay for my SAT prep books out of my own part-time job money.
It could also be that these people got the same sort of help from their own parents. And therefore to them this is just standard behavior divorced from any context of morality or the child's true development.
Do you mean everyone in the US? We don't have a student debt crisis because only the ultra-wealthy decided to live beyond their means.
Serious question, why? Why would your parents not pay for something that is school related. I can see paying for my toys with my own money, but if you are middle class I would expect for your parents to pay for education related stuff.
It's not remotely credible that someone who paid anything like that amount of money just thought there were introductions or whatever going on.
To your other point, all of the schools I've seen listed are decent enough but quite a few are certainly not the most selective of the most selective.
When I see stuff like this, it just seem like something where "oh-my-gosh we made a terrible mistake" it is more likely part of a pattern of behavior its just in this instance they got caught.
I found an interesting example of this reading through David McCullough's 1776[0]. One major weakness George Washington sought to exploit in the British military was the lack of talent and creativity among the British leadership.
Back then, British military officers were commissioned based on their wealth alone, not their talent. Washington leaned heavily into this throughout the revolution through his use of guerilla tactics and promoting officers, like Henry Knox, based on tactical aptitude. This gave way to successes like the Knox Expedition[1], many of which were consequential to winning the war.
You would think money would, while maybe not buying happiness, at least free you from the kind of sniveling, insecure, desperate worrying these parents seem to be engaged in. Apparently not. "We're just one Harvard rejection away from totally still having plenty of money OMG!!!" It's like their brains have been hijacked. It's like being in that movie "They Live" before finding the magic sunglasses.
Parents are naturally proud of the "accomplishments" of their children.
But I think in the case of the USC "students" and this school it was probably more about the desires of the children to be at a particular place among their peers.
This is totally separate from their child's existence or lack of competence, its about why join the rat race with the plebs when you have a resource they don't when the only reason everyone else is in the rat race is because they don't have an abundance of your specific resource
And as a deck hand on a super yacht told me "you'd be surprised what people spend in private", and I've come to realize this probably applies to you as well
Regression to the mean. IQ is only .73 heritable, so it's a one in four chance that two above average people can produce a child of "just" average intelligence.
Like how badly unqualified could his son be to require that kind of assistance to get into UT Austin (no offense, but this is not Harvard or Stanford we’re taking about here..)
From what I remember even for in-state applicants, when admissions years are big meeting the minimum requirements does not guarantee matriculation.
So it could be that the child had halfway decent scores but for a variety of reasons wasn't likely to make it in on a straight application. 40% admission means a most people are still getting rejected.
Or it could be otherwise.
I enrolled at UT in 2008 and back then there was a state wide policy where if you were in the top 10% of high school class, you were automatically accepted into any state public school (including UT).
This meant that any kid who is 5th in their class of 50 somewhere in west texas was going to take a spot from someone who might have been extremely capable from out of state.
Also, it sounds like the deal was not just to be admitted to the school, but also to be a manager in the athletics program. Imo, that's a pretty cool life experience and maybe worth 180k for a rich person
Really? Does anyone really go to college with the dream of being a manager of a sports team? I was actually co-manager for a year or two but that's because the coach sought me out to do public relations stuff.
It was an interesting diversion but not the sort of thing I had ever thought about on my own and (I'm guessing) probably not that hard to get a coach to take you on so long as it wasn't something like the football team.
University of Oregon MBA offers a "First in the nation sports business program" [1] where an undergraduate team manager position might not hurt to have on your application and in your application letters. [1] https://business.uoregon.edu/mba
This must have been more than an “insurance plan” to ensure getting in. Completely seriously his son must have been a legitimately terrible student or actually not very bright at all.
I know a person who came from by all appearances a great background who made poor decisions as a young adult and failed to achieve a lot.
But then their sibling went on to a top tier college, enter NY finance and marry the child of a nobel laureate.
I also know someone who was raised by a single father who was abusive, but went on to put themselves through a BS in engineering and has done well for themselves at least professionally.
Origins do not dictate futures, and just because you don't get good grades early on doesn't mean you aren't a promising person.
No idea what the VC was like as a dad, but what if he worked all the time and never saw his kid growing up and come year 17 just try to buy his kid into school to make up for not actually parenting...
I suppose you can use any definition of "mid-ranked" you choose, but I'm not aware of any standard definition by which Texas would be in the middle among public universities. It's number 49 among national universities and number 15 among public universities in the US News ranking, and if you're from the state of Texas, it's a big deal to graduate from UT.
It doesn't seem that you're familiar with the public university system in the US. I work at an R1 public university with an admissions rate over 90%. "Compare with Cal and UCLA" is not how you determine if a school is "mid ranked". Texas is not first tier for sure, but that's not what I was responding to.
I sorta know from news/pop culture that a lot of rich people use non-profits as a way of funneling taxable income into championing their own causes and throwing galas for themselves. But it sounds like Singer was using it more as a money laundering front? Or was he basically paying himself an exorbitant amount to be an executive of the non-profit, while not really doing much?
Is it really that easy to abuse the non-profit system in the US?
https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gxwL2X...
That's not a lot of money.
You donate USD50 Million, most schools are gonna make sure your kid, (and through your kid, your family's money), keep going to their institution. At less than say, 1 million? That's not really gonna turn any heads at a place like USC or Texas. Probably would get you some time in the luxury boxes for football and basketball games though. (At least, I would think it would??? Unless football at schools like Texas, USC, Ohio State, Alabama etc is even bigger than I think it is.)
But yeah, the guy or gal who donates USD50 Million plus...
You better believe at any school, he or she will be getting his or her OWN luxury box.