People Don’t Bribe College Officials for the Kids. They Do It to Help Themselves | Hacker News Reader

People Don’t Bribe College Officials for the Kids. They Do It to Help Themselves

nytimes.com

18 pointsimjk12 comments

One of the strangest parts of this whole scandal was that these families felt they had to cheat to get their children in in the first place.

A high schooler that built a digital business, a brand with 1.4 million followers and corporate sponsors is impressive, and I’d think there are many schools who would be really interested in her for their marketing or business programs. That’d make a heck of a college essay. Does she really also need to pretend to be on the crew team?

You don’t think her followers are fake too? I’m sure the fraud and lies go deeper than what we know.

Few college admissions officers are going to see "lots of Instagram followers" as a legitimate business.

Readable link: http://archive.is/Nch8C

Where you go to school doesn't matter, it's what you do once you're there.

If only that were true in the USA for the "top end" schools. In many other countries that is the case.

Where you go to school matters quite a lot if what you're there to do is meet the kind of people who go to that kind of school.

As far as learning is concerned, probably.

As far as career opportunities go, no. Having gone to a "big name" school/university definitely opens doors.

Except the data and studies I am familiar with don't bare that out.

There was no statistical increase in future earnings comparing those that went to an ivy league vs students who got in to ivy league but ended up going somewhere else. *

And that doesn't take into account the fact that the ivy league probably cost a lot more.

*There was actually a small income boost for ivy league for minorities.

Well, what you do in school is network so it does matter.

I should also say, every school has passionate and ambitious people who will do great things. A better school just makes it easier to blindly stumble into those social circles.

Why does this link directly to the article comments?

Oh that's my fault. I must have been reading the comments when I grabbed the URL to share. The comments are interesting nonetheless though.

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