EP 014: Admissions Scandals: How Does This Affect You as an Applicant?
In this episode, Thomas shares some tips about this topic, citing the Varsity Blues Scandal - one of the most significant cases of this nature ever investigated.
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Being honest and truthful in your application is the first step to take when trying to get into the college of your dreams. It’s common to try and make ourselves look good in the application, but there is a fine line between trying to look good and lying.
In this episode, Thomas shares some tips about this topic, citing the Varsity Blues Scandal - one of the most significant cases of this nature ever investigated.
It’s crucial to understand this process: admissions based on merit are a priority for schools, and any misinformation provided in the application can result in the revoking of the admission at any time.
Key Highlights
The Varsity Blues Scandal was classified as a conspiracy.
People involved in this fraud took advantage of loopholes in the admission process.
You can’t control or prevent anyone from cheating.
There is a fine line between lying and making yourself look good.
All claims and statements need to match reality.
Schools can and sometimes will revoke the admission if any misstatement arises.
About Thomas
Thomas is a parent and alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. After earning his MBA at the Wharton School in 2003, he moved to Silicon Valley. For three years, he was director of admissions and financial aid at Wharton School. He worked closely with admissions professionals, students, alumni, and professors to create the best possible MBA class.
Thomas has been an entrepreneur his entire life in the fields of finance, agriculture, wellness, and sporting goods. As the founder of Global Education Opportunities, he works with diverse and underserved communities to help them become successful college students. Thomas started the podcast Admittedly because he is passionate about demystifying the application process for parents and applicants.
Related Links
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Hello, and welcome to the admittedly podcast. My name is Thomas Caleel. I'm the former director of MBA admissions and financial aid for my alma mater, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In this podcast, I don't promise easy answers or quick fixes. But I will use my decades of experience to help you achieve your education goals. Now, let's get started.
Today we're going to talk about a somewhat tricky subject. It's something that has come up again and again in our inbox with parents and students asking us about college admissions scandals, that varsity blues about what kind of disadvantage they may or may not be in based on this kind of behavior.
And I think it's very important for us to talk about this because, in admissions offices, directors of admission admissions officers, every member of that team has a high commitment to ethics, they have a high commitment to integrity, the integrity of the admissions process matters greatly to them, you have to realize these are very, very difficult jobs, the staff usually is egregiously underpaid for the amount of effort time that they put in. And this is a labor of love. This is something that they believe very deeply on, on a very core level of their being. And so making a class that is fair, giving everyone the same opportunity is very, very important. It's a core ethos of the admissions process.
And so a scandal like varsity blues, was so damning and so damaging, precisely because it struck at the one of the foundational principles of admissions. It's very important to understand, though, that the admissions offices were not, according to all the evidence, according to the trials, the testimony, and the investigation, implicit in any way in this scandal. This was just outright fraud being perpetrated by Rick Singer and his associates, I would urge you to read up on it.
But basically, parents were paying Mr. Singer through a bogus foundation that he set up to have people take standardized tests for his students. They were manufacturing, experience, and credentials in their admissions applications. They were bribing coaches taking advantage of a loophole in the college admissions process where coaches can preference certain recruits.
And so parents were we're going to Rick Singer, Rick was going to say, a rowing coach at a university and saying, Listen, I will pay you X amount of money to say that this child is your top recruit, and you want them for the team. And so they would get preference in the admissions process that way, the admissions offices did not know that they were being lied to. And once a student was admitted, they withdrew from the rowing team or the soccer team or whatever team it was and just continued to go about their, academic career until obviously, this came to light, and many of the students were dismissed.
So what does this mean for you? First of all, can you in any way prevent other people from lying or cheating in this process? And the answer, unfortunately, is no. I'm a big believer in controlling what we can control focusing on what we can control. So worrying about people trying to game the system is not productive, and it's a waste of our time, energy, and effort. So let's not do that. The admissions offices have numerous checks and balances to try and weed out and catch behavior.
Do they catch it every time? No, they don't. I know having run admissions at the Wharton School. Certainly, there were things that we missed over the years. But we did catch a lot of things and applications in the application process. They're constructed in such a way that there are so many mutually reinforcing layers, even ones that are not entirely apparent to the applicant, that you can often sense when something is not true or not correct. And in a highly competitive admission situation, that usually is enough to get you removed from consideration. Well, one of the things that I would say is that every applicant wishes to put themselves in the best possible light. Right? And that's okay. The admissions offices know that they know that you are going to try and put the best possible spin on everything you've done.
But there is a very important and very fine line between lying and making yourself look good. And I think it's very important to keep in mind too, that as an admissions officer, when you're reading a file, you understand how old these applicants are, you understand their experience set. And so if they're making claims that don't match with reality, right, oh, I interned at a hedge fund, and I was responsible for $20 million of profit based on a trading idea I had. Right?
And you think, Okay, I'm not entirely sure that your four weeks at your mother's friend's hedge fund was an opportunity for you to do that. But perhaps it's true. If, for example, there is a recommendation from your manager at that hedge fund and they say, Listen, you're not going to believe this. But this applicant came up with his amazing trading idea. And we did it and it actually worked. And it was brilliant. Okay, that's fine.
But if you make a claim like that, and it's not reinforced anywhere else, it sets off a lot of alarm bells. And when we're applying to highly selective schools or even selective schools, that usually is enough to get you removed from consideration pretty quickly. You also have your college counselor at your high school. And they're going to be responsible for looking at your application, making sure that what they know about you maps with what you're saying. And if you are making untrue claims in the application, they're going to flag that and probably not even let you submit that application, I reach out to you and say, Listen, we both know that you were not the president of the drama club for two years running. And so let's dial that back a little bit, right, let's be a little bit more realistic in our assessment.
Because again, this is not a race, right? This is not a bragging contest about who did the biggest, the fastest, the largest, or the most impressive things, this is about you, doing your best, following your best path, and then presenting it in a way that makes sense and maps to what the university can offer you.
So in terms of admissions scandals, you can't prevent fraud. And importantly, when you submit your application, most people kind of breeze through this. But there's a section where you sign in you, you say that everything in this application is true and correct. And this, the university has the right at any point during your time at the University to withdraw your admission. And I can tell you that if they find something three days before graduation, so you've invested four years of your life, you've invested a considerable amount of time and effort, and money into your education. If they find out that you lied on your application, they can and sometimes will revoke your admission.
So what that means is that effectively the last four years of your life did not happen. And you promise you you do not want to be in that position. When I was a student at the Wharton School, I co-chaired the MBA ethics committee. And we had several cases where students right before graduation, and were students who had jobs had signed off for letters in a school, quite frankly, that had great non-disclosure. So you didn't even need to disclose your grades. All they had to do was complete the class and graduate did something very stupid. They cheated. And had their admissions revoked. We had cases where students lied on their application, again, their admission was revoked days before graduation, and they had now just invested two years of their time in an MBA that they could not claim or talk about legitimately going forward.
So the downside is, is just not worth it. I know it's very tempting and parents, it's very tempting. We get caught up in this, pushing our children pushing our children pushing our children. But we want to make sure that their voice in this is authentic, we want to make sure that they're earning their spot because, in the varsity blues scandal in particular, many of the students claimed I didn't know that was happening. This was news to me. Now, whether or not that's true, I have no basis to make any kind of judgment to that effect.
But imagine the damage. If you did bend the rules, or you did misrepresent and your child didn't know about it, and they're in their sophomore year of college and this is discovered comes crashing down on them. That's just not a position you want to put your child in, it would be much better for them to not go to their first choice school to go to a school that maybe they, you know, did not have at the top of their list and thrive there, then to get them in under false pretenses and subjected them to this kind of emotional trauma and damage and lasting reputational Just destruction.
The takeaway here is, to do your best, and make yourself look as good as possible. But be aware of the line, do not cross the line. Understand that there are a lot of checks and balances in this process to ensure that when you do if and when you do cross the line you are discovered, and the ability for a school to investigate that lasts far beyond just this narrow window of time when you are applying. In fact, some schools even reserve the right to revoke your diploma, years after you've graduated if certain things come to light. So please don't put yourself in that position. Please don't feel like this is an uneven playing field and you need to do whatever you need to do to get ahead because more often than not, you will be discovered.
And also I realized I sound very old-fashioned for saying this. But there's a certain there's a core, there's an ethos of who you are, who you want your child to be who your child wants to be. Let's teach them from the beginning, right, that hard work and effort pay off and that cutting corners is not the way to get what we want.
So a brief episode today, but something important that I did want to address based on a lot of questions we've had from our listeners. Thank you very much for listening. I welcome you to continue to follow along and listen along with us as we dig deeper into this whole world of illusions. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Please take a moment to subscribe to the admittedly podcast and download this episode. I welcome you to share your thoughts and questions with you can find us on social media at emitted read podcast. I look forward to continuing our journey together.
