College Admissions Scandal: Felicity Huffman Arrested!

[SilverBeach]

Timing may also have something to do with these (ACT/SAT) being standardized tests. State required public school assessment testing is timed also. There is a school of thought that standardized tests measure how well someone takes tests. Anxiety can really interfere with performance under timed, high-stakes conditions.

Edited March 19, 2019 by SilverBeach

[47of74]

Aunt Becky has been wished out to the corn field

Quote

Lori Loughlin's character "Aunt Becky" has not been written into the fifth season of "Fuller House."

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Netflix has dropped the actress in the wake of the college admissions bribery scandal.

Kind of curious to know how they wished her out there as far as the character is concerned.

[JermajestyDuggar]

18 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

Not all of a sudden, these tests were timed fifty years ago when I was taking them. Had to show ID too.

I meant that timed tests weren’t the norm in high school. It’s odd that all through school they allow plenty of time for most students to finish and then they give you a test that they purposely don’t give you enough time for. It’s odd to me. I guess it’s just another way to weed out the poor kids who can’t afford special ACT SAT test taking classes. Because it seems to me you have to learn how to take the test properly in a way that has little to do with how you take tests in high school or college. 

Here is a run down of typical test prep costs. Which is relavent to the overall thread considering these wealthy people had access to test prep tutors and still cheated to get their children higher scores:

https://education.costhelper.com/act-test-prep.html

Edited March 19, 2019 by JermajestyDuggar

[SweetLaurel]

8 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

Timing may also have something to do with these (ACT/SAT) being standardized tests. State required public school assessment testing is timed also. There is a school of thought that standardized tests measure how well someone takes tests. Anxiety can really interfere with performance under timed, high-stakes conditions.

One of my kids is exceptionally bright.  Aced everything, no worries, top ten in her class of over 300 kids, lots of honors, but in elementary and junior high school, in May, she was done.  Period.   She just quit.  No homework. Screwed up every test.   So every year, they based her placement in the next years classes on May test scores and every year I had to go in and tell them, look at the entire rest of the year. "Well THIS test..."  And I'd tell them, yeah, but the hundred Other tests....and every year they'd tell me 'this won't work, we know more, but you are the parent and we will try' and every year she'd ace everything.  Till May.   Still makes me laugh to this day.  She outgrew it by junior year in high school.  Has a master's degree in some finance thing I don't understand.    One test means nothing, imho.  I realize they have to have something to base things on, to give themselves a starting point, but, yeah, one test is a lot of pressure.   Especially if its in May.  

[nausicaa]

38 minutes ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I get e-mails sometimes from Lifeway Christian bookstore about sales and promotions. One thing caught my eye in the one I got today.

A few sale items:

This one seems to have a bigger discount than the others:

Time to quickly unload anything with Lori Loughlin, I guess?

Daniel Lissing is currently #2 on my dream imaginary boyfriends list** and I am deeply upset that he is even peripherally caught up in this malarkey. 

 

** It's 1. Chris Evans 2. Daniel Lissing and 3. Mikey Day for anyone who is interested.

[zeebaneighba]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I meant that timed tests weren’t the norm in high school. It’s odd that all through school they allow plenty of time for most students to finish and then they give you a test that they purposely don’t give you enough time for. It’s odd to me. I guess it’s just another way to weed out the poor kids who can’t afford special ACT SAT test taking classes. Because it seems to me you have to learn how to take the test properly in a way that has little to do with how you take tests in high school or college. 

Here is a run down of typical test prep costs. Which is relavent to the overall thread considering these wealthy people had access to test prep tutors and still cheated to get their children higher scores:

https://education.costhelper.com/act-test-prep.html

I'm still  baffled by this because every test I have ever taken in any institution has had a time limit.  in HS, for anything other than a final, it was the class period.   For finals, it was whatever block of time that was set aside for that final.  The material might have been designed to be finished in that time period,  but there was still a time limit.

[JermajestyDuggar]

4 minutes ago, zeebaneighba said:

I'm still  baffled by this because every test I have ever taken in any institution has had a time limit.  in HS, for anything other than a final, it was the class period.   For finals, it was whatever block of time that was set aside for that final.  The material might have been designed to be finished in that time period,  but there was still a time limit.

The time limit was very rarely enforced because there was more than enough time for everyone to finish. I know this because I was always one of the last to finish. And I always had enough time. They didn’t give tests that weren’t meant to be finished like the ACTs. They were designed to be finished. And typically everyone did finish. If something was left blank, it was by choice. Not because they ran out of time. I don’t see the point of a test like the ACTs to be designed not to be finished. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

Maybe I can explain it better by example. If a test is 10 short multiple choice questions and technically you have an hour to take it because class time is one hour, that is long enough to read every single question multiple times and check it all over with time to spare. Let’s say Everyone gets done in 20 minutes max. Sure you can call it timed because you have an hour. But why bother? It was designed for all students to have more than enough time to finish. When I took tests in school (that were not standardized tests), they were designed to give students more than enough time to finish. This example is not including students with special needs. 

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, SweetLaurel said:

So every year, they based her placement in the next years classes on May test scores and every year I had to go in and tell them, look at the entire rest of the year. "Well THIS test..."

That is ridiculous. Surely in high school they should know the kids well enough to not be basing everything on scores from one month at the end of the school year! I mean the counter to that is apparently they'd be fine with you goofing around and failing every test until May, then going into the next class?

[SweetLaurel]

3 minutes ago, Ozlsn said:

That is ridiculous. Surely in high school they should know the kids well enough to not be basing everything on scores from one month at the end of the school year! I mean the counter to that is apparently they'd be fine with you goofing around and failing every test until May, then going into the next class?

I agree, yet  there I was sitting in the principal's office every year while they told me I was wrong and the then version of helicopter mom.   

[GeoBQn]

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? totally OT, but did someone really read a bible and think, "This needs more polar bears?"

My dad is in admissions, not for the entire university but for his department, and this whole thing is horrifying to him.  Granted, he is at a Division III liberal arts college that people aren't exactly clamoring to get into.  There was one time when the college president sent an e-mail asking if he could take a closer look at one girl's application to get into the department because she had a connection to someone on the board of trustees.  She qualified (barely).  My dad is confident that if she didn't, the president wouldn't have forced him to admit her, but the whole thing felt gross to him.

[OhNoNike]

9 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Aunt Becky has been wished out to the corn field

Kind of curious to know how they wished her out there as far as the character is concerned.

So Lori Laughlin and Roseanne walk into a bar...

[47of74]

6 minutes ago, OhNoNike said:

So Lori Laughlin and Roseanne walk into a bar...

And since Roseanne had been bitching about how her demise was handled in The Conners she and Loughlin could go out in a blaze of glory taking out a dozen Taliban and ISIS fighters all at once.

[Ali]

I don't remember ever having unlimited time to take tests in high school or college. 

I am a credentialed teacher.  I student taught last winter and have done a few long term sub jobs this school year. All assessments I have given had a time limit. No student was given extra time unless the student had an accommodation in their IEP that allowed more time to take tests. This has seemed to be the standard for high school. Middle schools do frequently allow more time. I have had students not finish in a class period and have had to take their unfinished test. It does not feel good, but there has to be some sort of limit. 

The ACT/SAT are not the best measurements of knowledge. Unfortunately you have to learn how to take these tests and it does disadvantage low income students.

I remember a significant amount of my prep for the A.P. U.S. History exam was how to take the test. Throughout the rest of my education, I was thankful for my teacher making us do the timed essays to prep for the test. At the beginning I would take way too long to write essays and stress when given prompts that stumped me. By the test date, I had learned how to quickly start writing no matter what prompt I was given.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Ali

[Ozlsn]

7 hours ago, GeoBQn said:

totally OT, but did someone really read a bible and think, "This needs more polar bears?"

To be fair the Bible is somewhat lacking in polar bears. Also kangaroos. And lemurs. And tapirs. I feel like there is scope for a lot of additional books here. I have to admit Gerald Durrell's The Overloaded Ark was the first book I read that made me actually think about the whole Noah story... I mean seriously, was that thing a TARDIS or what?

[JermajestyDuggar]

11 hours ago, 47of74 said:

And since Roseanne had been bitching about how her demise was handled in The Conners she and Loughlin could go out in a blaze of glory taking out a dozen Taliban and ISIS fighters all at once.

I actually read a post Rosanne’s ex wrote about Mossimo. Tom Arnold said he was at a party and Mossimo was there. Drunk and saying he agrees with trump. That people need to carry their own weight and there are a lot of takers in the world. Mossimo obviously doesn’t practice what he preaches. 

[PlentyOfJesusFishInTheSea]

22 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I meant that timed tests weren’t the norm in high school. 

This must be regional and change over time in some places. I think they were relatively strict in my (public, Ontario) high school about timing and we certainly are in universities. If you need extra time on tests in high school, you have to have an IEP (individual education plan). We have the same thing but without the name at uni.

Of course, you can write a high school test that 90% of the students will have ample time to finish in the time allotted. Usually we go for about a mark a minute but you could give them a 50 mark test in 75 minutes or whatever.

[SilverBeach]

On 3/19/2019 at 9:16 AM, JermajestyDuggar said:

I meant that timed tests weren’t the norm in high school.

No, not regular classroom tests.

17 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

in HS, for anything other than a final, it was the class period. 

That's not really timed testing though, its just practicality.

On 3/19/2019 at 9:26 AM, SweetLaurel said:

One test means nothing, imho.  I realize they have to have something to base things on, to give themselves a starting point

Standardized testing, and to some degree the entire educational system, is social engineering. I was an excellent test taker, but written tests played to my strengths. I protested against the use of standardized tests to track young children when mine was in elementary school. Those tests are culturally biased and set expectations that may be self-fulfilling.

[Hisey]

I don't know about the other kids, but I think Olivia Jade knew what was going on. Here's why:

1. She admitted she rarely attended high school

2. She said she didn't like school and didn't really want to go to college

3. Growing up in LA, she knew USC was a really hard school to get into. (On the east coast, I rarely heard anyone mention USC. The smart kids in my high school didn't aim for it. I didn't know it was considered an "elite" school). 

4. At a competitive high school, she probably saw all the most academic kids gunning for USC, and often getting rejected.

4. She posed for phony pics

5. She didn't fill out her college apps

6. "Bending the rules" was normalized in her family (her father misappropriating his college tuition, that game show that was faked, etc)

[ViolaSebastian]

8 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

To be fair the Bible is somewhat lacking in polar bears. Also kangaroos. And lemurs. And tapirs. I feel like there is scope for a lot of additional books here. I have to admit Gerald Durrell's The Overloaded Ark was the first book I read that made me actually think about the whole Noah story... I mean seriously, was that thing a TARDIS or what?

Luckily, the Book of Mormon makes up for the Bible's lack of tapir references. 

[nausicaa]

18 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

The time limit was very rarely enforced because there was more than enough time for everyone to finish. I know this because I was always one of the last to finish. And I always had enough time. They didn’t give tests that weren’t meant to be finished like the ACTs. They were designed to be finished. And typically everyone did finish. If something was left blank, it was by choice. Not because they ran out of time. I don’t see the point of a test like the ACTs to be designed not to be finished. 

Because there are legal and scheduling reasons as discussed before. Proctors are paid workers and do not want to be there all day. School buildings need to host other events. This is a massive test given to tons of teenagers of varying abilities. There WILL be a kid who keeps a proctor there until 6pm, or later. Also, if you keep students there until everyone has finished, early finishing students are 1. going to get antsy and make noise or become tempted to cheat/talk to friends, or 2. straight up flip out if someone is making them stay three hours later than they finished. And if you have students leaving once finished while others are still taking the test, you open yourself up to cheating scandals, like people texting the answers back to others.

And there were definitely kids in my high school who had classroom tests taken away from them because they took too much time. And I remember overtly timed quizzes in elementary school.

I'm a bit confused, it sounds like you were a good student. Did you go into the ACTs not knowing that there was 45 minutes per section? If finishing is that important, then you can track your time and give yourself the correct allocated amount of time per question to finish. No one could stop you from doing that. The ACTs weren't necessarily designed not to be finished; the idea is just that it's better to use your limited time on questions you have a chance of answering correctly, versus the final five super advanced math questions. 

[Howl]

9 hours ago, Ozlsn said:

To be fair the Bible is somewhat lacking in polar bears. Also kangaroos. And lemurs. And tapirs.

Lemurs are simply the most awesome of critters! Tapirs are awesome too, but in that totally different "prehensile nose trunk" kinda way!

[older than allosaurs]

I'm going off memory here, but isn't the scoring on SAT/ACT/GRE type tests set up so that you aren't overtly penalized for what you don't finish past a certain baseline number of answers?  What I remember is that wrong answers were penalized, while skipped questions just lowered the overall pool of possible correct scores. Anyway, we advised kids that educated guesses worked in their favor while random guesses were better off skipped.

I'm an excellent test taker, so these setups have always worked well for me. My children on the other hand have major troubles with standardized testing--one reason that they both went to community college to raise their grades and document their capability before transferring to university. Neither one chose to go for formal accommodations there--though I think they would have qualified as they both had IEPs in K-12 education--but they did look for and work with professors who showed some flexibility. Both have BAs from good schools and one is now in grad school, so it all worked out.

As an adjunct at a smallish public university, I generally have 1 or 2 students per quarter who have testing accommodations giving them more time and/or the chance to take tests privately. Since I teach journalism, where writing on deadline is an essential skill, it sometimes requires a bit of finessing to make the accommodations and still demonstrate skill acquisition, but it's been ok. I've haven't yet had a student I thought was gaming the system. Many if not most just keep the accommodation as an option if they are having a rough time and do their best not to use it. Probably I, and they, are lucky that our school is not the kind of status symbol that attracts Varsity Blues type parents.

 

[clueliss]

TMZ is reporting that USC Studen Council is investigating  more

ore than 60 students.  And people are blowing the whistle on other students scores.

https://www.tmz.com/2019/03/20/usc-student-council-investigating-60-cheating-scandal/

Quote

The USC Judicial Council for the Undergraduate Student Government is knee-deep in investigating the cheating scandal at the school, and we're told students are blowing the whistle on scores of their fellow students who allegedly cheated their way into the University.

Sources directly connected to the Council tell TMZ, USC students have referred 60 of their classmates to the Council, claiming they used underhanded or illegal means to gain admission. One source tells TMZ, there is "hysteria" on the campus in the wake of the scandal, and the accusations are flying.

We're told of the 60, the Council determined 57 allegations were unfounded.

As for the remaining 3 ... our sources say 2 of the students are freshmen and used the services of the ringleader of the scandal, Rick Singer, who contacted the athletic department on behalf of both of them. Our sources say there is some connection to the men's lacrosse team, however, they are quick to add they have not determined if there was any wrongdoing ... at least, not yet. We're told the 2 students appeared "very nervous" after the scandal broke.

As for the third student ... our sources described her parents as "unindicted co-conspirators" who live on the East Coast. The case was referred to the Judicial Council by a faculty member. We're told the student in question is a junior who used Rick Singer to help gain admission.

As for Lori Loughlin's daughters, Olivia and Isabella, we're told the Judicial Council was about to begin an investigation, but members were called to the Provost's Office on March 14 and were asked to stand down - the University would handle the matter. TMZ broke the story ... Olivia and Isabella will not be returning to the school. 

 

Also a link to a document they obtained.

Spoiler

 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

6 hours ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

That people need to carry their own weight and there are a lot of takers in the world. Mossimo obviously doesn’t practice what he preaches. 

What do you mean?! (sarcasm font on) He carried his weight into business by spending his very own college money! He carried his kids' weight by buying them the bestest college education he could!! Carrying your own weight means totally different things if you're rich enough!!!!1!!1!! (sarcasm font off)

Now I feel kinda queasy.