GMP said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

Hiring a private tutor can help increase your scores by giving you more reps and more one on one time to ensure you understand something. But you still do the learning and do the work.

If you hire someone else to actually take the test, you don't do the work.

Those are not differences in degree. They are differences in kind.

---

I would agree with that argument. But what about the practice of paying to enaure the students got unlimited time on the exams? Is that more a difference in kind or degree viz a viz paying for private tutoring?

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

01Bear said:

---

GMP said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

Hiring a private tutor can help increase your scores by giving you more reps and more one on one time to ensure you understand something. But you still do the learning and do the work.

If you hire someone else to actually take the test, you don't do the work.

Those are not differences in degree. They are differences in kind.

---

I would agree with that argument. But what about the practice of paying to enaure the students got unlimited time on the exams? Is that more a difference in kind or degree viz a viz paying for private tutoring?

---

If you are talking about paying to fake a learning disability, I'd say that is akin to bribing the proctor. It is a difference in degree from paying the proctor and a difference in kind from paying a tutor. If caught, their score should be thrown out and it should be noted on their record. They got an unfair advantage.

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

Using a tutor or training course, or practicing multiple times, or any other sort of preparation is performing the effort to learn and know the material. Once the material is learned and known, the student can then prove that knowledge through testing.

This is why we want our pilots and surgeons and anyone else performing important tasks to have been properly trained to become proficient. The testing ensures proficiency. Then a prescribed on-the-job training or internship period allows the new graduate to practice that proficiency under professional supervision. Now how well the test determines proficiency is up to debate. How much practice time is enough is debatable. All good and fine.

But if you accept end-arounds to thwart the systems put in place to evaluate proficiency and provide certification, then you are condoning fraud and incompetence. Fraud and incompetence leads to terrible outcomes, be they in law enforcement, medical practice, airplane flight, and everything else that requires knowledge, training, skill and experience.

MiZery said:

---

how dumb does your daughter have to be for the mom to pay them 500,000 just to be admitted to that school.

---

How dumb is the mother

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

I wonder if the celebs had any idea that the fan was about to get yucky.

hanky1 said:

---

GMP said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

Hiring a private tutor can help increase your scores by giving you more reps and more one on one time to ensure you understand something. But you still do the learning and do the work.

If you hire someone else to actually take the test, you don't do the work.

Those are not differences in degree. They are differences in kind.

---

Checkmate.

Game over.

Can we go back to making fun of USC?

---

Lol! Sure, I'm always willing to go back to making fun of the Unapologetic Scammers and Conmen.

One distinction worth mentioning re: schools in wealthier California neighborhoods (at least in SoCal). If your kid doesn't do sports or some extra-curricular, they better be in afternoon tutorials to keep up with all the other kids who are. We have created a monster.

NYCGOBEARS said:

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wifeisafurd said:

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BearSD said:

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NYCGOBEARS said:

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SC is everything we've always accused them of and more.

---

---

SOP in Hungary...

---

Croatia, maybe?

---

They typically are loaded with Hungarian players.

BearGoggles said:

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Unit2Sucks said:

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Quote:

---

Further, your argument is the real point at which I'm driving. Fundamentally, all the parents did was utilize their resources to better the odds of success for their kids. Yes, it runs afoul of traditional notions of fair play, but as you suggested, that's part of the unfairness of life. As a result, I'm not seeing the mythical line being crossed, based on such notions.

---

My sense is the line being crossed that led to prosecution was the element of tax fraud. Absent that, I'm not sure any of this goes anywhere.

When you set aside the tax fraud (which includes money laundering, etc.), the crime basically is "honest services" mail fraud from 18 U.S.C. 1346. "Honest services" mail fraud comes from a vague statute that prosecutors love to rely on (see here for an explanation). It's been narrowed by SCOTUS (in Skilling, 2010) to more or less the following: "fraudulent schemes to deprive another of honest services through bribes or kickbacks supplied by a third party who has not been deceived". It was also the statute the feds relied on to go after Baylor coaches who engaged in recruiting violations. It's essentially a way to criminalize conduct that is wrong but for which there is no other statutory crime.

Seems to me that in and of itself, this wasn't what the feds really care about but they use it to widen the net and then they get to rope in conspiracy, racketeering, etc.

---

I think this is generally correct. What happened here doesn't seem like the crime of bribery, as I understand it. Other than the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act which doesn't apply here, I don't think its illegal to "bribe" a private party as occurred here. I believe a bribe needs to be paid to a public official, so payments in connection with admissions to a public school could be illegal.

If you read the court filing, after the main guy flipped, the feds had him call all of his old clients to have them confirm that tax fraud aspects - receipt of something of value in exchange for payments that were characterized as donations.

The other potentially criminal act(s) would be those who cheated on the SAT/ACT or if any test scores/applications were submitted under penalty of perjury and, as you pointed out, mail fraud type of charges.

---

Bribery also applies to an organization receiving federal funding and the definition is very broad. Tough to see any university, public or private, that doesn't qualify under the definition.

"The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that the organization, government, or agency receives, in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance"

Sebastabear said:

---

Totally agree. Basically this whole scandal should have been renamed "Operation USC".

I mean there's something about this that is just so very SC. An ideology that rules are for the little people, a belief on the individual level that for enough money you can buy personal excellence and on the institutional level that you can buy academic standing.

Something (well basically everything) about USC's meteoric climb up the USN&WR rankings has always rubbed me the wrong way. They were clearly gaming the system and everything they did was designed to boost those rankings. Nothing seemed to revolve around advancing science or medicine or the pursuit of learning. If designing a better tennis ball was more prestigious than curing cancer I think they'd take the tennis ball every time.

It's a soulless shell of an institution masquerading as an elite college. And this whole scandal is just the cherry on top of their blight and corruption.

Burn baby burn.

So Hanky is that better?

---

Much better.

Muchos Gracias.

(I am not hispanic so please do not take my use of spanish as cultural appropriation of hispanic culture)

As I mentioned in another thread, SC is such a joke now that they are Clown College for life and not even Cal will ever be able to catch them. Cal can remain Jr Clown College, but we'll never be top dog like SC.

OaktownBear said:

---

If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

---

In baseball, it's the umpire's job to be fair and impartial and call balls and strikes with integrity. There have been times when umpires have not met that standard, but it certainly is the standard.

Has that ever been the standard of admission at private universities? Or do they just put up the facade of merit-based admissions, and admit some of their students based on merit, in order to bolster the credentials of those who get in via connections and/or cash?

hanky1 said:

---

Much better.

Muchos Gracias.

(I am not hispanic so please do not take my use of spanish as cultural appropriation of hispanic culture)

---

De nada. And given you misspelled muchas gracias I think your cover as a non Hispanic is totally safe.

01Bear said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

---

This is like saying practicing for a math test, learning the equations, functions, proofs, whatever, is "gaming the system" so that you know how to pass the test. Well, yeah, that's the point! And utilizing a teacher to help the student learn the material could also be construed as "gaming the system."

What you're actually saying is that you don't agree with the test-taking process as a viable learning method. If that's the case, then fine. But it doesn't involve morality or ethics at all.

If course material is presented and then at the end of the year tested, then that's the system. If a student can exhibit proficiency, then they pass. If they make no mistakes, then they earn 100%. If you feel it's banal regurgitation, then fine. That may be the case. Are students really learning to learn, or just memorizing material?

Well, that's another discussion.

But if they've learned the required material through the help of a teacher or tutor, it simply cannot be considered "gaming the system" or cheating. That's ludicrous. You have a strange take on cheating and test prep.

But I'll repeat, if flying a plane requires mastering a finite set of skills, then I want my flight students learning that finite set and then proving proficiency with it. And if learning that set of skills results in flying planes with successful results, then it fits the bill. Taking more time to learn it for struggling students isn't cheating; it's making the extra effort needed to master the material. No ethical or moral discussion required.

TandemBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

---

This is like saying practicing for a math test, learning the equations, functions, proofs, whatever, is "gaming the system" so that you know how to pass the test. Well, yeah, that's the point! And utilizing a teacher to help the student learn the material could also be construed as "gaming the system."

What you're actually saying is that you don't agree with the test-taking process as a viable learning method. If that's the case, then fine. But it doesn't involve morality or ethics at all.

If course material is presented and then at the end of the year tested, then that's the system. If a student can exhibit proficiency, then they pass. If they make no mistakes, then they earn 100%. If you feel it's banal regurgitation, then fine. That may be the case. Are students really learning to learn, or just memorizing material?

Well, that's another discussion.

But if they've learned the required material through the help of a teacher or tutor, it simply cannot be considered "gaming the system" or cheating. That's ludicrous. You have a strange take on cheating and test prep.

But I'll repeat, if flying a plane requires mastering a finite set of skills, then I want my flight students learning that finite set and then proving proficiency with it. And if learning that set of skills results in flying planes with successful results, then it fits the bill. Taking more time to learn it for struggling students isn't cheating; it's making the extra effort needed to master the material. No ethical or moral discussion required.

---

Actually, no. Test prep tutors/companies do not focus on teaching the material tested on the SAT/ACT as much as they teach how to find the right answers to the questions on the tests. It's a fine distinction, but it's significant.

Teaching the material on the test would be more in line with what you're suggesting: learning the actual material.

Teaching how to find the right answers teaches a different skillset.

For instance, a question asking a student to sefine the term "fanatic" is supposed to determine whether the test-taker knows what the term "fanatic" means in a given context. But if the student doesn't know what it means, but knows how to eliminate the possible wrong answer choices, he can still arrive at the right answer as follows:

Hypothetical question:
Based on line 4 of the passage, a fanatic is:
A) an enthusiastic supporter
B) a field of science
C) an appliance
D) a type of furniture

Given that the answers in C and D are almost interchangeable, the right answer is likely neither C nor D.

If the passage has nothing to do with science, then B would be a non sequitor. This would eliminate it as the right answer.

Test-taking skills, such as the foregoing, are what is taught by test prep schools/tutors. The definition of words is less relevant, (though vocabulary lists are often handed out for memorization, anyway).

01Bear said:

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OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

---

1. Today's SAT is radically different than even a few years ago, in large part because the test was so crappy before. I think you'd find it is much less susceptible to gimmicks than before.

2. The SAT has specifically done away with the name "Scholastic Aptitude Test" saying it doesn't purport to test aptitude. It mainly says it provides a standard data point for colleges to use and it tests "readiness" for college. Whatever that means. I don't think you could say it ever tested a student's grasp of basic high school material as it basically tested math and language and even then, more skills like reading comprehension than subject matter.

3. As my kid just finished, I can tell you what she worked on with her tutor. She learned how the test was constructed. She took lots of practice tests. She studied material and concepts. They went over questions she got wrong to see why she got them wrong and figure out if it was because there was material she needed to learn or if she didn't understand what they were looking for. I know tutors also look for outlier questions. Like the student usually gets questions right that only 20% get right, but she got this one wrong that 50% get right. Why? Statistically she should get it right. Is there a reason they didn't get this one right that is due to test taking issues vs. understanding the material. The tutor went through what to expect on test day. Went through relaxation exercises. Planned her prep schedule. Helped her plan her schedule the week before the test. Told her to get as much homework done as possible so the couple days before the test were as free as possible. Told her to sleep as much as possible not just the night before but for a few days before. Talked about nutrition and hydration. Had her take practice tests under simulated testing circumstances. And generally gave pep talks. I'm going to be honest. I'm not feeling immoral about this.

4. The current test is not really gameable except maybe on the margins. Maybe you can pick up a question or two if you are lucky. The biggest thing I could think of that you might call "gaming" is what every kid should already know about multiple choice tests. That if you don't know the answer, eliminate the ones you know are wrong and guess. If that is gaming the test than oh well. But basically I don't see that the primary focus is teaching how to get questions right when you don't know the material because that is a very poor strategy. The focus is on learning the material, learning the structure of the test, basic test taking techniques, and practice, practice, practice. What I would describe the primary function of the tutor is to minimize the number of questions you get wrong where you knew the answer but missed them because of test taking issues like time management, not reading the question carefully, not understanding what was being asked, etc.

RJABear said:

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Jackieridgle said:

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71Bear said:

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okaydo said:

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It's amazing how true this is. (I'm sure many here will disagree, particularly those with advanced degrees.)

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It is absolutely true.

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I guess you never worked in Silicon Valley or doe a VC

---

Several decades ago, I helped manage recruiting for a small Investment Bank's Analyst jobs. There were 10,000 applicants each year for 65 spots.

The bank only recruited at the Ivy League, MIT, Chicago, Duke, Williams, Amherst, & Northwestern. The only two colleges they'd consider in the west were Cal and Stanford. In my second year recruiting, the bank added the five Claremont/McKenna colleges, Virginia and North Carolina. I was not able to get them to consider ucla.

---

Our experience, also. My son graduated with high marks and degree in Econ. No question the interviews with the firms he wanted occurred due to his Cal degree, not just good grades. These same firms only take those from certain schools, even years later.

01Bear said:

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TandemBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

---

This is like saying practicing for a math test, learning the equations, functions, proofs, whatever, is "gaming the system" so that you know how to pass the test. Well, yeah, that's the point! And utilizing a teacher to help the student learn the material could also be construed as "gaming the system."

What you're actually saying is that you don't agree with the test-taking process as a viable learning method. If that's the case, then fine. But it doesn't involve morality or ethics at all.

If course material is presented and then at the end of the year tested, then that's the system. If a student can exhibit proficiency, then they pass. If they make no mistakes, then they earn 100%. If you feel it's banal regurgitation, then fine. That may be the case. Are students really learning to learn, or just memorizing material?

Well, that's another discussion.

But if they've learned the required material through the help of a teacher or tutor, it simply cannot be considered "gaming the system" or cheating. That's ludicrous. You have a strange take on cheating and test prep.

But I'll repeat, if flying a plane requires mastering a finite set of skills, then I want my flight students learning that finite set and then proving proficiency with it. And if learning that set of skills results in flying planes with successful results, then it fits the bill. Taking more time to learn it for struggling students isn't cheating; it's making the extra effort needed to master the material. No ethical or moral discussion required.

---

Actually, no. Test prep tutors/companies do not focus on teaching the material tested on the SAT/ACT as much as they teach how to find the right answers to the questions on the tests. It's a fine distinction, but it's significant.

Teaching the material on the test would be more in line with what you're suggesting: learning the actual material.

Teaching how to find the right answers teaches a different skillset.

For instance, a question asking a student to sefine the term "fanatic" is supposed to determine whether the test-taker knows what the term "fanatic" means in a given context. But if the student doesn't know what it means, but knows how to eliminate the possible wrong answer choices, he can still arrive at the right answer as follows:

Hypothetical question:
Based on line 4 of the passage, a fanatic is:
A) an enthusiastic supporter
B) a field of science
C) an appliance
D) a type of furniture

Given that the answers in C and D are almost interchangeable, the right answer is likely neither C nor D.

If the passage has nothing to do with science, then B would be a non sequitor. This would eliminate it as the right answer.

Test-taking skills, such as the foregoing, are what is taught by test prep schools/tutors. The definition of words is less relevant, (though vocabulary lists are often handed out for memorization, anyway).

---

And for this reason the SAT and ACT do not have questions like this on the test any more. They don't test vocabulary and definitions. I fully expect this is what was taught by test prep courses when you were doing it. It isn't any more. I will also say this. I didn't have a tutor or a prep class. I learned techniques like that from a test prep book. If you can't scrape together enough money to buy a book for the most important test of your life to date and/or you don't have the willingness to put the effort in to read it, don't call me immoral for putting in the effort. In all honesty, some of what the test is measuring is that willingness.

I think calling an individual immoral for learning what a large majority of people taking the test know when they walk in is pretty judgmental and silly. Again, I agree with you that it is a poor way to test. That is the fault of the test and the colleges that accept the test scores. It is not on the individual to keep themselves ignorant because some people don't have access to the same information. But again, this is not how the test works today.

OaktownBear said:

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01Bear said:

---

OaktownBear said:

---

01Bear said:

---

TandemBear said:

---

If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

---

So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

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1. Today's SAT is radically different than even a few years ago, in large part because the test was so crappy before. I think you'd find it is much less susceptible to gimmicks than before.

2. The SAT has specifically done away with the name "Scholastic Aptitude Test" saying it doesn't purport to test aptitude. It mainly says it provides a standard data point for colleges to use and it tests "readiness" for college. Whatever that means. I don't think you could say it ever tested a student's grasp of basic high school material as it basically tested math and language and even then, more skills like reading comprehension than subject matter.

3. As my kid just finished, I can tell you what she worked on with her tutor. She learned how the test was constructed. She took lots of practice tests. She studied material and concepts. They went over questions she got wrong to see why she got them wrong and figure out if it was because there was material she needed to learn or if she didn't understand what they were looking for. I know tutors also look for outlier questions. Like the student usually gets questions right that only 20% get right, but she got this one wrong that 50% get right. Why? Statistically she should get it right. Is there a reason they didn't get this one right that is due to test taking issues vs. understanding the material. The tutor went through what to expect on test day. Went through relaxation exercises. Planned her prep schedule. Helped her plan her schedule the week before the test. Told her to get as much homework done as possible so the couple days before the test were as free as possible. Told her to sleep as much as possible not just the night before but for a few days before. Talked about nutrition and hydration. Had her take practice tests under simulated testing circumstances. And generally gave pep talks. I'm going to be honest. I'm not feeling immoral about this.

4. The current test is not really gameable except maybe on the margins. Maybe you can pick up a question or two if you are lucky. The biggest thing I could think of that you might call "gaming" is what every kid should already know about multiple choice tests. That if you don't know the answer, eliminate the ones you know are wrong and guess. If that is gaming the test than oh well. But basically I don't see that the primary focus is teaching how to get questions right when you don't know the material because that is a very poor strategy. The focus is on learning the material, learning the structure of the test, basic test taking techniques, and practice, practice, practice. What I would describe the primary function of the tutor is to minimize the number of questions you get wrong where you knew the answer but missed them because of test taking issues like time management, not reading the question carefully, not understanding what was being asked, etc.

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First, thanks for taking the time to address the issue seriously and with some thought. I really do appreciate it.

Second, I'm not saying you should feel as if you are doing anything immoral or wrong in hiring a test prep tutor for your daughter. As I said above, where I draw the line for morality is dependent on the underlying premises and the steps taken to game the system so it no longer accurately reflects the stated purpose (assuming it ever did). If the purpose of the SAT/ACT is to provide a data point, then taking steps to improve those test scores does not contravene the undelying premise. (Of course, the same argument could then be made for hiring a substitute test taker or bribing proctors for extended time.)

In any case, I wouldn't want to impose my own sense of morals on anyone else. If anything, my questions were driven by a curiosity as to what others'' morals are, where they draw their arbitrary lines, and why they draw the lines where they do. I'm definitely not pretending to be holier than thou (especially given some of the skeletons in my closet) nor am I suggesting anyone is immoral/amoral.

Finally, tbh, the service you described is also what the SAT tutors and I did as well (except for the advice to get plenty of sleep in the werk leading up to the test). I'm not so sure that the tutoring has changed. While I haven't seen a SAT test since my tutor days, I'd be surprised if it's significantly different such that it can no longer be gamed.

In any case, I sincerely wish your daughter the best luck and may she matriculate at the college of her choice (preferably, Cal?).

OaktownBear said:

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01Bear said:

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TandemBear said:

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01Bear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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01Bear said:

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TandemBear said:

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If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

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So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

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I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

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In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

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This is like saying practicing for a math test, learning the equations, functions, proofs, whatever, is "gaming the system" so that you know how to pass the test. Well, yeah, that's the point! And utilizing a teacher to help the student learn the material could also be construed as "gaming the system."

What you're actually saying is that you don't agree with the test-taking process as a viable learning method. If that's the case, then fine. But it doesn't involve morality or ethics at all.

If course material is presented and then at the end of the year tested, then that's the system. If a student can exhibit proficiency, then they pass. If they make no mistakes, then they earn 100%. If you feel it's banal regurgitation, then fine. That may be the case. Are students really learning to learn, or just memorizing material?

Well, that's another discussion.

But if they've learned the required material through the help of a teacher or tutor, it simply cannot be considered "gaming the system" or cheating. That's ludicrous. You have a strange take on cheating and test prep.

But I'll repeat, if flying a plane requires mastering a finite set of skills, then I want my flight students learning that finite set and then proving proficiency with it. And if learning that set of skills results in flying planes with successful results, then it fits the bill. Taking more time to learn it for struggling students isn't cheating; it's making the extra effort needed to master the material. No ethical or moral discussion required.

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Actually, no. Test prep tutors/companies do not focus on teaching the material tested on the SAT/ACT as much as they teach how to find the right answers to the questions on the tests. It's a fine distinction, but it's significant.

Teaching the material on the test would be more in line with what you're suggesting: learning the actual material.

Teaching how to find the right answers teaches a different skillset.

For instance, a question asking a student to sefine the term "fanatic" is supposed to determine whether the test-taker knows what the term "fanatic" means in a given context. But if the student doesn't know what it means, but knows how to eliminate the possible wrong answer choices, he can still arrive at the right answer as follows:

Hypothetical question:
Based on line 4 of the passage, a fanatic is:
A) an enthusiastic supporter
B) a field of science
C) an appliance
D) a type of furniture

Given that the answers in C and D are almost interchangeable, the right answer is likely neither C nor D.

If the passage has nothing to do with science, then B would be a non sequitor. This would eliminate it as the right answer.

Test-taking skills, such as the foregoing, are what is taught by test prep schools/tutors. The definition of words is less relevant, (though vocabulary lists are often handed out for memorization, anyway).

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And for this reason the SAT and ACT do not have questions like this on the test any more. They don't test vocabulary and definitions. I fully expect this is what was taught by test prep courses when you were doing it. It isn't any more. I will also say this. I didn't have a tutor or a prep class. I learned techniques like that from a test prep book. If you can't scrape together enough money to buy a book for the most important test of your life to date and/or you don't have the willingness to put the effort in to read it, don't call me immoral for putting in the effort. In all honesty, some of what the test is measuring is that willingness.

I think calling an individual immoral for learning what a large majority of people taking the test know when they walk in is pretty judgmental and silly. Again, I agree with you that it is a poor way to test. That is the fault of the test and the colleges that accept the test scores. It is not on the individual to keep themselves ignorant because some people don't have access to the same information. But again, this is not how the test works today.

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A little more about myself, here, I came from an immigrant working-to-middle class family. Both parents worked hard to put food on the table, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and a couple small luxuries (things that were not the bare necessitoes of life). As many of you probably were, I was a bit precocious and even considered gifted in my youth, to the point where I could've skipped a couple grades based on my reading comprehension and grasp of the English language (though my math skills were not as advanced) in elementary school. By the end of junior high, it was recommended that I take college level math classes at Cal State LA as part of a gifted kids program.

I say this not to toot my own horn (because, if anything, I consider myself a failure), but because I wanted to point out something: I didn't have the luxury of having someone chauffer me to a Cal State LA. My parents had to work. I couldn't drive at 14. The buses didn't run from my hometown to CSULA at convenient times. Not to mention the additional cost of taking college courses.

Instead, I wound up taking math classes with everyone else in the honors cohort at my high school. I had fun. I made lifelong friends. I fell in love and had a girlfriend. In short, I became a high school student.

Yet, if my family had the funds to send me to Cal State LA for the joint high school-college program, that's what I would've done. Life is often more about opportunity than ability. Without opportunity, a gift can be squandered.

When it came to SAT test prep, simply put I didn't. I had an extensive vocabulary from being a voracious reader. My math skills were adequate for me to do well on the SAT. On top of which, I never suffered from test anxiety. Of course, it didn't help that test prep courses were not cheap.

Then again, I was a cocky little *******. I had scored well enough on the PSAT to become a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist. My pride told me I didn't need to take any prep courses. As it was, I wound up with a combined score of 1400 (710 verbal, 690 math), which was the highest score for everyone in my graduating class at my high school (and no, my school wasn't the most competitive).

Undoubtedly, if I had taken a good test prep course, I could've bumped up my scores a bit. But to what end? I wasn't going to go to a private school, where tuition made the option cost prohibitive. At best, I was bound for a public university education, where 1400 was enough to get me in, especially since I was among the top 5% of my graduating class (in addition to also scoring well on SAT II subject tests), played a varsity sport, held numerous leadership positions in extracurricular clubs, and racked up tons of community service hours (in excess of what was "required").

The only question I had was how I was going to afford even a public university education. Fortunately, I qualified for and received a Pell Grant (and, IIRC, a Cal Grant) in my undergrad years.

Sure, some of you may be wondering why I didn't apply for scholarships. Unfortunately, my guidance counselor was horrible. She was so bad that in my final semester of high school, she actually advised me to drop out, get my GED, and go to the local JC. While I have nothing but respect for the junior college system in California, I'm not so sure that dropping out of high school to pursue my AA would've been a smart move. Needless to say, she offered no guidance whatsoever in how to apply for scholarships. Being a first generation U.S. college student, I had no idea how to apply for scholarships, either.

Long story short, I didn't come from circumstances* where taking a test prep course was an option for me. I'm sure the same holds true for lots of other highly intelligent and qualified students. Insinuating I was foolish for not taking a test prep course just goes to show how different our circumstances were, and frankly, how privileged you were.

I don't begrudge you that privilege, nor the assistance you've provided your own daughter in her pursuit of higher education. I applaud you for doing everything you can for her. Just as I am thankful to my folks for doing everything they could for me. But assuming others have the same luxuries and privileges you do is not necessarily a great idea. Casting aspersions on others for not availing themselves of the opportunities you had is beyond a slap in the face.

*One of my best friends had it worse. His mom was a single parent (his dad died when he was in elementary school), his older brother was autistic (and pur school district actually made him attend a neighboring district's schools), he had a younger sister, and they were also an immigrant family. This friend huatled and busted his butt, got into UCLA and graduated early so he could start working to help take carw of his family.

ca01Bear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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01Bear said:

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TandemBear said:

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01Bear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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01Bear said:

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TandemBear said:

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If you feel having another person take a college test for your child as crossing an "arbitrarily-drawn line," then I don't know what to say!

Would you want the pilot of your next airplane to have had another person take the certification tests instead? Since requiring the actual person flying the plane to pass certification is based on "arbitrary lines," then this would be just fine according to this approach.

And how would you feel if your child had been denied flight school by that very same person who cheated their way in? Wouldn't that matter to you? Or would you simply take the cheating one step further to ensure that you "out-cheated" the other cheaters?

Similarly, is Lance Armstrong the real victim? He just out-cheated the other professional dopers. He beat them at their own game, right? And this is true, to a very high degree. However, he still crossed a line. Several lines, actually. Lines very clearly stated, and not based on arbitrary or capricious rules.

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So what is the line? Where do you draw it?

You're missing the point. I'm not saying that the cheating was good or right. Rather, I'm saying that fundamentally, it was not much different than other uses of resources (by those with access to such) for the benefit of their offspring. If you disagree, great! Please explain how it's not.

---

I'll start with an analogy to baseball. If you hire a batting coach to teach you, you improve your game. Improving your game makes the game better by having a better player play the game. You can't be blamed for wanting to be better or for using resources at your disposal to make yourself better. Improving your play is within the agreed upon rules of the game. If you pay off the umpire, you break the rules of the game. You are not succeeding through effort, talent and skill. You make the game worse as the game is no longer about skill but about influence. If everyone did that, the game becomes unwatchable. I'd rather see Mike Trout battle it out against a top pitcher matching skill against skill then see Jeff Bezos hit off Bill Gates and the winner going to the one who wanted to pay the umpire more for the privilege of winning. And, in paying off the umpire you have induced a person whose job it is to be fair and impartial and maintain the integrity of the game to break that obligation.

You haven't fully explained if you think both hiring a tutor and bribing a proctor are wrong or both are okay. I'm assuming you see some level of wrongness in both because quite honestly if you don't see bribing a proctor as wrong, I don't know what to say. I will go through this anyway. Bribing the proctor breaks the rules of the game. It induces a person whose duty is to maintain fairness to break that duty. It damages the system by calling all scores into question. If everyone did it, highest test scores would go to the highest bidder and a system designed to test skill would be based on nothing.

I think if we are going to understand each other, you need to explain why you think using a tutor is wrong. I'm saying that at the individual level, a person who is willing to work to improve their skill is a better thing than not being willing to do that. If they use a tutor there is no problem with that. They are playing by the rules and attempting to better themselves. They are in no way damaging the system. They go in and take the test themselves based on the skills they have learned. If they get a high score it is because they performed well. it is no different than trying to be better at any skill or activity and seeking a teacher to help you.

Now I would absolutely contrast an individual's decision to use whatever resources they have to make themselves better at test taking with the social inequality that calls into question the validity of the test in judging academic quality of an applicant. If you said we shouldn't use the test, I might agree with you. If you said schools should factor in the relative access to resources to help take the test that varies across applicants, I'd absolutely agree with you. If you said society should provide access to quality tutors to students who don't have the economic resources to have them, I'd agree with you as well.

That is why my guess is that you are conflating societal inequality with individual morality. But the bottom line is I just don't know because I don't see you explaining anything wrong with an individual using a teacher/tutor to improve their skill. If I could understand what you think is wrong with that, maybe I'd be closer to getting your point.

---

In the interest of full disclosure, when I was an undergrad, I used to teach SAT prep for one of the major test prep companies. Whether hiring a test prep tutor is moral/ethical depends on the premises underlying the test.

If one of the premises is that the SAT/ACT is supposed to provide a gauge of a student's grasp of basic high school material, then a test prep program that teaches students how to find right answers without always knowing the material tested runs counter to that. Given that the premises of the test is what I just described and the prep courses functioned as I described, it's inescapable that hiring a test prep tutor is designed to game the system (read: cheat) while not providing the students with a better grasp of basic high school material. Given this, the answer would be, yes, hiring a test prep tutor is also wrong/immoral. Whether it's as wrong/immoral as hiring a substitute test-taker is not at issue (in fact, this would go back to the issue of difference in degree of wrongness and not in kind, since both are wrong).

On the other hand, if the premise of the SAT/ACT is to determine how well a student can take a test, hiring a test prep tutor to acclimate better a student to taking the test, then there is nothing wrong/immoral about hiring a test prep tutor.

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This is like saying practicing for a math test, learning the equations, functions, proofs, whatever, is "gaming the system" so that you know how to pass the test. Well, yeah, that's the point! And utilizing a teacher to help the student learn the material could also be construed as "gaming the system."

What you're actually saying is that you don't agree with the test-taking process as a viable learning method. If that's the case, then fine. But it doesn't involve morality or ethics at all.

If course material is presented and then at the end of the year tested, then that's the system. If a student can exhibit proficiency, then they pass. If they make no mistakes, then they earn 100%. If you feel it's banal regurgitation, then fine. That may be the case. Are students really learning to learn, or just memorizing material?

Well, that's another discussion.

But if they've learned the required material through the help of a teacher or tutor, it simply cannot be considered "gaming the system" or cheating. That's ludicrous. You have a strange take on cheating and test prep.

But I'll repeat, if flying a plane requires mastering a finite set of skills, then I want my flight students learning that finite set and then proving proficiency with it. And if learning that set of skills results in flying planes with successful results, then it fits the bill. Taking more time to learn it for struggling students isn't cheating; it's making the extra effort needed to master the material. No ethical or moral discussion required.

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Actually, no. Test prep tutors/companies do not focus on teaching the material tested on the SAT/ACT as much as they teach how to find the right answers to the questions on the tests. It's a fine distinction, but it's significant.

Teaching the material on the test would be more in line with what you're suggesting: learning the actual material.

Teaching how to find the right answers teaches a different skillset.

For instance, a question asking a student to sefine the term "fanatic" is supposed to determine whether the test-taker knows what the term "fanatic" means in a given context. But if the student doesn't know what it means, but knows how to eliminate the possible wrong answer choices, he can still arrive at the right answer as follows:

Hypothetical question:
Based on line 4 of the passage, a fanatic is:
A) an enthusiastic supporter
B) a field of science
C) an appliance
D) a type of furniture

Given that the answers in C and D are almost interchangeable, the right answer is likely neither C nor D.

If the passage has nothing to do with science, then B would be a non sequitor. This would eliminate it as the right answer.

Test-taking skills, such as the foregoing, are what is taught by test prep schools/tutors. The definition of words is less relevant, (though vocabulary lists are often handed out for memorization, anyway).

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And for this reason the SAT and ACT do not have questions like this on the test any more. They don't test vocabulary and definitions. I fully expect this is what was taught by test prep courses when you were doing it. It isn't any more. I will also say this. I didn't have a tutor or a prep class. I learned techniques like that from a test prep book. If you can't scrape together enough money to buy a book for the most important test of your life to date and/or you don't have the willingness to put the effort in to read it, don't call me immoral for putting in the effort. In all honesty, some of what the test is measuring is that willingness.

I think calling an individual immoral for learning what a large majority of people taking the test know when they walk in is pretty judgmental and silly. Again, I agree with you that it is a poor way to test. That is the fault of the test and the colleges that accept the test scores. It is not on the individual to keep themselves ignorant because some people don't have access to the same information. But again, this is not how the test works today.

---

A little more about myself, here, I came from an immigrant working-to-middle class family. Both parents worked hard to put food on the table, a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and a couple small luxuries (things that were not the bare necessitoes of life). As many of you probably were, I was a bit precocious and even considered gifted in my youth, to the point where I could've skipped a couple grades based on my reading comprehension and grasp of the English language (though my math skills were not as advanced) in elementary school. By the end of junior high, it was recommended that I take college level math classes at Cal State LA as part of a gifted kids program.

I say this not to toot my own horn (because, if anything, I consider myself a failure), but because I wanted to point out something: I didn't have the luxury of having someone chauffer me to a Cal State LA. My parents had to work. I couldn't drive at 14. The buses didn't run from my hometown to CSULA at convenient times. Not to mention the additional cost of taking college courses.

Instead, I wound up taking math classes with everyone else in the honors cohort at my high school. I had fun. I made lifelong friends. I fell in love and had a girlfriend. In short, I became a high school student.

Yet, if my family had the funds to send me to Cal State LA for the joint high school-college program, that's what I would've done. Life is often more about opportunity than ability. Without opportunity, a gift can be squandered.

When it came to SAT test prep, simply put I didn't. I had an extensive cocabulary from being a voracious reader. My math skills were adequate for me to do well on the SAT. On top of which, I never suffered from test anxiety. Of course, it didn't help that test prep courses were not cheap.

Then again, I was a cocky little *******. I had scored well enough on the PSAT to become a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist. My pride told me I didn't need to take any prep courses. As it was, I wound up with a combined score of 1400 (710 verbal, 690 math), which was the highest score for everyone in my graduating class at my high school (and no, my school wasn't the most competitive).

Undoubtedly, if I had taken a good test prep course, I could've bumped up my scores a bit. But to what end? I wasn't going to go to a private school, where tuition made the option cost prohibitive. At best, I was bound for a public university education, where 1400 was enough to get me in, especially since I was among the top 5% of my graduating class (in addition to also scoring well on SAT II subject tests), played a varsity sport, held numerous leadership positions in extracurricular clubs, and racked up tons of community service hours (in excess of what was "required").

The only question I had was how I was going to afford even a public university education. Fortunately, I qualified for and received a Pell Grant (and, IIRC, a Cal Grant) in my undergrad years.

Sure, some of you may be wondering why I didn't apply for scholarships. Unfortunately, my guidance counselor was horrible. She was so bad that in my final semester of high school, she actually advised me to drop out, get my GED, and go to the local JC. While I have nothing but respect for the junior college system in California, I'm not so sure that dropping out of high school to pursue my AA would've been a smart move. Needless to say, she offered no guidance whatsoever in how to apply for scholarships. Being a first generation U.S. college student, I had no idea how to apply for scholarships, either.

Long story short, I didn't come from circumstances* where taking a test prep course was an option for me. I'm sure the same holds true for lots of other highly intelligent and qualified students. Insinuating I was foolish for not taking a test prep course just goes to show how different our circumstances were, and frankly, how privileged you were.

I don't begrudge you that privilege, nor the assistance you've provided your own daughter in her pursuit of higher education. I applaud you for doing everything you can for her. Just as I am thankful to my folks for doing everything they could for me. But assuming others have the same luxuries and privileges you do is not necessarily a great idea. Casting aspersions on others for not availing themselves of the opportunities you had is beyond a slap in the face.

*One of my best friends had it worse. His mom was a single parent (his dad died when he was in elementary school), his older brother was autistic (and pur school district actually made him attend a neighboring district's schools), he had a younger sister, and they were also an immigrant family. This friend huatled and busted his butt, got into UCLA and graduated early so he could start working to help take carw of his family.

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I have to respond because you have made huge assumptions and you have made a huge mischaracterization of what I said.

1. Both my parents worked. My mother had to take a really crappy job in preparation for my sister starting college eight years before me. She worked hard and hated it. I had no SAT prep course. That should have been obvious since I said it in my post. Private school was not an option. I had no options to be driven all over town either.

2. I was not poor. I had food on the table. I had perfectly adequate clothes. I lived in a safe neighborhood. I had parents who expected me to succeed in school and go to college. I had the luxury of going to school with mostly affluent kids where college was an expectation. I am white so did not have to deal with racism. I fully recognize those are privileges that many people don't get. Most kids around me had more than I had, but I always viewed myself as fortunate. Even as a young person I felt it was doubtful I could have overcome hardship many others face. Let's be clear, though. I did not have luxuries. Privileges, yes. Luxuries, no. My biggest advantage was to not have disadvantages (which I think made me very lucky)

3. I NEVER casted aspersions on anyone for not taking an SAT prep course. Read it again. I said I learned techniques like that FROM A BOOK. That was what I had. The only thing I said was that if you didn't think it was important enough to buy a book and read it, you can't call me immoral for doing so. I stand by that. The Princeton Review SAT Prep book is $16 dollars. There are very few people that can't prioritize and pull that money together for something as hugely important as the SAT.

4. This was all EXTREMELY CLEAR in my post. And yet you went off on massive assumptions about me that ran completely counter to the information in my post. I think maybe you should think about why you would make assumptions about someone based on perceived characteristics .

5. My kids are extremely privileged. I parlayed my privilege and my Cal education and my wife's Cal education (by the way, my immigrant wife who had some things better than you and some things worse) into making probably triple what my parents made adjusted for inflation. (Second by the way. My wife didn't get a dime from her parents for college or law school. I was fortunate enough to have my parents pay for college, which they could do because Cal was still reasonable back then. I paid 100% of law school because I could get loans to do that and I didn't want my Mom to work anymore. Let's just say the debt was quite large) My kids get support for their extracurricular activities and their schooling. Anything they need for that. Because I can give them what I had and what I didn't have. And they also are taught and know that they are very lucky.

Long story short, I'm sure glad you don't begrudge me my privilege. But assuming others had privileges they just told you they didn't have is not a great idea. Imagining you are being slapped in the face by some rich, privileged white dude who looks down on the unfortunate because you think he cast aspersions on you for not taking advantage of opportunities he himself didn't have can be just as big a slap in the face. Again, maybe you ought to reread my post and figure out why you made those assumptions.

NVGolfingBear said:

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Just out of curiosity, what are the tax consequences from all these donations being made to the non-profit foundations, payments to coaches and administrators... are these donations being reported to the IRS, either as donations to 501 c(3) or as income to the recipients.

This could go on for years...

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Bingo! IRS involved.

71Bear said:

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okaydo said:

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It's amazing how true this is. (I'm sure many here will disagree, particularly those with advanced degrees.)

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It is absolutely true.

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I will disagree with this entirely. I have been out of school 33 years and the fact that I got a engineering degree from UC Berkeley still carries tremendous weight in my field. Sorry. It might be true for some degrees but not engineering.

71Bear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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ducky23 said:

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71Bear said:

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okaydo said:

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It's amazing how true this is. (I'm sure many here will disagree, particularly those with advanced degrees.)

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It is absolutely true.

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I'll only speak for the profession I know, but it absolutely matters for your first job after law school (after that, it doesn't matter).

I also imagine that what medical school you go to might determine residency placement.

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Employment statistics demonstrate that it matters a lot. Obviously the more work experience you get, the less your college matters. I tend to think people that say it doesn't matter are just far removed from the time in their lives when it really did.

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Speaking as someone who was responsible for hiring people into professional positions, I can say unequivocally that the college of choice did not matter. The only question regarding educational background was do you have a degree not where did you attend college. The interviews I conducted confirmed that those with degrees from Cal, Stanford, UCLA, etc. were no better than interviews with candidates from less "elite" schools. It isn't where you went to school, it is what you did after you graduated.

Having said that, I would agree that it matters in the areas of law, medicine and engineering but otherwise, nope....

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Here you go, tx....

txwharfrat said:

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71Bear said:

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okaydo said:

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It's amazing how true this is. (I'm sure many here will disagree, particularly those with advanced degrees.)

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It is absolutely true.

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I will disagree with this entirely. I have been out of school 33 years and the fact that I got a engineering degree from UC Berkeley still carries tremendous weight in my field. Sorry. It might be true for some degrees but not engineering.

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My housemate just got his PhD in Mechanical Engineering. What do you do?

Sebastabear said:

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Totally agree. Basically this whole scandal should have been renamed "Operation USC".

I mean there's something about this that is just so very SC. An ideology that rules are for the little people, a belief on the individual level that for enough money you can buy personal excellence and on the institutional level that you can buy academic standing.

Something (well basically everything) about USC's meteoric climb up the USN&WR rankings has always rubbed me the wrong way. They were clearly gaming the system and everything they did was designed to boost those rankings. Nothing seemed to revolve around advancing science or medicine or the pursuit of learning. If designing a better tennis ball was more prestigious than curing cancer I think they'd take the tennis ball every time.

It's a soulless shell of an institution masquerading as an elite college. And this whole scandal is just the cherry on top of their blight and corruption.

Burn baby burn.

So Hanky is that better?

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If I didn't love you enough, 100% this.

USC is wrotten to the core. What would be great to have happen is for that USC degree to really get devalued, as in people not hiring people because of it. I might write something about that. Great post Sebasta.

BearlyClad said:

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RJABear said:

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Jackieridgle said:

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71Bear said:

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okaydo said:

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It's amazing how true this is. (I'm sure many here will disagree, particularly those with advanced degrees.)

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It is absolutely true.

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I guess you never worked in Silicon Valley or doe a VC

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Several decades ago, I helped manage recruiting for a small Investment Bank's Analyst jobs. There were 10,000 applicants each year for 65 spots.

The bank only recruited at the Ivy League, MIT, Chicago, Duke, Williams, Amherst, & Northwestern. The only two colleges they'd consider in the west were Cal and Stanford. In my second year recruiting, the bank added the five Claremont/McKenna colleges, Virginia and North Carolina. I was not able to get them to consider ucla.

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Our experience, also. My son graduated with high marks and degree in Econ. No question the interviews with the firms he wanted occurred due to his Cal degree, not just good grades. These same firms only take those from certain schools, even years later.

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The bias towards the Ivy League was massive. The Managing Directors said that Ivy League grads could handle the work and would be accepted by customers.

There was a slight bias against small private elite schools such as Amherst & Dartmouth. There was a question whether people only went to Dartmouth (for example) because they could not get into Princeton, Harvard or Yale.

There were many questions about graduates from Virginia or North Carolina. The assumption among the established bankers was that public school grads were barely literate.