<story><title>L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/college-admissions-scandal.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>ForrestN</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m surprised that this scandal doesn&amp;#x27;t seem to be causing anyone to think one step further and realize that the entire premise of &amp;quot;elite&amp;quot; colleges with competitive admissions is a device for the perpetuation of inequality. We&amp;#x27;re devoting most of our advanced educational resources to helping people who would already be successful reap even more rewards.&lt;p&gt;I understand the idea of meritocracy in fields with life or death urgency—maybe we should be as selective as possible to make sure we&amp;#x27;re finding the best scientists or whatever. But the idea that Harvard is using its hideously huge tax-deductible endowment to teach rich people&amp;#x27;s children to do high frequency trading is far more scandalous than these marginal cases of bribery.&lt;p&gt;As a society, we should not be devoting so many resources to helping the best-positioned kids succeed to the exclusion of kids starting with less advantage.</text></comment>
<story><title>L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/college-admissions-scandal.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>cletus</author><text>Honestly, I really don&amp;#x27;t understand the motivations for some of these parents. Take Lori Loughlin. $500,000? For USC? For two daughters, one of whom clearly isn&amp;#x27;t that interested, isn&amp;#x27;t particularly academic and isn&amp;#x27;t particularly athletic? Like... why?&lt;p&gt;I can understand if someone bribes their kid into, say, Harvard or Yale Law School. There&amp;#x27;s a career where going to a good school matters. But this? It just makes no sense to me.&lt;p&gt;Felicity Huffman may end up being sentenced to 10 months in jail (and, let&amp;#x27;s face it, might serve only 5) but, still, that&amp;#x27;s a big deal for someone who probably never expected to go to jail. It&amp;#x27;s also on the lighter end because of her guilty plea and cooperation with the prosecution. What are these parents who have plead not guilty going to get when they&amp;#x27;re found guilty?&lt;p&gt;Add to this the children have to live with the stigma of these actions. I don&amp;#x27;t have a huge amount of sympathy here because at least some of them were complicit. Posing for photos faking crew, that sort of thing. But still... why would you want to risk your children having to live with that... to go to USC?</text></comment>