Text | Hua Shang Tao Li Wu Su
When a large number of parents in China are anxious about school district housing, in the United States, the world's top schools have opened the "side door" for the rich.
Recently, Netflix launched a documentary work "Buy into a Famous School: Storm of College Fraud in the United States", which restored the largest college admissions fraud case in the history of the United States in 2019 "Campus Blues Action" in the form of scene reproduction.
Hundreds of investigators found that the scandal involved more than 50 people who sent their children to the world's top universities, including Stanford University, Yale University, Harvard University and the University of Southern California, by cheating and bribing hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Most of the parents involved in the fraud are social elites, including the heroine of the American drama "Desperate Housewives" and the winner of the Golden Globe Award, Felicity Hoffman.
What has attracted widespread attention is that China's rich are a relatively large customer group in the "Blues Action".
For example, Zhao Tao, the richest man in Shandong, was suspected of spending $6.5 million (about 42 million yuan) to send his daughter Zhao Siyu to Stanford University, and after being exposed, Zhao Siyu was expelled from Stanford University.
In addition, a Chinese female billionaire, Sui Xiaoning, spent $400,000 to enroll her son in the name of a soccer student at UCLA.
The reason why I was able to buy into a prestigious school is closely related to the behind-the-scenes planner Rich Singer.
Ritchie worked as a college basketball coach before switching careers as a counselor for further education. It was the background of the college coach that made Ritchie very familiar with the various doorways of American universities, coupled with excellent eloquence, and he quickly won the trust of people.
Initially, Ritchie only provided normal college admission advice, but as the demand became more and more "upgraded", buying into elite schools became the main business.
Specifically, at each step, Ritchie carefully arranged and precisely drilled the hole.
First, he would instruct parents and clients to deliberately act clumsy and obtuse when passing the intelligence test, and use "pretending to be stupid" to get "special care". Then, during the exam, he directly bought the proctor, who could help the student "change the answer" or simply "substitute the exam" to ensure that he got the score he wanted, which had enough advantages when applying to the university.
In the documentary, Ritchie directly called out to customers: "For seventy-five thousand DOLLARs, act and SAT (commonly known as the "American college entrance examination") can get as many points as they want." ”
When it comes to applying for college, Richie uses minorities to get preferential policies, and more often, he will package ordinary students as "sports students", make false files, and make up sports materials to make them "professional athletes".
Such a clumsy method was unhindered by Richie's bribery of sports coaches at major schools.
As a result, the daughter of Hollywood actress Lori Lovrin entered the University of Southern California by sitting on a rowing machine to pose photos, while Sui Xiaoning's son "did not play football at all", but was admitted to UCLA as a footballer through illegal means such as P-charts, and also received a scholarship.
It is not difficult to see that it is Richie's "one-stop service" that buys the children of the rich and celebrities into prestigious schools.
However, the deeper reason is the unfairness of American education.
You know, there are more than three thousand universities in the United States, it is not difficult to go to college, but it has the world's top universities, for the world's enrollment, the difficulty of entry is extremely high, and these top universities are basically private universities, there is no financial appropriation, teaching and scientific research funds in addition to high tuition, but also from social donations.
Social donations can be called the "side door" left to the rich. For example, Trump's son-in-law was accepted to Harvard simply because his parents donated $2.5 million.
In addition to donations, the preferences of american elite schools, such as sailing, water polo, fencing, equestrianism, etc., are not so much sports specialty enrollment as wealth screening students.
After all, these sports, to play out of the level, ordinary people can not afford.
As for being admitted to a prestigious school based solely on the test results, it is equally difficult.
In 1998, Korean boy Henry Parker scored a staggering 1560 on the SAT test with a perfect score of 1600. Such achievements, in China, should be competed for by famous universities, right? However, he received 6 rejection letters, and Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc. all turned him away.
Henry's grades are not a problem, but wealth, family background, donation intentions, family connections and even skin color and race are not plus points, so they are "brushed in seconds".
Instead, his classmate Margaret Bass finished second from the bottom, but was successfully admitted because her father donated tens of millions of dollars.
In contrast, Ritchie's "illegal operations" are sought after by elites because of their high cost performance.
It has to be said that this is a kind of "irony" of American education. As Hoffman said before he was jailed: "I wanted to give my daughter a 'fair chance', and now I understand how ironic it was." ”
【References】
1. "Desperate Housewives" This time she was desperate! Spending money to buy points to help her daughter enter a prestigious school was sentenced to prison, daily economic news
2. The largest admissions fraud case in the history of the United States: celebrities and rich people throw money, mysterious institutions change their grades P photo, Beijing News
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