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US Politics: compromising positions


DanteGabriel

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34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It can't be that hard to get into the university of San Diego, can it?

Depends on what they're looking for - UCSD has a great political science program/department, better than many Ivys.  I bet all these random outliers have specifics that the bribers really liked about the school.

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27 minutes ago, DMC said:

Depends on what they're looking for - UCSD has a great political science program/department, better than many Ivys.  I bet all these random outliers have specifics that the bribers really liked about the school.

I dunno, man, even the feds thought it wasn't that big a deal

https://twitter.com/jonsarlin/status/1105491471577288704

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Ok, I thought the first time you mentioned it you were talking about UCSD and it was just a typo.  Which is entirely different than USD.  USD, yeah, that seems weird.  I could feasibly get tenure track at USD, and that's not even much of a humble-brag.

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7 hours ago, maarsen said:

Well the really fucking stupid part seems to be genetic in that junior could not get in on his/her own. Plus this has just put another nail in the IQ as a determinant of success theory. 

It's rather ironic (but in no way surprising) that American society just shrugs and accepts that the rich can buy a spot, yet scream bloody murder over the supposed unfairness of affirmative action.

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8 minutes ago, Ser Reptitious said:

It's rather ironic (but in no way surprising) that American society just shrugs and accepts that the rich can buy a spot, yet scream bloody murder over the supposed unfairness of affirmative action.

Wasn’t there a certain Trump on the news recently saying Americans don’t want handouts they want to work for what they get?

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19 hours ago, maarsen said:

Birdie I am surprised that you are surprised.  Just look at Dubya. Has anyone ever thought that he got into Yale and graduated on his own? 

No, he’s ‘legacy’. The fact that so much of this is done in broad daylight makes the degree to which people are shocked by the other ways it’s done kinda surprising to me. I mean, it’s just the Invisible Hand at work again, right?

 

edit: in the interests of transparency, I ought to fess up to being part of the problem. Those people on the fringes of academia who write essays/etc. for other students...I was one of them for a fairly long time.

Like everyone, I had my own moral code: i would never in a million years pass someone else’s work off as mine, but passing my work off as someone else’s didn’t trouble me one iota. Suppose ‘intellectual vanity’ could replace ‘moral code’ in a lot of ways. 

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Quote

Michael Flynn’s cooperation in Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is complete, lawyers for the special counsel said in a Tuesday night report to a federal judge presiding over the former Trump national security adviser’s case.

Mueller says Flynn’s cooperation ‘complete’

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/12/michael-flynn-cooperating-1219273

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LOL - Pelosi boots Pence from House office:

Quote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has reclaimed office space her predecessor, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., awarded to Vice President Pence.

Republicans gave Pence, a former House member, a first-floor bonus office in the U.S. Capitol shortly after President Trump was inaugurated in 2017. 

The vice president rarely used the space, but it was a symbolic gesture of the warm relationship Pence enjoyed with Ryan and the House GOP. The vice president serves as the president of the U.S. Senate and historically has been provided an office on the Senate side of the Capitol, which is where Pence more regularly holds court when he visits Congress.

 

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7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I dunno, man, even the feds thought it wasn't that big a deal

https://twitter.com/jonsarlin/status/1105491471577288704

 

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Ok, I thought the first time you mentioned it you were talking about UCSD and it was just a typo.  Which is entirely different than USD.  USD, yeah, that seems weird.  I could feasibly get tenure track at USD, and that's not even much of a humble-brag.

IIRC, USD is a trendy rich kid party school. It wouldn’t that shocking if a spoiled kid with bad high school grades wanted to go there.

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It wouldn’t that shocking if a spoiled kid with bad high school grades wanted to go there.

The kid probably would have to have some type of major red flag to not get in there using traditional/legal bribing methods.

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I DO think there is a significant difference among (i) alumni "preference" at private schools*, (ii) alumni "preference" at public schools, (iii) diversity preference and (iv) what happened in this Varsity Blues scandal  (I'm not even addressing except by reference to this regular way student athlete scholarships, which I believe should probably be abolished).  Private schools are just that, private.  They receive indirect taxpayer support from their tax exemption,** but otherwise are not directly supported by the state.*** Most of these private schools (maybe with the exception of Harvard, Princeton and Stanford) need students who can pay full freight to subsidize students who cannot.  So, particularly if a legacy applicant will NOT need financial aid and is otherwise qualified, and the alum parent has a long history of giving, it makes complete sense for the private school to give a bit of a leg up as compared to an equally qualified applicant who will not need financial aid, because the admission both cements the donor relationship from the parent, and potentially continues it with the child.  I personally don't support (and know my university doesn't give preference to) the large donation right before admission/children who aren't qualified getting in.  I am opposed to any sort of alumni preference at public universities.  I pay taxes every year, and I want those taxes to support a very high quality public university system into which the to x% of each public high school should get automatic admission, regardless of alumni status.  I support very strongly universities of all kinds making sure that their incoming classes have a diverse set of individuals from different backgrounds, including financial backgrounds, and I also think there should be significant support for students not to the manner born and/or not an assumption that every student has a certain background.  The Varsity Blues stuff is different and should be treated differently.  It involved corruption at every level, including at supposedly "neutral"**** levels like standardized testing.

*Full disclosure, I attended a prestigious private university, and almost certainly benefited, on some level, from alumni preference, as both my mother and grandmother attended the same university.  Though my grades and scores certainly well-qualified me for the school, let me clearly acknowledge that I know that those grades and scores were partially a product of being born on at least second base, and I'm quite confident that there were folks who applied whose scores and grades were at least as good or even better who did not get in.

**Wholly separately, as a matter of sound tax policy, I think that private school endowment/similar investments should be taxable.  I'm ok with the receipt of tuition being tax-free and donations being tax free.

***Yes, I realize that research Universities receive research grants, but that has to be separately justified as supporting a specific public policy.  

****NOT

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