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In Trending News – The College Admission Scandal
(content published https://filterfreeparents.com/admission-scam-proves-rules-dont-apply-when-it-comes-to-celebrities-kids-getting-into-college/)
Section Intro: The U.S Department of Justice recently launched an investigation, dubbed “Varsity Blues”, into admission bribes, and is now prosecuting 50 wealthy people for allegedly paying for illegal assistance to guarantee their children’s admission to competitive schools.
Section Notes
The scam was devised by a man named William Singer, who owns the Edge College & Career Network, a college counseling service. Singer did far more than “counsel” prospective college families, however; he accepted financial bribes -over $25 million- between the years of 2011 to 2018 from several wealthy families to ensure their children’s acceptance to the schools of their choice, regardless of the applicant’s athletic or academic ability. Involved in the probe are two exam (SAT and ACT) administrators, one exam proctor, one college administrator, nine college athletic coaches, and 33 parents… including celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin. (Yes, Aunt Becky from Full House paid $500K in bribe money for her daughter to gain admission to USC on a crew scholarship- I wonder if “Wake Up San Francisco” will be reporting on this recent scoop??) Basically, PARENTS paid bribe money to Singer, who then used his various contacts to fix test scores, arrange for students to take an exam alone with a proctor that had been paid off to assist the student on the exam, and to provide fake “athletic scholarships” to students that were not actually deserving of the scholarship. ”
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Parenting Crap – Snowplow Parenting
(content published https://theweek.com/articles/830490/rise-snowplow-parenting)
Section Intro: Have helicopter parents evolved into snowplow parents?
Section Notes
Helicopter parenting is a term that came into vogue in the 1980s and grew out of fear about children’s physical safety — that they would fall off a play structure or be kidnapped at the bus stop. In the 1990s, it evolved into intensive parenting, which meant not just constantly monitoring children, but also always teaching them.
This is when parents began filling afternoons and weekends with lessons, tutors and traveling sports games. Parents now spend more money on child rearing than any previous generation did, according toConsumer Expenditure Survey data analyzed by the sociologists Sabino Kornrich and Frank Furstenberg.
According to time-use data analyzed by Melissa A. Milkie, a sociologist at the University of Toronto, today’s working mothers spend as much time doing hands-on activities with their children as stay-at-home mothers did in the 1970s. Texting and social media have allowed parents to keep ever closer track of their progeny. Snowplow parenting is an even more obsessive form.
“There’s a constant monitoring of where their kid is and what they are doing, all with the intent of preventing something happening and becoming a barrier to the child’s success,” said Laura Hamilton, the author of “Parenting to a Degree: How Family Matters for College and Beyond” and a sociologist at the University of California, Merced.
The destination at the end of the road is often admission to college. For many wealthy families, it has always been a necessary badge of accomplishment for the child — and for the parents. A college degreehas also become increasingly essential to earning a middle-class wage.
But college admissions have become more competitive. The number of applicants has doubled since the 1970s, and the growth in the number of spots has not kept pace, remaining basically unchanged at the very top schools.
It’s painful for any parent to watch their child mess up, or not achieve their (or their parents’) goals. Now, however, the stakes are so much higher.
“Increasingly, it appears any mistake could be fatal for their class outcome,” said Philip Cohen, a sociologist studying parenting and inequality at the University of Maryland.
The problem is: Snowplowing is a parenting habit that’s hard to break.
“If you’re doing it in high school, you can’t stop at college,” Ms. Lythcott-Haims said. “If you’re doing it in college, you can’t stop when it comes to the workplace. You have manufactured a role for yourself of always being there to handle things for your child, so it gets worse because your young adult is ill-equipped to manage the basic tasks of life.”
In a new poll by The New York Times and Morning Consult of a nationally representative group of parents of children ages 18 to 28, three-quarters had made appointments for their adult children, like for doctor visits or haircuts, and the same share had reminded them of deadlines for school. Eleven percent said they would contact their child’s employer if their child had an issue.
Sixteen percent of those with children in college had texted or called them to wake them up so they didn’t sleep through a class or test. Eight percent had contacted a college professor or administrator about their child’s grades or a problem they were having.
