"The College Admissions Bribery Scandal of 2019, known as the Operation Varsity Blues Scandal, involved celebrities using their financial power of over US$25 million over 8 years to hire SAT takers to fake SAT scores, bribe coaches and college officials, and fabricate athletic credentials through Photoshopping athlete photos.
All of this, only to get into prestigious universities such as Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, UCSD, and Yale University.
While this is unacceptable, which resulted in them being fined US$95,000 and sentenced to 15 months in prison, where is the line between marketing and integrity?
From seeing advertisements on studying abroad and from watching YouTube videos with college-application tips, as well as reading WeChat articles about college admissions and how students may be admitted to élite colleges, we learn that élitism, classism and élite-college admissions have created economic business opportunities for tutors and counseling services. While YouTube and WeChat articles are free and widely accessible for everyone, there are uncountable out-of-school university counseling service companies in China, comprising élite-university graduates as mentors guiding students on how to write college essays and package themselves to be the universities’ best-fit." …