<p>Apparently the latest in a series of troubles for the Horace Mann School in NYC: Scandal:</a> Horace Mann College-Admissions Sabotage -- Daily Intelligencer According to the article in New York magazine, parents of seniors received a letter from the head of college counseling last week, which stated:
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"Someone in our community sent a letter about a current senior to a number of colleges with the goal of damaging that student's prospects for admission."
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It goes on to say that the individual who sent the letter has not yet been identified (might it be a teacher or parent, and not another senior? A vengeful ex?), but that the claims made about the senior are not true. I'd have thought that letters with the clear purpose of damaging another student's admissions chances at any college would be ignored by the admissions staff. That just seems like common sense, but I don't really know what the policy might be. Does anyone out there know?</p>
<p>While I think it’s despicable to tell false tales about anyone, I think it’s more complicated when the story is true.</p>
<p>Think of the kids who hired someone else to take the SAT for them in the Long Island case a few years back. Not all of the kids’ names were revealed. Not all of the high schools involved notified colleges that they had good reason to believe that the SAT scores previously submitted had been fraudulently obtained. If you knew about one such case–actually knew it to be a fact–would it be wrong to tell the college anonymously?</p>
<p>But what is a reasonable policy for colleges to adopt? I don’t think that anonymous letters should be considered; if you want to jeopardize someone’s chances for admission, whether your allegations are true or false, you should at the very least have to identify yourself, imho. Investigating anonymous letters could easily become burdensome for college admissions offices. And surely any accusations should not be accepted as truth without investigation.</p>
<p>I know that cheaters and even criminals can fall through the cracks, and that college admissions have never been “fair” (however we define that). But the application process does ask about disciplinary infractions, criminal convictions, etc. I don’t think that information from other students and/or parents, especially damaging input from anonymous sources, really has a place in the admissions decision.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how the anonymous letter writer knew which schools to send the letters. Also, how did the student and Horace Mann find out about the letters?</p>
<p>momofthreeboys and other commenters. I know that I will not be able to derail this thread, although I already derailed one started by a gossip columnist looking for “inside” info about this on CC. It was a TOS violation which I reported. HOWEVER, I have 3 children who actually graduated from this school, some rather recently. One of them has termed this act “despicable.” Another expressed surprise and reiterated that HM was NOT a cutthroat atmosphere. He said that sure, kids were stressed about their grades and getting into college, but that it was a supportive atmosphere among his large circle of friends. And these friends were all striving to be admitted to some of the most selective universities.</p>
<p>I think this was a despicable act, and if a student committed it, he or she should be expelled. But this is one very rotten apple in a large bunch. No matter what these magazine articles and the comments following them say, a large portion of the students there do not live in Manhattan or come from immense wealth. ~20% of the student body is on financial aid. Most of the students who attend are there for the superb education. Yes, they have a ton of homework. They use college textbooks in many/most of the classes. Each of my children has said that they were supremely prepared for the rigor of college work.</p>
<p>There are jerks everywhere. Maybe more at this school. But please, let’s keep from making sweeping generalizations about a broad group of people who happen to attend a particular high school or about the high school itself.</p>
<p>" No matter what these magazine articles and the comments following them say, a large portion of the students there do not live in Manhattan or come from immense wealth. ~20% of the student body is on financial aid."</p>
<p>I think you protest too much. If this is true and HM was a college, it would have by far the wealthiest student body in the country. (and that’s just fine with me) The students I knew at and from HM (granted, a long time ago) all seemed well-prepared to me.</p>
<p>HM has had its share of difficulties of late. But I doubt it’s that much different from the other fancy preps, except maybe they could use some help in the PR department?</p>
<p>The article is a bit melodramatic considering Horace Mann doesn’t have a reputation for being cutthroat from what I’ve heard as a New Yorker. </p>
<p>If anything, I’m actually shocked it took place there than at my urban public magnet as the sometimes cutthroat atmosphere does make it seem a more likely candidate. However, no incidents happened during my time there…or ever as far as I know. Probably due to the still large graduating senior class(A bit less than 700 in mine) and the perception among most that doing so would ruin the high school’s rep for all of us by reducing admission stats at the elite colleges especially the HYPSMCC/SWAR colleges. </p>
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<p>Anonymity of a source does not necessarily have any bearing on the veracity of the truth or not by itself…though it is likely to be less reliable. However, the answer to that is to use anonymous information as prompts to start a quiet investigation to see if there’s anything to those accusations, not to totally ignore/discount them. If there’s no red flags after an investigation to see if there’s anything to those accounts, those accusations can be dismissed.</p>
<p>As for investigating anonymous letters being burdensome to adcoms, that’s part of the job they’ve signed up for when they are scrutinizing applicants for admission…rightly or wrongly. </p>
<p>Especially considering there’s prior precedent for adcoms accepting information from anonymous sources as illustrated in Gina Grant’s case back in the mid-'90s:</p>
<p>This kind of sabotage is rumored to go on at my S’s HS, too-- very, very, very competitive college placement climate. Consequently, the seniors there hold their cards close to their chest.</p>
<p>No, sorghum, for me “derail” has nothing to do with censorship. Derail means keeping people from advancing wildly speculative theories about which they know absolutely nothing.
But, that’s what we like to do on CC, right? :)</p>
<p>mini-it does have a wealthy student body, although I’m not sure what the point is of your college analogy. I assume that many prep and boarding schools have this type of makeup. There are a number of students at HM who come from incredible wealth and/or fame and many more who do not. My point was that in our family’s direct experience, my kids did not find a “cutthroat” atmosphere. But that’s such a nice word to sell magazines. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Again, I really hope that they find the kid/parent who did this. Expulsion.</p>
<p>Expulsion seems unlikely. Kids in this stratum (at public or private schools) typically will lawyer up, and the school will allow them to withdraw quietly before any formal disciplinary action attaches rather than spend school resources litigating their right to do something that will show up on the transcript.</p>
Of course an anonymous accusation is not necessarily false. My question was, what are colleges expected to do about them? How many “quiet investigations” are adcoms supposed to conduct? Are they supposed to add this task to their job descriptions, or should admissions departments find money in their budgets to hire P.I.s? (Sounds like this could make a mystery series, though not a very interesting one.)</p>
<p>I feel that, if you want to make an accusation that could do so much potential damage to a high school senior, you should have to identify yourself to have that accusation taken seriously by the powers that be.</p>
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<p>momof3sons, I don’t mind at all if the thread gets derailed. My intention in posting the article was not to diss Horace Mann, which I know only from news articles, and which I don’t at all believe is uniquely cutthroat or even uniquely competitive. I’d have posted the article whether it was about an elite prep school like Mann, or any public school in the US. My original concern was the weight anonymous accusations might carry in an important decision like college admissions.</p>
<p>A boy at our high school cheated on the official AP Physics exam. Everyone knew it. The school opted to overlook it, we presume so as not to cause the cancellation other students’ scores or cost the school their right to be a test center. In this situation, if a student witness ratted the cheater out to colleges, do you think the high school is now going to admit the charges were true? And if kids from a high school are lying about EC involvements, for example, and that has just been revealed to colleges by someone, the school–especially an elite private school–is going to want to protect its reputation and so will claim the charges are false in order not to harm other students who are honest. </p>
<p>It’s hard not to imagine there is a real problem somewhere, but the question is where? Is the kid who was sabotaged actually guilty, but only the saboteur knows about it? Is the kid guilty, but has powerful connections/legal clout causing the school to cover for him/her? Are the charges true, but the school has to assert they aren’t to avoid a damaging scandal? Is the saboteur just a mean, jealous person who hopes to eliminate an admissions competitor? If so, that would be kind of useless at a school like Horace Mann, because wouldn’t s/he have to write a lot of letters about a lot of competitors in order to gain advantage, not just about one? Is the sabotaged student someone a lot of people dislike, and perhaps hate enough for someone to actually take the time to do this? My guess is there’s a fire somewhere.</p>
<p>I think the reaction of an admissions office will depend on the content of the letter. I recall a couple of Harvard admissions decisions that were revoked after others came forward to provide additional information, in one case where an applicant had failed to disclose a murder conviction and in another case where an applicant turned out to have copied her columns for a local newspaper.</p>
<p>From a quantitative angle, it’s probably much easier to pull this stunt at a private school like Horace Mann with the total population being 1816 from nursery till 12th grade according to its own website. Website states average senior graduating class is a little under 200. Probably least 50-100+ being in serious contention for elite colleges due to the prep school’s academic reputation and academic strengths of individual students. </p>
<p>In contrast, my public magnet’s population for all 4 years is nearly double Horace Mann’s overall student population with my HS’ graduating senior classes ranging from the mid-600s to the 800s with around a third or more of that figure being serious contenders for elite colleges. </p>
<p>Someone trying the same stunt will have to write many more such letters and do so without attracting notice from the cutthroat competitive classmates, faculty/admins, and/or adcoms. </p>
<p>Ultimately, it’s a lot of effort for dubious benefit even for the individual hoping to eliminate a competitor. Especially considering how any discovery of such sabotage efforts is just as likely to boomerang negatively on the admission stats/image of the entire school and its students…including the saboteur(s) him/her/themselves. </p>
<p>IMHO, the saboteur(s), if students, would be much better off focusing their efforts and energies on improving themselves in academics, ECs, and personally. And if it turns out to be an adult…especially a teacher, admin/staff member, or disgruntled parent(s) of other students…they seriously need a new hobby and life.</p>
<p>The actions of one or a few people tell us a lot about those people, but tells us nothing about the school. For example, penn state may have a few bad actor in the Sandusky case but everyone should be able to figure out the hundred of thousands of good people there make that school a great university.</p>