Saw her daughter on youtube in an interview with her Mother and she seemed dumb as a rock. Even if she paid to get her in unscrupulously did she expect her daughter keep up with the work of an Ivy league University?
shareShe likely didn't. This whole thing was not born out of thinking (okay that type of logical thinking) but more like "they were devoting time to trying to get away with it" type of thinking. It was hubris pure and simple that dictated her decision-making. She just wanted her daughter to have the pedigree of having attended a ILU. That in of itself isn't a bad thing.
But then once she crossed that ethical (and legal =)) boundary, she was in the wrong.
If she wasn't interested in school she should have gone to Long beach st, Santa Barbara Col or someplace she wouldn't have had to cheat to get acceptance.
shareYou realise that you're calling a real person 'dumb as a rock', right?
You realise that isn't very nice, right?
What I don't understand, ultimately, is how any of this bribery benefits her daughters in the long run.
They already live in a bubble with all sorts of privilege in which she could've put the extra effort in to make them better more rounded human beings that learn that one gets out what one puts in. But no..
She has been teaching them that they have to do absolutely nothing to have whatever they want. Is it really the mark of good parents to do this to their child?
What happens to them if all the money and fame went away?
Of course it all won't go away..They're still a far cry from and millions and millions from having to scratch out a living. But this may be the best thing to happen to her kids.
They may start having to feel they may have to use some effort to get what they want. They may have to begin the process of actually having to prove themselves and develop themselves beyond what they likely would've before this scandal.
Nah, it's much better to live in a bubble, with everything mapped out for you, and without ever having experienced the heartbreak of failure, and the desperation of wondering how you're going to have to pay the week's rent or whether you're still going to have a job.
Being a rich kid who has gone through the conveyer-belt of an elite school to an elite college to an elite job and a cushy life with a big house or apartment with the perfect partner and the perfect family, and the freedom to change careers and do whatever they want with their lives, doesn't sound too bad to me. Far better than being poor and lonely and stuck in jobs that are beneath my education level and skills and without enough to even pay for rent.
We're not necessarily talking about one extreme to the other as far as struggles go.. there are some in between areas here..but do you really think it's better to live a banal superficial life where everything is just given to you rather then to ever feel that you've actually earned any part of it?
You don't think that's why we hear of so many kids of the rich and famous succumbing to drug addiction and alcoholism and suicide and mental illness because their life has no meaning?
We're not necessarily talking about one extreme to the other as far as struggles go.. there are some in between areas here..but do you really think it's better to live a banal superficial life where everything is just given to you rather then to ever feel that you've actually earned any part of it?Yes, because these kids are in, as you say, a bubble. They have no concept of their own mediocrity. They're at the highest and earliest point of the Dunning-Kruger Curve. In other words, they think they scored a homerun when they were born on third base, and they truly believe they're as smart as mommy, daddy, and all their teachers tell them they are.
I don't disagree superficially with what you're saying..as it is many things in life are the luck of the draw. ...the status of the family you're born into, your looks, your skills and the talents you're born with and even the good fortune to be in the right place at the right time and having the connections to thread all those into your fortune. But for almost all human beings there is a reckoning that even the most banal will wrestle with.
I'd want everything for my child and that would include the capacity for joy which would also have to involve the building of some character. Without that, in the end, I think it ends up like Gatsby symbolizing a light that he can't quite ever reach or a girl with money in her voice that doesn't exist.
The studies on happiness are interesting..Apparently large amounts of money do not affect happiness long term. Poverty and struggle do, of course, because they make life very hard. But people with enough money (that is.. enough to pay bills and have enough left over for some wants) are just as capable of being happy especially since they have a little room to actually dream.
What do you do if you have everything that money can buy and are still unhappy? There's nowhere to go but the end of the plank if you don't think there's anything more.
But yes, the discrepancy between rich and poor is widening and the middle class seems to be disappearing. It's harder than ever for someone not born into the right place to get a leg up and without status it's harder to stay up ...and that leads to unhappiness and depression. And it makes sense that it would.
I wasn't born into the "right" family. I know about struggle.
The studies on happiness are interesting..Apparently large amounts of money do not affect happiness long term. Poverty and struggle do, of course, because they make life very hard. But people with enough money (that is.. enough to pay bills and have enough left over for some wants) are just as capable of being happy especially since they have a little room to actually dream.You're right to say that studies demonstrate that once a person reaches a certain level of wealth, the correlation between wealth and happiness plateaus (i.e. more wealth no longer equals greater happiness), but it's not as if it the line starts to descend after that certain level. It just stays the same. And bear in mind that the level at which that correlation between wealth and happiness stops is still extremely high for many people, myself included.
What do you do if you have everything that money can buy and are still unhappy? There's nowhere to go but the end of the plank if you don't think there's anything more.
Continuing on from my last post, I would like my own (hypothetical) children to mix with a wide range of children, rather than simply a bunch of very privileged, very cossetted ones, not so much for their own personal benefit (as I said earlier on, I think it does benefit a child on a personal level to be brought up in a bubble, away from all the world's hardships), but because it's what I believe is right for society at large.
I'm an egalitarian, and I believe we should all mix and we should all work together to bring out the best in each one of us, rather than shutting ourselves from the rest of society and only furthering our own individual interests and that of our children.
Admittedly, my attitude might hypothetically change if I ever do have children, but I adore my nephew to bits, almost as if he were my own child, and I feel roughly the same way about him. I feel as strongly about what he can (and should) give to the rest of society as I do about what society can give him. I want him to be a fully-rounded individual who gives something back, rather than a spoiled brat, secluded from the less fortunate, or someone who only fights for his own personal self-interest.
Maybe she was using the same logic as Billy Madison's dad, in that maybe her daughter wasn't dumb, but just spoiled and lazy. And once she got older and matured and surrounded in the college atmosphere she would step up and get more serious about school.
shareSpoiled and lazy usually leads to dumb in my experience.
Most people, unless they're clinically retarded, aren't born dumb. They become dumb thanks to their circumstances, and being a spoiled feckless rich kid is an example of one type of circumstance that results in dumb.
80 percent of the human population have the same iq, determination and attitude sets people apart.
shareUSC isn't an Ivy League school.
Apparently, the reason for the scam had to do with college as status symbol. Their parents could brag about their children getting into an elite college on their own merits which explains why they didn't donate like other rich people. Shallow and phony.
Olivia is a Communications major. The curriculum didn't look too challenging, therefore she shouldn't have a problem maintaining at least a C average unless she's a complete moron or lazy.
https://annenberg.usc.edu/communication/undergraduate-communication/admissions/curriculum
Communications major?
LOL! And the OP was seriously worried about whether she'd keep up with 'all the work'.
Why in the world would you LOL at a Communications major?
shareSorry if I caused offence. You weren't a Communications major, were you?
All I was doing was agreeing with Keelai. As a Communications major, I doubt precious Olivia Jade would have struggled too much with balancing the 'demands' of the curriculum with her social event-orientated lifestyle.
I was indeed a Communications major. I know plenty of CMs in college today. It's obvious you don't know too much about the curriculum of a CM. It's certainly not as 'easy' as one thinks it is.
shareThe difficulty will depend on which college. Stanford University CM courses look more practical and challenging than USCs.
https://comm.stanford.edu/pathways-through-the-communication-major/
In my profession, I remember grads from California universities had received a less robust education than grads on the East coast and couldn't do the work after being hired. Recruiters complained about it and eventually stopped recommending them.
Communications is no where near the joke major people think it is, and USC has one of the top schools for it in the world, which makes sense given its proximity to Hollywood. Perhaps that was why her parents were so desperate to get her in there. Between a degree from USC and her parents connections in the industry, they could easily push her into a great position within the industry.
shareThank You. (I didn't go to USC, I went to a college in New England).
shareThat idiot heiress, Elizabeth Paige Laurie, who cheated her way through USC, also chose Communications as her major, and the degree has a reputation for being the subject of choice among jocks getting through college on an athletics scholarship.
I'm sure Doggiedaddy is intelligent and earned his degree, but forgive me if I don't regard Communications as a rigorous degree on par with Medicine or Engineeering.
Most people major in communications because they want to work in PR, HR or a related field later. My friend majored in communications and got a job in PR right after she graduated. You don't study medicine if you want to get hired for an advertising firm later. They're going to ask where your press kit portfolio is.
shareIt is off teh charts disturbing. That should tell you everything.
Its effed up.
Well to start with USC isn't an Ivy league university, not even close.
But they probably didn't care if she graduated or not, she got in and if she failed out they would have just spun the story of she was bored with school or something like that. They would have already had their payoff by being able to tell friends that their little demon spawn were at USC where their friends' kids were and that was all that mattered. It was just a keeping up with the Jones deal.