[rumcajz]

I have hard time understanding what goes for the bribery in US. Apparently, a lot of stuff that would be considered corruption in Europe is just business as normal in the US. In this particular case I would guess that what they did would be considered OK. Apparently it wasn't. Can someone from the US comment on where the boundary between what's OK and what's not lies?

[0134340]

I suppose it's because this idea of individualistic and competitive 'work hard and make it yourself' attitude permeates our culture and so nepotism, or this case taking advantage of powerful family ties, is somewhat frowned upon as a free ride to success. Of course this also contrasts with our favor for another potentially major part of success based on who you know rather than what you know and social networking, both of which are less frowned upon than nepotism.

I guess the US and like countries attempt to base privilege on well-documented rules instead of ad-hoc, less predictable and more ambiguous 'do me a favor and I do you a favor' bribery that's more known in other countries. Of course it doesn't always work this way but in theory. The good ol' boy network is still a thing and money does buy judicial privilege in many cases but at least we sort of try.

[rsynnott]

Their bribe wasn't big enough, so it was the BAD sort of bribe, seems to be about the size of it. Bizarre.

I have a lot of concerns about the Irish college admissions system (a numeric score is derived from final school year exam results; places are filled based on the highest scores who applied by a national computer system, then anyone left is shunted to their second choice (which may be in a different institution) and so on), but at least people can't outright buy a place.

[kumarvvr]

In India, a similar thing happens for engineering admissions.

People write a national level exam, get individual ranks. No two people get the same rank.

A convention is organized by the education body, where students are called in slots, with the top rankers going first. So they have all the colleges to choose from, all the subjects, etc.

Some % of seats in all colleges are reserved for various categories of students like athletes, physically handicapped, etc. But they are also prioritized based on their rank and an additional score (like a national level badminton winner is prioritized over a state level one, even if the national level player has a worse rank than the state level one).

Apart from this, all colleges are allowed 'management' seats, which are essentially seats that can be purchased. However, even to purchase seats, the student has to get a qualifying rank in the exam.

Costs for the seats are also fixed nationwide, with govt. doling out grants to the colleges for specific indexes, like male / female ratio, etc.

[kevin_thibedeau]

> where the boundary between what's OK and what's not lies?

It scales proportional to your wealth. The varsity blues parents were just too poor to issue a proper bribe.

[rumcajz]

I've meant what is considered morally acceptable by an average American. I guess that you are describing who manages to get away with the corruption, rather than asserting that bribery by the rich is considered more acceptable that the bribery by the poor.

[samatman]

This is a typical comment of a Western European.

I know, you would love to forget that Greece and Bulgaria are in Europe.

However... they are.

[rumcajz]

I am from Slovakia and the country is pretty corrupt. But I feel that the moral boundary is somewhat different. In Eastern Europe, preferring your friends and family is more acceptable, whereas in the US it seems to be stuff that could be classified as, maybe, "lobbying" or "ecnomics".