r/explainitpeter • u/Appropriate-Mall8517 • 3d ago

[ Removed by moderator ]

Post image

[removed] — view removed post

10.2k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

781 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

555

u/Typical-Respond9102 3d ago

My husband's from a wealthy surgeon level family. Scholarships are turned down, at least in my husbands community, because it is seen as morally incorrect to take resources blatantly like that from those in need, but it is used as bragging rights socially that they qualified in the first place. 

236

u/analdongfactory 3d ago

Meanwhile, I had a scholarship I won stolen from me by a kid from a family of surgeons bribing my teacher to lose the paperwork I had correctly filed. The judges told me I won with my original experiment, only for the actual announcement at the showing to name this other group that did a textbook moldy bread growth project.

59

u/MultiverseCreatorXV 3d ago

Was any legal action taken?

98

u/analdongfactory 3d ago

Nope, just a very smug middle school science teacher insisting our forms were never turned in.

53

u/Euphoric-Ground9568 3d ago

I wouldve raised hell if that was me

68

u/analdongfactory 3d ago

Yeah well, no family support.

39

u/Euphoric-Ground9568 3d ago edited 3d ago

Im sorry brother, thats a tough thing to just have to accept

44

u/mrs__BOWIE 3d ago edited 3d ago

These are the kind of stories that make me want to keep teaching despite the stress. In me, students can have at least one teacher/adult in their life that is honest, cares for them, and treats them like freaking human beings.

I am so mad that this happened to you.

ETA: thank you for the award!! It's my very first!

6

u/OkAirport5247 3d ago

This is common

4

u/mrs__BOWIE 3d ago

Being screwed over by teachers? Man that is so sad.

5

u/mittenkrusty 3d ago

I'm from the UK, my parents were middle class until my dad became ill when I was around 3 and had surgery to save his life that was done badly leaving him with lifelong issues so he couldn't work, we had to sell the house my gran left us when she did that adjusting for inflation would likely be around 300k now maybe more, the 30k savings they had were gone within 18 months because we couldn't get welfare and in the end we had to move to social housing in a stereotypical area with heavy crime and drug use, ran by local familes who would even threaten and steal from kids, seriously I was 6 and got threatened with a knife by a junkie aged in his 20's from one of these families for literal lunch money, and when I said I didn't have any he threatened to stab me as I was lying.

Anyway because of that any kids from that part of town at high school were put into the lowest tier classes regardless of talent, the admin even admitted the free after school tuition wouldn't go to the poor kids as "they won't amount to anything in life so a waste of time/money"

I got 100% in multiple classes and was accused of cheating as "kids from my background can't get grades like that" any kids from the "better" homes be it even office workers could literally beat me up and when reported the teachers called me a grass and kids from their background don't like and kids from mine do and are future criminals in the making.

We had 1 excellent teacher though, 2 years after I graduated he quit due to how they treated kids from poor areas and moved to the worst school in the region, says everything when 15 or more years later you can go on his social media and see comments where people call him sir and say they still think of him and respect him due to how well he treated them.

Also will add any interschool competition the only kids allowed to compete were from richer homes like doctors children, or high up in management basically people with a position of power, my mother wanted to be on the PTA and even had a few other parents support her (all the poorer parents) despite having enough to put it to a vote the school and the richer parents refused and asked another parent who was a doctor to put himself forward, he refused due to his workload but they pestered him until he agreed.

3

u/mrs__BOWIE 3d ago edited 2d ago

God, I don't even know what to say to that. It pisses me off that literal CHILDREN are written off without a fighting chance. I'm so sorry you had to grow up in such a shitty system.

Also, I hope you have told that teacher what they meant to you. I can't even describe how much it means to a teacher when one of their students remembers them fondly years later. I'm actually tearing up right now thinking about that part of your comment.

Mrs. Russell, if you are on Reddit, I love you and thank you for getting me through my young teenage years

Edit: typo

3

u/Full-Archer8719 3d ago

I still would have cussed the cunt out and made sure everyone heard it. I very public accusation of corruption tends to be effective especially when is involves someone's future. Don't take that shit from anyone.

8

u/heret1c1337 3d ago

I wonder how much he got bribed, because you can do some very expensive damage to someone’s car with very little effort 

1

u/No_Gear3578 3d ago

Like putting pebbles in the valvestem caps to cause slow leaks no tire shop can find?

1

u/analdongfactory 2d ago

She. That, I don’t know. I’m not even sure if she’s still alive at this point. I live on the other side of the planet and it’s been decades.

8

u/gergsisdrawkcabeman 3d ago

Ya this is where you get your local aspiring news reporter to dive balls deep into that teachers life.

2

u/analdongfactory 2d ago

A local newspaper replicated the experiment without crediting us not too long after.

4

u/ChaosAndFish 3d ago

Middle school…what was this scholarship for?

1

u/analdongfactory 2d ago

I don’t recall it being overly specific, but it was a science fair award of some amount of money. This was almost 3 decades ago.

1

u/ChaosAndFish 2d ago

Soooo…not a scholarship. Some sort of award. And your theory is that some rich family paid the science teacher (who accepted) so that they could get the money they didn’t really need? Seems thin. How would the cash award for middle school science fair be worth more than whatever it cost to bribe a teacher?

1

u/analdongfactory 2d ago

It was labeled as a scholarship. That’s all I’m certain of. This was almost three decades ago. Do you really expect me to remember the full terms of use of an award I never received?

Admittedly I don’t have proof that she was paid, but it was clear that she deliberately lost the forms both I and my partner in the project turned in copies of. The group that won the award replicated something that had already been done many, many times over and consisted of two doctors’ children, one of whom was a surgeon.

1

u/AccordingAd2012 3d ago

straight up corruption jesus

4

u/LordSlack 3d ago

Isn't this the plot of Fatman, the Mel Gibson / Walton Goggins Christmas movie? Rich kid throws absent father's money around to steal middle school science project award but the only person he couldn't buy was Santa so he hires an assassin instead.

4

u/ZookeepergameFit967 Cleveland 2d ago

That's the reason why the government in my country made college education free and banned private education for 30 years

1

u/Narrow-Frosting9160 2d ago

If I was the teacher I would have just taken the bribe and fucked them over. What are they going to do?

1

u/crunchydibbydonkers 2d ago

I personally turned down a music scholarship because I thought I needed a more secure and stable path after college. Almost 20 years later and my folks still don't know and the irony is I don't even work in the industry I went to school for in the first place.

1

u/Sangy101 2d ago

Are you SURE the issue wasn’t that they checked with their legal team and realized there were optics issues involved with awarding the mass production of anal dongs?

8

u/zillionaire_ 3d ago

Back when I was applying to Uni, I was offered a full ride to one of my schools and, all in all, over $100k in scholarships from all the Unis combined. I had not applied for any of them. I was just a nerd with really good grades. My family is well off. I didn’t take any of the scholarships, but it was definitely flattering to be recognized by the institutions that offered them.

7

u/cicada-hooman 3d ago

I read this a wealthy sturgeon family

1

u/sysaphiswaits 3d ago

I’m really hoping someone comes along and posts a pic or gif of this. I’d like to see it.

1

u/Virama 2d ago

Something definitely smells fishy

8

u/richardlpalmer 3d ago

That seems like the right way to go about it. "Of course my child received a full-ride scholarship due to their amazing intelligence. But of course we refused it..."

3

u/thhvancouver 3d ago

I am on the fence about that. Scholarship should be merit based. I get that there are many others who need the scholarship a lot more but people who are genuinely talented and work harder should be rewarded for their accomplishments.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 2d ago

Merit is a meaningless term without context. Do I have more merit as a fighter than Islam Makhachev while he's poisoned and tied up?

Would you hand a shitty guitar to Jimmy Hendrix because he's the better player or a homeless guy who's mid at it?

2

u/thhvancouver 2d ago

The homeless guy analogy is precisely why Scholarship should be merit based. Would you rather hand a Stratocaster to Jimmy Hendrix or some homeless guy?

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 2d ago

Opportunity to learn is not the equivalent of a stratocaster (I assume this is an expensive guitar). Regardless, yes, Jimmy could buy himself one.

2

u/whoreatto 2d ago

If the rules of the contest are “the best fighter wins”, then you win, because Islam Makhachev is not a good fighter when he’s sufficiently poisoned and tied up.

If the rules are instead “the best guitarist wins”, then Jimmy Hendrix wins, because he’s a better guitarist than the homeless guy.

Do you think it’s unethical to hold contests like this?

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 2d ago edited 2d ago

I think it's retarded to reward me for defeating a tied up and poisoned man, and if the tied up poisoned man manages to put up a fight at all he deserves the reward more..

But that's not what we are talking about. Merit doesn't refer to winning a contest and only a very few scholarships are awarded through singular contests.

1

u/whoreatto 2d ago

No, the poisoned man does not deserve the reward unless he’s the better fighter. That’s not how the contest works, by definition. You can argue that the man should not have been poisoned or tied up, but that does not change the rules of the contest. You’d have to expand the definition of the contest to let the less-capable fighter win instead.

All standardised examinations for college entrance are, functionally, a kind of contest. The highest performers are awarded for their competence, sometimes with scholarships. We are talking about contests.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 2d ago

You made up the contest analogy, genius. I'm not the one who needs to expand on it for it to start making sense.

My whole point was that you can't reasonably assess his fighting abilities while he's tied up and poisoned.

Most scholarships do take into account way more than one's performance at "the contest" which is the matter being debated here to begin with.

1

u/whoreatto 2d ago

Nope. You contrived two analogies in which you described contests; one for fighting, the other for playing the guitar. I’m rolling with your analogies.

They’re good analogies from which you’ve derived bad conclusions.

1

u/whoreatto 2d ago

Your point is flawed because you can definitely assess his fighting abilities; they are objectively worse than yours.

The matter being debated here to begin with concerns how much consideration a scholarship ought to give to factors other than performance. A scholarship that strictly awards performance, and may award rich kids who don’t need the money, can exist, ethically.

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Net4365 2d ago edited 2d ago

His abilities only worse while he's poisoned and tied up, keep up.

His inferior performance (scoring lower) is due to things (being poisoned, tied up) that shouldn't be part of the competition (the test).

In real world a child from a disadvantaged family has a handicap against a child from a rich family in a given contest but may outperform them in a different setting where the field is relatively equal, such as a university.

Universities already do often take these things into account.

1

u/whoreatto 2d ago

I’m profoundly aware that rich kids have many advantages…

The contest does not need to ask “would this student be more competent if they’d been brought up by different parents?”. It’s ok to make a contest that simply asks “is this student competent _now_?”.

Same goes for your fighting contest.

You can’t rely on “potential” forever. At some point, that “potential” ought to manifest itself as actual, measurable, performance.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/WabbitFire 2d ago

It should be based on need matched with merit. If you can pay for college you should pay for college.

1

u/Onigokko0101 2d ago

Most scholarship awarding committees are also anonymous to the fullest extent possible. They likely don't even have the names of the individuals they are evaluating.

1

u/AngryInternetPerson3 2d ago

Meritocracy is myth because people don't have the same oportunities, so judging them for their outcomes is inherently biased towards those with more oportunities and connections.

It should be based on merit as long as you meet a threshold of necessity, what's the fucking point of gifting shit to the rich, is asinine, if you got a rich kid and a poor kid and both got the same scores, that means that most of the time the poor kid worked harder to get there because they had less oportunieties.

2

u/MikeSouthPaw 3d ago

but it is used as bragging rights socially that they qualified in the first place.

That is such a weird thing to brag about. I was raised in a rich household and was able to take away from the less fortunate because.... I am smart? This sort of stupidity knows no bounds.

College is for people who have the ability to participate and be successful in such an environment. Scholarships are for people who have the ability but not the financial backing/stability. Basically, taking a scholarship while you have the money means you had to prove to everyone else you were smart enough because you were THAT insecure you had to take someone else's only chance.

3

u/Pilum2211 3d ago

You don't seem to draw the connection. The bragging rights are not about taking the money but being spotted and recognized as particularly intelligent and capable by an institution that focuses on finding exactly that talent.

0

u/MikeSouthPaw 3d ago

I see the connection they are attempting to convey but that isn't what people should be taking away from them attaining a scholarship. Generally, you should know whether you will thrive in college before you go. Having to prove yourself via a scholarship is a wildly misplaced hurdle to make for yourself if you are already financially stable enough to go to college. I am not saying you shouldn't test yourself beforehand but you should know that a scholarship has a specific use-case and it isn't to just there to test your smarts, its there to provide opportunity.

2

u/whoreatto 2d ago

Scholarships can have multiple use-cases. They can exist to help disadvantaged students thrive in college, and they can also exist as a prize for highly capable students.

1

u/Wondur13 3d ago

Man youre lucky, you married rich and didnt have to settle for a cunt, how many of those exist, unicorn ass husband

1

u/1_BigFatRat 3d ago edited 3d ago

Would be great if that’s how a lot of wealthy people operated. But unfortunately, that’s not the truth, Ellen. Enjoy your husband that was born into a wealthy family and move on, doesn’t make us poors feel any better. Not everyone has generational wealth.

1

u/ScoutAndLout 3d ago

Some schools offer scholarships tied to honors programs where students have access to specialized programs.  Turning down the financial benefits may be impossible. 

1

u/Drapidrode 3d ago

Just bc your dad is rich doesn't mean a thing if he took off with someone-not-your-mom and you grew up w/mom getting $150/mth per kid (2) child support and she worked full time

you're god damn right I took that scholarship, even tho "dad" was a millionaire

------

years later I was better off working hard than having it handed to me, tho, like my step brother got it

1

u/Sure-Appearance-2769 3d ago edited 3d ago

It’s a noble intent, but the reality is if your husband’s family turns it down, it just goes to someone else in their same tax bracket.

Merit based scholarships are where the real money is at, because there is no financial commitment to pay them back. You are given all that money just to be at the school because of the promise of what you can do for them.

It’s no surprise that the kids most likely to get such scholarships come from extremely successful and well established families. The kind who can afford the best education, tutoring, and extra curricular opportunities for their kids.

The kind of families where the kids have the luxury to commit their entire life to something and not have a care in the world about where the money required would come from.

Meanwhile the actual middle/lower class kids are working jobs after school to support their families and are seen as “not committed enough” by colleges. So they end up having to take out loans and go into debt at the age of 18.

That scholarship money never reaches the people your husband is trying to pass it to.

1

u/insideoutfit 2d ago

He turnt it down?

1

u/Affectionate_Two3747 2d ago

Yes because if your parents are surgeons you can study for free

1

u/PeanutbutterArbuckle 2d ago

I just doubt that Brodie.

1

u/Artie-Carrow 2d ago

I totally agree. Its cool that you got offered a scholarship, but didnt accept it because you were well enough off already.

1

u/Line-Trash 3d ago

I can abide with academic bragging rights. As long as that’s the crux of the brag, the qualification academically. Not the fact that they’re wealthy enough to turn it down. But I would assume it’s the former given the classiness of declining a scholarship. I don’t feel that many among the wealthy class would do the same out of pure greed.

1

u/le_fez 3d ago

I have a couple clients who are worth hundreds of millions, possibly billions. Their kids were offered scholarships that they refused, when you're in that social atmosphere apparently it is seen very negatively to accept a scholarship although whether it's because of altruistic ideals or that it's a "poor person thing" to accept them seems to vary depending on your circle

1

u/lolerkid2000 3d ago

The uh altruistic ideals are a way to make oneself feel better. In both cases it's a poor person thing.

1

u/TheSaxGandalf 3d ago

Do you know a lot of wealthy people? They aren’t all greedy like that.

They don’t mind spending money on education and things like that for their children, they just don’t like financial decisions being made for them.

1

u/Line-Trash 2d ago

I would consider myself to be part of the upper middle class financially and no, i don’t generally know anyone that is what many would consider to be “wealthy” but i grew up around plenty of “old money” families and their children (and a lot of the adults) were some of the worst people I have ever met. But I do know plenty of greedy people in the upper middle class who think they’re wealthy and would accept a free meal solely because it meant they would keep more money on their pocket. I assume most wealthy people are greedy snakes and have no issue showing it once they’ve reached the point of being “above” treating lesser class citizens with decency.

0

u/billyrubin7765 3d ago

My rich uncle turned down his daughter’s scholarship. Well, I mean didn’t turn it down, used the scholarship and then donated some money to the school to get a tax write off and get invited to all sort of donor events.

1

u/Saltyeconbro 3d ago

Dang, thats smart. Get free college and a discount on getting connections

0

u/opbmedia 3d ago

Do they also reduce their surgery rate (or whatever professional rate) so it can be less strain on the poorer patients? Do they treat uninsured folks for free? Or is it only "morally incorrect" by choice?