What’s worth than cheating for your own kid? Sabotaging someone else’s kid.

Since the college admissions scandal broke a few weeks ago, there’ve been a number of follow on, variation-on-a-theme stories that chronicle activities that run the gamut from modestly sleazy to if-this-isn’t-criminal-what-is.

One of my favorites was a story that popped in the Boston Globe last week. If was about a wealthy Maryland businessman who purchased the home of the Harvard fencing coach for hundreds of thousands of dollars over asking and – mirabile dictu, as we used to say in Latin class – found his fencing son admitted to Harvard. Veritas!

The house was a good bones but run down colonial in a suburban Boston town that’s 12 miles from Cambridge – home of Harvard fencing.

Anyway, the purchaser claimed that he was willing to pay a premium because he knew the fellow, the poor Harvard fencing coach, and felt bad that he had such an onerous commute from Needham to Cambridge. Oh, those 12 miles. Boston traffic. Much better if you work in Cambridge if you can live in Cambridge.

Which Peter Brand, the fencing coach, was now able to do because he had so much excess cash stuffing his wallet.

When the town assessor saw the delta between the assessed value and the purchase price, he:

…was so dumbfounded that he wrote the following in his notes: “Makes no sense.” (Source: Boston Globe)

But, of course, it made sense if you had a fencer son who wanted to go to Harvard. Fight fiercely, and all that.

The father claims he was just being nice. After all, his brainy, high SAT, prestigious prep school, legacy, fencing son was obviously going to get accepted, anyway. His acceptance was, dad felt, a “no brainer.”

He was, of course, taking into account that there are plenty of brainy, high SAT, prestigious prep school, legacy and sporty kids who don’t get into Harvard.

Anyway, once sonny boy was safely admitted, dad decided to sell the house in Needham that he didn’t actually want or need. He sold it for $300K less than he overpaid for it.

Once again, the town assessor made a notation that selling at such a loss “made no sense.”

It’s only money.

The scheme was uncovered when the second-round purchasers looked at the history of purchase and sale, started reading about the college admissions scandal, put two and two and dimed the story to The Globe.

Harvard, which had up to this point escaped any mention in the scandal chronicles, has hired an outside entity to investigate.

“We are committed to ensuring the integrity of our recruitment practices,” Harvard College spokeswoman Rachael Dane said.

I’m guessing that the fencing coach isn’t long for the Harvard world. Touché!

At least the father didn’t have to photoshop his son’s head onto the body of a true fencer.

But there’s another story that introduces us to parents who I find even more odious than the home overpayers, the head photoshoppers, the SAT cheaters and their ilk. And these are the folks who have tried to increase their kids’ odds of getting into the school of their hearts’ desires by screwing over other kids 

The story broke about what was happening at the Sidwell Friends School, the fancy-dancy D.C. school where the Obama girls and Chelsea Clinton went. It seems that in December, the head of college counseling sent a pointed yet modulated letter to parents, noting informing them that:

“The College Counseling Office will not answer phone calls from blocked numbers.”

“The College Counseling Office will not open any mail without a recognizable return address.”

“If a parent ever feels the need to inform me or my colleagues regarding the actions of a child that is not their own — I will ask you to leave my office or end the phone conversation.”

The message seemed to confirm the vague rumors that had circulated for weeks — murmurs about parents behaving badly, even going so far as to disparage other students, presumably to give their own teens a leg up in the high-stakes college admissions competition. (Source: Washington Post)

Really, badmouthing – sometimes anonymously -  other people’s kids so that yours can get ahead? It almost makes pretending your kid is ADHD so they can take their SAT’s in a private setting over a 2-day period seem normal, almost righteous.

A communications made a month or so later said:

“The circulation of rumors about students and/or the verbal assault of employees are antithetical to the School’s values.”

Sidwell is a Quaker institution. Talk about behavior that’s antithetical to your values…

Sidwell is not, as you can imagine, the only school where this takes place. When a Long Island guidance counselor heard that a parent feared her child would be sabotaged by other parents, she was at first skeptical. So she put some feelers out:

There were accounts of parents who had called admissions offices to spread gossip about another child’s bad behavior, parents who reported long-ago run-ins with law enforcement, parents who sent anonymous tips about potentially compromising posts on students’ Facebook or Twitter pages.

I sent a link to the Wapo article to my cousin MB, who for many years worked as a guidance counselor in a public school in an upper-middle-class Connecticut suburb. Her response? “Sickening but real.”

Your kid not getting into the school of your dreams is not going to destroy their life. Unless they (or you) let it. Nor will it destroy your life. Unless you let it. Not that such toxic parents don’t deserve a bit of life destruction, given what they’re doing to their own kids and those of others.

A pox on all their nasty McMansions.

Where, pray tell, does all this insanity end?