University of Southern California is one of the colleges involved in the admissions cheating scheme uncovered on Tuesday and among the charged people it includes celebrities, rich business owners, and other influential people
University of Southern California declared on Wednesday that they will be reviewing the students already enrolled at USC that might be connected to the scheme and will also deny admission for all applicants connected to it.
This is considered one of the biggest college admissions scam to ever be prosecuted in the United States, and federal prosecutors describe it as a corrupt exchange of wealth, fame, and influence for student admissions to the nation’s most elite universities, which serves as a reminder that wealthy families can cheat their way to even greater privilege.
The scheme involved either cheating on standardized tests or bribing college coaches and school officials to accept students as college athletes, even though the respective student has never played the sport. Actresses Felicity Huffman, from “Desperate Housewives” and Lori Loughlin from “Full House” are among the charged parents.
Others charged are nine coaches at elite schools, two SAT/ACT administrators, an exam proctor, a college administrator, and a CEO. It seems that William Rick Singer, the CEO of a college admissions prep company, is the one who orchestrated everything. He pleaded guilty to four charges on Tuesday and admitted he wanted to help the wealthiest families get their kids into elite colleges.
It seems that he would bribe test administrators and have someone else, usually Mark Riddell, take the tests instead of the kids, or simply replace their responses with his own. Also, Singer disguised bribe payments as charitable contributions to the Key Worldwide Foundation, a non-profit that was actually just a front he would use to launder the money from the parents.
The schools involved in the scheme beside the University of Southern California are Stanford University, Wake Forest University, The University of Texas at Austin, Georgetown University, Yale University, and UCLA.
Source: cnn.com
