“Explain to me how that works,” he asked.
‘Be Stupid’
The crucial first step, Singer told Caplan, was for his daughter “to be stupid” during a psychological evaluation so she would be listed as having a learning disability, investigators said. That would get her an extension on the ACT or SAT test, allowing her to take the exam later over two days, instead of one, and, in an individualized setting. All the family had to do then, Caplan was told, was travel to California so the test could be taken at a facility where Singer’s corrupt "proctor" would make sure the test shined, the U.S. said.
One important tip, Singer said, is for parents to make sure they’re out of town after they get the extension, so the test can be taken at his facility. “What I do is, I always tell the family, Oh, you got a bar mitzvah out of town that weekend, so you found a school to take it at,” Singer said, according to the court filing.
In some cases, Singer told Caplan, the children could secure winning scores without even knowing what their parents had done.
“She will think that she’s really super smart, and she got lucky on a test,” Singer said in the recorded phone call.
Fake Trip
After securing an extension on the test, Caplan was told, he could then fly to Los Angeles with his daughter on a fake college-recruiting trip and have her take the test at a predetermined facility while they were in town.
“That’s how simple it is,” Singer told Caplan. “She doesn’t know. Nobody knows what happens. It happened, she feels great about herself.”
“Does that make sense?” Singer asked.
“That does,” Caplan said, according to the complaint.
Singer assured Caplan he’d done this many times. “They’re all families like yours, and they’re all kids that wouldn’t have perform[ed] as well, and then they did really well,” he said. He told Caplan that in some cases the children believed they had legitimately scored well, and even asked to take the tests again so they could try to do better.