Parents, coaches and test administrators were among 46 people charged Tuesday in a sweeping criminal conspiracy that sought to help applicants win admission to elite universities including Yale, Stanford, UCLA and Georgetown.
Parents and others allegedly paid bribes to win admission for the children, giving cash to test-takers to help students cheat on entrance exams and paying coaches to designate applicants as athletic recruits. Parents paid from $100,000 to $6.5 million in bribes, with most payments around $200,000, according to prosecutors.
Investigators detailed a scandal that perverted much of the admissions process for America’s elite colleges. Unlike most other SAT cheating cases, the scheme reached deep into the academy, implicating college officials who allegedly subverted the missions of the universities themselves.
In all, the government said clients paid $25 million in bribes to coaches and college administrators from 2011 to 2018. In some cases, the bribes would be disguised as charitable contribution. An informant involved in the alleged crime said clients could also pay $15,000 to $75,000 to cheat on each standardized test -- in some cases, getting a proctor to change wrong answers in the test center.
“And it works," one client asked an informant, according to court papers.
“Every time," the informant replied, with a laugh.
FBI Informant
An FBI informant said he told parents the alleged cheating and bribery amounted to a "side door" for wealthy parents at the most selective schools. The “front door” involved children getting in on their own merits, and the "back door" entailed making multi-million dollar donations, which was legal though far more expensive.
“Who we are -- what we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school,” the informant told parents. “They want guarantees, they want to get this thing done. They don’t want to be messing around with this thing. And they want in at certain schools.”
The charges come two weeks before Ivy League schools and other top schools are scheduled to announce admissions for the class of 2023. The scandal, perhaps the largest ever in admissions, is certain to call into question the process by which top colleges fill highly competitive freshmen classes, while highlighting the extremes to which some wealthy parents will go to win a seat.