SCANDAL: Uproar ensued as college admissions bribery scandals made headlines across America.
By Shelbie Nelson, Staff Writer
In modern society, the process of college admissions is becoming more competitive each year. The average GPA has grown from a 3.8 to higher than a 4.0, and just getting ‘good’ grades is no longer cutting it. Nowadays, students hoping to move onto a university have to consider being involved in sports, clubs, and other extracurriculars in addition to the heavy school-workload just to be admitted. The average teen not only stresses on the admissions process but also on the annual tuition, which increases each year. Naturally, kids raised in riches do not carry the burden of worrying about how they will pay for tuition, books, and living costs. In early March, it was revealed that many wealthy celebrities are allegedly guilty of using their money to their advantage when it comes to their children’s education.
Morrie Tobin, the man credited with exposing the injustice caused by bribery and greed, was originally investigated for his own fraud when he offered information in exchange for leniency. Following this discovery, prosecutors began to investigate and found that many wealthy parents paid for their children to cheat on SAT tests, change grades on transcripts, fake extracurricular scholarships, and more.
Even though these affluent families are bettering their chances of getting into a top college due to their social status and their previous private education, many of the students themselves do not have much interest in getting an education at all. In fact, Olivia Jade, one of the most famous cases of college admissions bribery, stated via her own YouTube video, “. . . I do want the experiences of game days, partying. I don’t really care about school,” Lori Loughlin, Olivia Jade’s mother, went as far as to photoshop Olivia’s face onto photos of her high school rowing team in order to boost her chances of acceptance and scholarship to USC. Not only this, but Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli are accused of bribing up to $550,000 in order to get both of their daughters recruited by USC. In return, Loughlin lost two of her most important acting roles, but as far as the daughters attending USC, there has been no word on their removal from the school.
Following the exposure of celebrities like Lori Loughlin, at least 50 cases of college bribery were brought to light. This is causing admission boards of schools across America to rethink their admissions process. Michael Cappucci, a senior executive at the company managing Harvard’s endowment, asked, “Why do we have a system where wealthy parents have to make shady payments to even more shady intermediaries to get their kids into college?” For parents to be able to secretly pay their kids’ way to college shows how flawed the system really is, allowing it to go unnoticed for so long.
As far as repercussions, not much is happening. Most of the cases exposed by the media have caused the accused to lay low and keep quiet about the incident. The parents, coaches, and test-prep executives involved in the incidents are set with court dates and some have already been convicted. Singer said he “. . . created a side door that would guarantee families would get in” during his case hearing in Boston. Now he is expected to face more than 60 years in prison and pays more than $1.25 million in fines alone. Since then, there has been at least one exam proctor, two SAT/ACT administrators, nine college/university coaches, and 33 parents who have been arrested in this scam. If those involved in the cases are convicted, they could end up facing five or more years in prison with additional fines. As for the kids falsely admitted into these colleges, they will not be charged based on what the prosecutors have found thus far. In addition, many of the students decided to remove themselves from said colleges, such as Olivia Jade who, according to People Magazine, has “no plans to return to USC.” Besides the effects on the alleged, it is possible that these incidents will drastically change the admissions process.