As far as news stories go, the $25 million college admissions bribery scheme exposed by the FBI is near-perfect – a titillating tale of the scheming super-rich finally getting their come-uppance, and a tantalising combination of Hollywood glamour and grubbiness. The actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were among the 33 wealthy parents – who also included lawyers, entrepreneurs and fashion designers – accused of paying tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and in some cases over a million, to a fixer who promised to get their children into top selective universities, including Yale, Stanford and the University of California. No wonder we’re all waiting for the definitive magazine long-read.
Court documents allege that the fixer, William “Rick” Singer, was paid to use two tactics to get privileged, underperforming children into their desired school. The first involved bribing college exam administrators to inflate the students’ SAT or ACT exam scores. The second involved faking the students’ sporting achievements and then bribing university sports coaches to admit them to college as athletes, because in the US the academic admissions requirements are often lower for athletes.
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