US college entrance cheating scheme uncovered by the FBI

Nearly 50 people have been charged in a massive college entrance exam cheating and bribery scheme in the USA, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI).

On Tuesday 12 March, the investigation code-named Operation Varsity Blues, saw 33 parents charged, as well as school administrators, coaches and standardised test administrators.

According to the FBI’s indictment, the scam focused on getting students admitted to elite universities as recruited athletes, regardless of their actual athletic abilities, and helping potential students cheat on their college exams.

The parents allegedly paid a collective sum of $25 million to a college admissions counsellor named William Singer. According to ABC News, Singer then “bribed college officials, coaches and college entrance exam administrators, who then helped students secure admissions ‘not on their merits but through fraud’”.

John Bonvolonta, the FBI special agent in charge, said that some of the parents spent between $200,000 to $6.5 million in order to ensure that their children received guaranteed admission at the schools of their choice.

The FBI contends that these bribes went to officials at some of the most elite colleges in the country, including Yale, Stanford and Georgetown.

In some cases, authorities said that Singer arranged for a student to take the SAT – a standardised test used for admissions – individually with a proctor he had bribed. In other cases, he allegedly bribed coaches to establish fake credentials designating students as recruited athletes even when those students did not play the sport in question.

Prosecutors also said that parents were instructed to claim their children had learning disabilities so they could take the ACT or SAT by themselves and get extra time, making it easier to pull off the tampering.

Some of the parents spent between $200,000 to $6.5 million in order to ensure that their children received guaranteed admission at the schools of their choice

In most cases, the students did not know their admissions had been paid for with bribes but there are several circumstances in which students were involved, officials added.

Singer pleaded guilty in Boston to racketeering conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

He told a judge: “I am absolutely responsible for it. I put everything in place. I put all the people in place and made the payments directly.”

Andrew Lelling, the US Attorney for Massachusetts, said: “This case is about the widening corruption of elite college admissions through the steady application of wealth, combined with fraud. There can be no separate college admission for the wealthy, and I will add there will not be a separate criminal justice system either.”

Among those charged are a number of high-profile CEOs, and Hollywood actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. Authorities have said that the list of parents involved may grow as the investigation continues in the coming months.

Neither the students nor the schools themselves have been charged with any wrongdoing, only a handful of administers whom the FBI says took bribes directly.

After news of the bribery scheme became known, a $5 million class action lawsuit was filed by multiple students against well known universities, alleging that they were not given a fair shot at admission due to wealthy students paying their way in, and that the scandal has lessened the value of their own degrees as a result.

The lawsuit asks that “anyone who paid an application fee to any of the eight named universities but was denied admission gets their application fee returned” because of doubts about the fairness of the process.