College Entrance Scam includes former Yale Women's Soccer Coach

gefelchnik said:
This was in the latimes today...wonder where this leads:

Of the many outrageous allegations revealed by federal prosecutors in the college cheating scandal, one stands out.

Someone paid $6.5 million to get his or her children into elite schools. But the identity of that parent — and details about which schools were involved — remains a mystery nearly two weeks after authorities in Boston filed the charges against dozens of wealthy individuals.

The lack of information about the money is more notable given that the charges go into intense detail about the alleged actions of other parents, who are accused of bribing and cheating to get their kids into schools such as Yale, USC and UCLA.

Prosecutors have mentioned the $6.5 million in payments at a news conference and in court. But they are not included in the hundreds of pages detailing the charges.

“The name was not divulged,” Christina Sterling, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston, told The Times in an email. “We did not tie the amount to anyone by name. That is not public.”

She declined to say whether the person who paid the massive sum is among those already charged. But that is unlikely because the court records show none of the other parents allegedly paid anywhere close to that amount of money.

The payment is more sign that there is still much more to come in the case that has rocked American universities and placed a harsh spotlight on the college admissions process.
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My guess would be this is the person who told the FBI in the first place. The one who had committed some sort of securities fraud and was looking to plead for a lighter sentence.

Also I would suspect there are more names to come out. I remember initial reports saying this was a $12 million scam? Supposing the $6 million dollar man/woman accounts for half... the other 15 or so kids we know about bribes’ still don’t cover the other half of the $12 million. So yes there must be more people out there. That said, using only info I’ve read on the internet (whatever that’s worth), I predict were just not looking at anything close to 100’s more names.
 
surfrider said:
I believe it was said this scam ran since 2011 and at 25 million
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I looked it up and you're right... $25 million and he started scamming people into colleges in 2011.
Although I still think my larger point holds. I just don't see evidence that is on the scale where 100's of people are going to jail.
 
tenacious said:
I looked it up and you're right... $25 million and he started scamming people into colleges in 2011.
Although I still think my larger point holds. I just don't see evidence that is on the scale where 100's of people are going to jail.
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Few people will go to jail - in that sense, the coaches/college administrators have the greatest risk. The parents are of such means to hire the best lawyers, will pay significant fines (w/o putting a dent in their wealth) and do some humiliating community service. The coaches likely don't have similar means and run a greater risk of doing time (I think Singer will do time). The "punishment" of the parents will be that tension between them and their kids and the humiliation their kids will feel in their circle of "elites" - won't surprise me if the kids are able to leverage this humiliation into a season skiing in the French Alps, a new Ferrari and a condo in Manhattan. Really painful stuff.

(I think Meredith seems like a real snake but it does not seem just if he has to go to prison while others skate)
 
College acceptance notices have been going out this last couple of weeks and will continue for some and this scandal has had a effect already since I heard some programs have been frozen in helping out students who maybe deserving or qualified with a special need or talent but for one reason or the others admission admin is now vary wary of any special "admissions".

The other shoe is that we personally know some players who had verbal commits, signed or where close to signing but the programs now are reevaluating, changing coaches, or policies/programs as a results and things are a bit up in the air. With College choices/commitments due in what May or so things are in flux for some so I hope things work out for them.
 
Surfref said:
If this was USC I would agree with you, but UCLA is a public university that receives a good bit of money from the California tax payers. So, we do have a right to full and transparent disclosures.
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How ironic that the little people are trying to throw their limited financial (taxpayer) weight around in revenge for rich people throwing their actual financial weight around. Just eat your cake and move on, will you?

If you think you're entitled to anything about Cromwell at this point, read the California Public Records Act. And since anything relating to Cromwell would almost assuredly implicate the student Isackson, also read the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. If there is eventually a finding of wrongdoing against Cromwell, the public will probably be entitled to some info, but not until then. In the meantime, people will have to continue speculating that Singer conspired with Grandma Annenberg to pay a $5 million bribe to UCLA to build the new stadium while Isackson was still in middle school - just in case the $50 million she gave to USC ended up being insufficient to get her in over there. Man, that took some serious forethought.
 
End of the Line said:
How ironic that the little people are trying to throw their limited financial (taxpayer) weight around in revenge for rich people throwing their actual financial weight around. Just eat your cake and move on, will you?

If you think you're entitled to anything about Cromwell at this point, read the California Public Records Act. And since anything relating to Cromwell would almost assuredly implicate the student Isackson, also read the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. If there is eventually a finding of wrongdoing against Cromwell, the public will probably be entitled to some info, but not until then. In the meantime, people will have to continue speculating that Singer conspired with Grandma Annenberg to pay a $5 million bribe to UCLA to build the new stadium while Isackson was still in middle school - just in case the $50 million she gave to USC ended up being insufficient to get her in over there. Man, that took some serious forethought.
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If the two situations happened it doesn’t mean they have to be linked to each other. If someone is unethical it is unlikely it is just one time or one situation
 
tenacious said:
In my experience it’s difficult to keep a secret that three people know. I just doubt if hundreds were in the know... it could possibly stay secret very long.

Moreover that this guy Singer set up a non-profit in his own name so parents could write off donations and having parents transfer Facebook shares directly to him (as #41’s parents are said to have done) makes me think Jonny Law already knows who and how much was paid to play... and have given the schools a list of names they want records on. If the Universities are bracing for hundreds of more names to go public, so far they don’t seem to be behaving like it.

Really the most interesting part to this whole story is UCLA because that girl was put on the roster and the coach of the team still has her job.
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Someone will probably file a lawsuit saying their player had top grades, test score, played ECNL and DA in her career and may have been ranked but didn't get in because of this. Huge lawsuit waiting to happen.
 
Lambchop said:
Someone will probably file a lawsuit saying their player had top grades, test score, played ECNL and DA in her career and may have been ranked but didn't get in because of this. Huge lawsuit waiting to happen.
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The challenge with a suit like that by a single player is that is very difficult to prove that HER spot was lost to a specific person. That's why the two Stanford students who are suing are trying to create a plaintiff class. If there were a class action suit of DA/ECNL players, they might have a chance BUT - and this is key - there can't be more plaintiffs than roster slots or the claim of damages would be much, much harder (esp, in the UCLA case, they can just say, "hey, you would not have be given that slot. It would have gone unfilled" and that argument is compelling. It is easier to take the general student argument and say that the slots that were not the unique athletic slots were taken from them, making a difficult admissions process even harder.

I also think that there is a chance of suits over the fraud and misuse of the position since a taxpayer - or taxpayer class - can claim a misuse of public funds (even private schools have state and federal money in buckets coming through the doors). I anticipate waves of legal developments on this story that is far from over.
 
dk_b said:
The challenge with a suit like that by a single player is that is very difficult to prove that HER spot was lost to a specific person. That's why the two Stanford students who are suing are trying to create a plaintiff class. If there were a class action suit of DA/ECNL players, they might have a chance BUT - and this is key - there can't be more plaintiffs than roster slots or the claim of damages would be much, much harder (esp, in the UCLA case, they can just say, "hey, you would not have be given that slot. It would have gone unfilled" and that argument is compelling. It is easier to take the general student argument and say that the slots that were not the unique athletic slots were taken from them, making a difficult admissions process even harder.

I also think that there is a chance of suits over the fraud and misuse of the position since a taxpayer - or taxpayer class - can claim a misuse of public funds (even private schools have state and federal money in buckets coming through the doors). I anticipate waves of legal developments on this story that is far from over.
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or, everyone starts to lose interest and stops talking about it and the problem floats away and all go back to business as usual.
 
They will only sing if they are otherwise looking at prison time. Otherwise, they will negotiate a hefty fine and community service and promise to "never, never do it again". That's why they really F'd themselves if they concealed the bribe as a charitable donation and then took a deduction. The tax fraud is the WOW! factor that makes things much harder on them. (I write that w/o any sympathy; I can't stand how people who cheat on their taxes think they are only cheating the gov't - they are cheating all of us). They'd have been much "better" off just paying it to Singer directly (or to his for-profit arm)
 
dk_b said:
The challenge with a suit like that by a single player is that is very difficult to prove that HER spot was lost to a specific person. That's why the two Stanford students who are suing are trying to create a plaintiff class. If there were a class action suit of DA/ECNL players, they might have a chance BUT - and this is key - there can't be more plaintiffs than roster slots or the claim of damages would be much, much harder (esp, in the UCLA case, they can just say, "hey, you would not have be given that slot. It would have gone unfilled" and that argument is compelling. It is easier to take the general student argument and say that the slots that were not the unique athletic slots were taken from them, making a difficult admissions process even harder.

I also think that there is a chance of suits over the fraud and misuse of the position since a taxpayer - or taxpayer class - can claim a misuse of public funds (even private schools have state and federal money in buckets coming through the doors). I anticipate waves of legal developments on this story that is far from over.
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Correct me if i'm wrong but there are unlimited roster spots but only 14 scholarships. Some schools roster 25-28 while some roster 30 plus.
 
beachbum said:
Correct me if i'm wrong but there are unlimited roster spots but only 14 scholarships. Some schools roster 25-28 while some roster 30 plus.
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There is also no NCAA limit to the number of admissions without athletic money that can be granted. Each college is free to set its own limit internally, which may be more or less than the number allowed by the NCAA with athletic money.
 
beachbum said:
Correct me if i'm wrong but there are unlimited roster spots but only 14 scholarships. Some schools roster 25-28 while some roster 30 plus.
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Roster spots are not unlimited. There is a practical number and, while most schools carry ~30 to 35 on the high side, there is a financial impact to the program from the infrastructure perspective. Additionally, student athletes get a preferential registration as well as additional tutoring so the school limits the roster size.

As for the scholarships, the number is equivalent person (EP). so the program can distribute up to the NCAA limit in terms of EPs over the entire or most of the roster. There is a catch though. Some public D1 schools use out of state costs for their EPs, whereas some use in-state costs EPs. The difference being how well funded the athletic program is at that particular school. I believe its a loop hole in the rules.
 
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