The college admissions scandal should be the populist issue of our time. Most of the talk in our politics about how “the system is rigged” is incredibly abstract and symbolic. But this is infuriatingly concrete.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department revealed a massive effort by wealthy parents and a shady “admissions consultant” to bribe and cheat their way into getting kids into a slew of elite schools.
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Prosecutors say William Singer, the ringleader, sold two forms of services. For tens of thousands of dollars, parents could pay to have a proctor correct their incorrect answers as their kids took the SAT. Or they could pay hundreds of thousands to bribe coaches at elite schools to designate applicants as desired athletes, thus circumventing the minimum requirements for grades and test scores.
One California family allegedly paid $1.2 million to Singer, who in turn allegedly paid Rudy Meredith, the women’s soccer coach at Yale, $400,000 to claim that the family’s daughter was a coveted recruit even though she didn’t play at all.
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