The Price of Admission

They studied into the wee hours and worked hard to perfect their personal essays. They took standardized tests three, four, five times to increase their scores. And last fall, the students at Ewing Marion Kauffman School, a predominantly black charter school in Kansas City, Missouri, submitted their college applications. After years of preparation and anxiety, they hoped all their hard work would pay off.

But the nation’s largest-ever college admissions scandal was recently brought to light. It reminded students at Kauffman and at high schools across the country that there’s little about the process that’s fair.

Last month, federal prosecutors charged 50 people in a brazen scheme to buy spots in first-year classes at Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Southern California (U.S.C.), and other big-name colleges. There were 33 wealthy and well-connected parents who were charged. Among them were the actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.

“It’s frustrating that people are able to obtain their opportunities this way,” says Khiana Jackson, 17, a senior at Kauffman. “We can put in work from 5th grade to 12th grade, every single day, come in early, leave late, and it’s still not enough.”

The illegal college admissions scheme involved falsifying SAT and ACT test scores and bribing college coaches to accept students under false pretenses. In one case, a girl who didn’t play soccer became a star soccer recruit at Yale—after her parents paid $1.2 million. Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to get their two daughters accepted as recruits for the rowing team at U.S.C., even though neither took part in the sport. The scheme’s mastermind, a college admissions consultant named William “Rick” Singer, has pleaded guilty.

American universities are often cast as the envy of the world—institutions that select the best and the brightest young people after an objective and rigorous selection process. But the indictment shows how competitive, cutthroat, and sometimes unfair the college admissions process has become.

The illegal college admissions scheme involved falsifying SAT and ACT test scores. Those involved also bribed college coaches to accept students under false pretenses. In one case, a girl who didn’t play soccer became a star soccer recruit at Yale after her parents paid $1.2 million. Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, are accused of paying $500,000 in bribes. They sought to get their two daughters accepted as recruits for the rowing team at U.S.C., even though neither took part in the sport. The scheme’s mastermind is a college admissions consultant named William “Rick” Singer. He has pleaded guilty.

American universities are often cast as the envy of the world. They’re considered institutions that select the best and the brightest young people after an objective and rigorous selection process. But the indictment shows how competitive, cutthroat, and sometimes unfair the college admissions process has become.

In this case, the parents of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most privileged students allegedly committed fraud and engaged in bribery in their quests to get their children admitted to elite schools. But the scandal also exposes the lengths that wealthy families often go to—legally—to boost their children’s chances for college admission.

“This is an extreme, unsubtle, and illegal example of the increasingly common practice of using money to get an edge in the race for a place in an elite university,” says Christopher Hunt, who runs College Essay Mentor, a consulting service for applicants.

Test prep courses for the SAT or ACT are a multibillion-dollar industry. Wealthy parents can also hire consultants to advise their children on choosing the right extracurricular activities to make themselves stand out. They can pay for their kids to participate in competitive sports programs and hire private coaches to increase the odds that they get recruited to play in college. They can hire editors to help students with their application essays. And the very wealthy can also make big donations to colleges as their kids are applying. 

All of that is legal. And experts say those things certainly tilt the admissions odds in favor of the families able to afford them.  

This is deeply frustrating for students who come from more modest backgrounds. And to critics of the current system, it’s even more galling that apparently those kinds of advantages weren’t enough for the parents involved in this fraud case; they were trying to buy a guarantee that their kids would be accepted.

“The real victims in this case are the hardworking students” who were displaced in the admissions process by “far less qualified students and their families who simply bought their way in,” says Andrew Lelling, a federal prosecutor in Boston.

In this case, the parents of some of the nation’s wealthiest and most privileged students allegedly committed fraud and engaged in bribery in their quests to get their children admitted to elite schools. But the scandal also exposes how far wealthy families often go to legally boost their children’s chances for college admission.

“This is an extreme, unsubtle, and illegal example of the increasingly common practice of using money to get an edge in the race for a place in an elite university,” says Christopher Hunt, who runs College Essay Mentor, a consulting service for applicants.

Test prep courses for the SAT or ACT are a multibillion-dollar industry. Wealthy parents can also hire consultants to advise their children on choosing the right extracurricular activities to make themselves stand out. They can pay for their kids to participate in competitive sports programs. And they can hire private coaches to increase the odds that they get recruited to play in college. These parents can hire editors to help students with their application essays. And the very wealthy can also make big donations to colleges as their kids are applying.

All of that is legal. And experts say those things certainly tilt the admissions odds in favor of the families able to afford them. 

This is deeply frustrating for students who come from more modest backgrounds. And to critics of the current system, it’s even more upsetting that apparently those kinds of advantages weren’t enough for the parents involved in this fraud case. All of those parents were trying to buy a guarantee that their kids would be accepted.

“The real victims in this case are the hardworking students” who were displaced in the admissions process by “far less qualified students and their families who simply bought their way in,” says Andrew Lelling, a federal prosecutor in Boston.

The cheating scandal could have a lasting impact on the college application process. A group of applicants who were denied admission at some of the colleges involved have filed a class action lawsuit against the schools, including Yale, Stanford, and U.S.C. They claimed that the process had been “warped and rigged by fraud.”

The fact that the scheme involved cheating on the SAT and ACT tests is renewing calls for getting rid of those tests, which many have long criticized as being biased in favor of white students.  

“This scandal may be the final straw that tips the balance” toward a test-optional admissions system, says Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, a group that believes the exams are unfair.

But in the meantime, students now applying to college have to navigate the existing system. Da’Shona Martin, a Kauffman senior, sometimes has to leave school early to get to her job at Panera Bread to help her family pay the bills. She often gets home late at night, and may not get to bed until 3 a.m.

“To know that these parents are throwing money at all of these people and being like, ‘Can you do this for my child?’ It’s kind of discouraging,” Martin says. “Some of us will probably have to work our whole lifetime to see money like this.”

The cheating scandal could have a lasting impact on the college application process. A group of applicants who were denied admission at some of the colleges involved have filed a class action lawsuit against the schools. Yale, Stanford, and U.S.C. are among the schools listed in the suit. These students claimed that the process had been “warped and rigged by fraud.”

The fact that the scheme involved cheating on the SAT and ACT tests is renewing calls for getting rid of those tests. Many have long criticized both tests as being biased in favor of white students.

“This scandal may be the final straw that tips the balance” toward a test-optional admissions system, says Robert Schaeffer of FairTest, a group that believes the exams are unfair.

But in the meantime, students now applying to college have to navigate the existing system. Da’Shona Martin, a Kauffman senior, sometimes has to leave school early to get to her job at Panera Bread. She works to help her family pay the bills. She often gets home late at night, and may not get to bed until 3 a.m.

“To know that these parents are throwing money at all of these people and being like, ‘Can you do this for my child?’ It’s kind of discouraging,” Martin says. “Some of us will probably have to work our whole lifetime to see money like this.”

With reporting by John Eligon, Audra D.S. Burch, Jennifer Medina, Katie Benner, Kate Taylor, Eliza Shapiro, and Dana Goldstein of The New York Times.

With reporting by John Eligon, Audra D.S. Burch, Jennifer Medina, Katie Benner, Kate Taylor, Eliza Shapiro, and Dana Goldstein of The New York Times.