Yale is First School to Rescind Student’s Admission Following Admissions Scandal
“was admitted to the University as a women’s soccer recruit despite having never played competitive soccer”
Fallout continues to happen after the exposure of a national college admissions scandal. On Monday, twelve defendants were arraigned in federal court in Boston.
Now Yale has rescinded the admission of a student allegedly admitted under fraudulent circumstances.
Ciara Nugent reports at Time:
Yale Becomes First University to Rescind Admission for Student in College Fraud Scandal
Yale University has rescinded the admission of a student who was accepted as part of the massive college cheating scandal revealed by the Department of Justice earlier in March.
Federal prosecutors charged 50 people for participating in the scheme, which employed bribery, exam cheating and unearned athletic endorsements to help get applicants into prestigious colleges. Among the 33 parents indicted were CEOs, partners at top law firms and actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin.
Yale said in a statement that it believes women’s soccer coach Rudy Meredith assisted two applicants to the university by giving them fraudulent athletic endorsements. One was denied admission and the other was admitted, the university said, adding that federal law and Yale policy prevents them from revealing the applicants’ names.
Bill Gallagher & Skakel McCooey of Yale Daily News have more. This act of fraud allegedly cost the parents of the student $1.2 million dollars:
Yale rescinds admission of student implicated in nationwide admissions scandal
On March 14, The Wall Street Journal reported that Morrie Tobin, a father of Yale students, allegedly tipped off federal authorities to the scandal when he provided information in an attempt to gain leniency for an unrelated securities fraud case. According to the Journal, former Yale women’s soccer head coach Rudy Meredith offered Tobin a bribe, which he declined.
The Journal later reported on March 19 that, according to a person familiar with the investigation, Tobin participated in the scam by paying a bribe. However, Conroy said that Yale does not know the Journal’s source and cannot comment on the accusation’s accuracy. At the time of this story’s publication, the News has not been able to identify the source or confirm the allegation published in the Journal…
In one example of bribery cited in court documents, Singer agreed to help “facilitate the admission of an applicant to Yale,” known in the case as “Yale Applicant 1,” “in or about” November 2017 in exchange for a $1.2 million payment from the applicant’s parents in the “spring or summer of 2018.” Yale Applicant 1 was admitted to the University as a women’s soccer recruit despite having never played competitive soccer and has since had her admission rescinded.
This detail drives home how dishonest the entire scam really was:
Singer allegedly worked with Laura Janke, a former assistant women’s soccer coach at the University of Southern California, to create a falsified profile to be included in that applicant’s application.
“[C]ould you please create a soccer profiles asap for this girl who will be a midfielder and attending Yale so she has to be very good. Needs to play Academy and no high school soccer…awards and honors — more info to come — need a soccer pic probably Asian girl,” read a Nov. 10, 2017, email from Singer to Janke, according to court documents.
When the applicant was admitted to Yale, Singer mailed Meredith a check for $400,000.
Here’s a short video report from CNN:
If you watched that video to the end, you heard Brynn Gingras say that more arrests are reportedly on the way.
How big will this scandal become?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
I know parents who were traumatically ashamed that their high performance kid did not get accepted at a top Ivy League school. But to bribe over a million???? That is insane!
I just ran a quick IRR on a spreadsheet. Assume a Yale student gets a decent degree (like Business) and makes $50K per year more than if they had gone to, say, Penn State. The $1.2 MM “investment” pays almost a 5% annual return. If the student makes $100K per year more, the annual return is about 11%. It is insane to pay $1 MM+ to get a Gender Studies degree. But for Business or Finance, it is not a bad “investment”.
Do businesses pay a 50K/year bonus to Yale graduates?
Certain Wall Street and Consulting analyst jobs are often recruited largely at Ivy and equivalent schools. It can be very difficult to obtain these high paying jobs coming from other universities.
Actually some of those jobs pay almost nothing in salary and the bonus is how you make your money.
Going to Yale and majoring in Gender Studies is like going to the most fancy, exclusive, and expensive restaurant and ordering dry toast.
It doesn’t really matter what the degree is in there are the connections you make. The fraternity and sorority brothers and sisters that help each other after Yale. That alone is worth millions.
If clinton and obama can lie, cheat, steal and kill, why cant the rest of us?
Morality under obama and clinton went into the toilet – where both of them belong.
Why can’t the rest of us? Have you not been paying attention to Chicago, Comey, Brennan, Strzok, McCabe, et al? It’s all about our status in life
1.2 million is a bargain. There are people that give a lot more than that on a yearly basis to keep the pipeline open for their families. For 1.2 million there would be thousands of people happy to pay that to get into Yale, if they could do it without risking jail time.
If there are really that many, why does Yale not happily take their money and open up new places for them (and twice as many others)?
Because there are structural considerations with admitting more students. Things such as available classrooms, instructors, dormitory space, and the like. For example, at Cornell in the early days the number of women admitted was limited to the bed space available in Sage Hall, the women’s dorm, as all unmarried female students were required to live on Campus and Sage Hall was the only female residence hall.
The only limit is money. If there’s so much money available, they can use it to create more spaces.
It seems to me that way too many schools are now hiding behind the “cannot release a students information” as a way to cover their own asses and not to protect the student.
Good point! Seems the FBI has not paid sufficient attention to some of the higher ups at these colleges. Jussie redux?
Speaking as someone who applied for college long, long ago when the world was new and a lecture involved a student sitting one end of a log and a professor sitting on the other end talking . . . and who by testing and grades was in the top 1% of high school graduates, I remember being given a list of schools by my high school counselor who was busting his tail for me. One school was here in Colorado, many of the rest were out of state and most of those were on the list of schools accepting payoffs for admission. These were the schools who would not admit me regardless of qualifications because I was Chinese. He let me know to save me from wasting my time/money applying.
I have a daughter who was in a similar position 30 years later, whose counselor gave her similar warnings for the same reason, with a smaller list that overlapped this group of schools accepting bribes. I will note that she got a bunch of scholarships and got two degrees in 5 years.
My reaction to both those being bribed [and their schools], paying the bribes, and those who were to be the beneficiaries of the bribes is to hope those elitist, racist buggers suffer for the rest of their lives for this.
Subotai Bahadur
Strange, I would neverf have pegged you as Chinese. “Subotai Bahadur” doesn’t sound very Chinese.
“Subotai Bahadur” I think is a General of Genghis Khan.
Subutai was a Mongol.
Also the name of Conan’s side-kick. (NOT O’Brian!)
As Leslie Eastman said, Subotai Bahadur was Genghis Khan’s chief general. When I started writing, it was mostly for professional military journals. When I needed a nom d’blog, I went for a Mongol name because most westerners don’t know any classical Chinese military personalities. I have been using it for decades.
Do they have to give the bribes back?
I do not think these schools are innocent. At the very least, some people had to suspect this was going on. Some obviously knew. The schools should have caught these people. After all, are they not run by the smartest and most ethical slice of society?
The admissions departments, like corporate HR departments, are usually run by SJW’s with worthless degrees themselves.
The pay-to-play system has been a fact for what….centuries? Whether it was a “legacy” admission for a donating alumna, a “donation” to the endowment, the creation of a new academic chair, or the construction of a new wing, rich kids always had a leg up. While I resent this system of entry, I must believe that this latest batch of those willing and able to afford to play are going to have to pay a heavy price for all past corruption.
I am wondering how many scholarship athletes have been allowed in and received coddling grades in payment for their skills. Having watched instructors give passing grades to failing student athletes because of guaranteed firing or loss of tenure for “denying” eligibility to these athletic dept. cash cow stars, I am very cynical that this tip of the iceberg scandal will produce any soul-searching or change.
At least for the last few decades the student athletes were not bring enrolled in STEM degrees, because they were aware that having a untrained doctor or engineer would be soon obvious to an employer and rapidly bring down the reputation of that university’s STEM qualifications. I sometimes wonder if the proliferation of stupid soft degrees was started by other students wanting to do the same degrees as the athletes were enrolled in.
To be a STEM major and part of a Division I team you have to be incredible disciplined and brilliant. In son’s Notre Dame Chemical Engineering class one of the top students was a member of the national champion womens soccer team. She was amazing.
Starting in high school, jocks quickly learn that they really do not need to learn. Those who can do, those who cannot become coaches on their way to being administrators.
Those who can’t do, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach gym
Those who can’t teach gym inspect buildings.
Apologies to Woody Allen, and my experiences with home renovation.
I don’t think there can be any objection to a college admitting those willing to pay significantly more than the actual cost of the education they’ll receive, regardless of “merit”. If they pay their way they’re not taking anything from anyone. Nobody has to miss out on a place because of them. For $1.2M the university can create five new places and give one of them to the donors’ child.
The problem here is that this money was not paid to the university but to private people who were acting against their employer’s interest. If there’s a sold-out concert it’s perfectly fair for me to pay the hall enough money for them to squeeze one more seat in there for me. It’s not fair for me to bribe the doorman to let me in for free — even if there’s plenty of room, let alone if there isn’t.
Violent revolutionaries have almost always used the open hypocrisy of self-described merit systems to justify totalitarianism. When opportunity, justice, or any hope of a fair shake are two-tiered and excused away by your reasoning, the inevitable result is class resentment and reprisal…precisely what the ding dongs calling themselves social democrats are doing right now, in Congress.
When so-called merit systems close their doors to deserving applicants in favor of undeserving applicants, while claiming “academic standards,” only because of the Benjamins, society is hurt. Both the deserving and undeserving applicants are hurt. I believe you, the parents and any individuals and institutions involved in this pay-to-play sleaze have failed a fundamental moral test.
That’s the same argument socialists always make. Give us your stuff or we’ll kill you and take it.
Nobody is entitled to be admitted to a university. Universities are businesses, just like supermarkets, and being intelligent doesn’t entitle one to anything. Having more applicants than places, and especially when most of those applicants need subsidies, universities choose to accept those most likely to put it to the best use. But they have no obligation to do so.
And if someone not only is not asking for a subsidy but is willing to pay significantly more than the cost of providing the service, then it makes no sense to exclude them just because they’re too dumb to take full advantage of what they’re asking for. On the contrary, the money they bring can be used to expand the number of places available, so nobody loses out.
The person protesting that “that’s my place” is not only wrong because it isn’t her place at all, it’s the university’s place to do with as it wishes; she’s also wrong because without this “undeserving” student the place she just missed out on wouldn’t exist, and the person just ahead of her in the “merit” queue would also not have got in.
It’s the same with legacies; if not for them, tell me why anyone would ever want to donate one penny to their old college? How would the colleges continue to exist?
“It’s the same with legacies; if not for them, tell me why anyone would ever want to donate one penny to their old college?”
I agree with what you have said for private institutions, they can make entry to the highest bidder if they like. Public is quite different however.
Just for the record, I know several people that donated to and worked on behalf on their university with no chance of it benefitting their family. They do it because they truly love the school and their time spent there, and credit the education received with their success.
The sleaze and corruption that has becomer American society since clinton and obama in high office is a horror show.
Now, Fat Mike Obama sticks her/his/it’s nose in the smolett case, obstructing justice.
Fat Mike and Hillary Clinton reminds one of anotehr paritcularly talentless hack named Winnie Mandella, who exploited her famous husband’s reputation to commit crime:
Winnie Mandela’s Ex-Bodyguard Tells of Killings She Ordered:
https://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/04/world/winnie-mandela-s-ex-bodyguard-tells-of-killings-she-ordered.html
This has been going on since long before Clinton and Obama. Harvard has long been well known for distributing A’s all around on the basis that if you’re smart enough to get into Harvard you deserve an A. (Direct quote from a Harvard professor in my uni days – published in newspaper.) How the heck do you think that Teddy Kennedy got into Harvard? He was at the very best a C student. Old Joe donated a new building or three.
The difference here is that these students bypassed the upfront, in your face “here’s a new building or a big endowment now admit my kid” of many decades practice and tried to game the system by falsifying SAT/ACT scores and fabricating sports backgrounds.
Had a friend at Yale, her roommate did almost no school work and said “The only A I need is the one in Y-A-L-E. No one will ever care beyond that.”
Ah shucks! She was just “turning her life around”.
Once again, this is all so very uninteresting.
I have pointed out that institutions of higher learning have been discriminating, both for and against, with regard to admissions. Harvard is being sued for discriminating against Asian students. Every single college and university in the country discriminated for black, Hispanic and foreign students. Institutions have been admitting students who were academically ineligible, based upon athletic ability. They have been accepting “legacy” students from families who have been big monetary donors or who can advance the goals of the institution. So, this is not really anything different. Except, that the institutions did not get the pay-off, third parties did.
Bingo! Nailed it.
I really had no idea anyone was so hot to get into USC.
You ever seen the cheerleaders?
Favorite college football game of the year…USC vs UCLA 🙂
In the realm of school admissions, wouldn’t this be just like illegal immigration? Student got “over legal barriers” got caught and now Yale is kicking them put? Oh, the horror of it all! (Sarc)
Admission processes are not rubber stamps unless purposely done. With the competition to get in to the higher ranked schools being so difficult to pass, and there being a finite number of students, as well as legacy and some difference given to faculty dependents, openings for sports won’t be just given out to those who play a sport based simply on the word of a coach. This goes a lot deeper than has been admitted. The lucre has to be passed to others in this scheme.
I doubt these high end schools admit many, if any, undeclared majors. So Deans or those in the Deans’ offices have to be involved. They are a part of the admissions process. And even sports people don’t get a total pass in schools like these. The grades may not be quite so high, but they aren’t letting Bevis Butthead in to play a sport.
If Yale kicked one out for this, it makes you wonder how many remain in there that were not found out about. Yale is doing window dressing on this.
The Clintons and Obamas certainly have lowered the bar with any senses of morality being even pretended with this country anymore. Why should graduates of these schools be held in such high esteem if they allow even one of these to get through? And if we know of a dozen or so, I guarantee there are far more of them that got through prior to this scandal.
Moral bankruptcy is what allows this. This is part of Clinton’s and Obama’s legacy. This isn’t much different from the Smollett case, as this is full corruption on display.
The admitted students themselves are the window dressing. They often come from families that are associated with established foundations, so the “graduates” never really enter the competitive job market, but rather occupy positions that were earmarked for them, sort of like they are being babysat with a paycheck. I came from a mid-sized industrial town in Ohio, with a number of wealthy families from the early 1900’s that had made it big with niche factories. But those families are sort of like the Aristocrats in England, where the wealth (and intelligence) is being diluted out over each generation. The original smart and industrious generation had children who married either slackers or gold-digging bimbos. Since they were unable to make in the real world, they all came back home where they took on important jobs like administrator of the art museum that the family underwrote, or any of a dozen meaningless charity groups that were heavily subsidized by the family. And that is one of the curses. They can never leave because only in the home town they are a big deal. I guess it was just an early form of money laundering to get around inheritance taxes which were much higher than the process of making a tax deductible donation to a charity, which then paid a salary to the family member, who then paid a smaller percentage in income taxes than a direct gift tax would entail. And the idjit kids get a prestigeous title like “CEO of XXX foundation” which is complete BS to anyone remotely familiar with the situation. It doesn’t matter if they attended a good school and got D’s in everything because they would never have to compete for a real job, or even do a job. They just needed a diploma so the parents wouldn’t be really embarrassed. And being the lawyer for the family business is often another red flag. Of course, the real payback comes in the form of rampant alcoholism and drug addiction which seems to follow listless people with money, cough, Kennedys, cough, through the generations. The colleges have been in on this for ages with legacy admissions. The real question though is how far the legacies have diluted the actual student pool, and, how far the colleges have gone in milking this cash cow. $1M to get into USC? That kid must have a room temp IQ at best!
I blame Trump. Not for causing this scandal, but for stirring the pot. Such scandals simply don’t surface when democrats or uniparties are in power.
Since some people are sharing, I’ll add my college admissions story. I graduated in the mid 90’s and applied for a handful of schools (only 4th in my class). Mid 1300’s SAT, ton of extra-curricular activity including sports, foreign language club, many out-side of school activities.
My best friend had similar grads, beat me on the SAT by 30 points, and was 1/4 Mexican (with a last name of Vosburg, lol). The only “extra-curricular” activity my friend did was as an editor of the school paper.
One of the schools we both applied to was Standford. I was sent a denial letter. My friend received an acceptance letter written in Spanish, that she couldn’t read after studying French in school.
Well, we both ended up attending UCDavis, and not Stanford.
Yep affirmative racism at its finest.
I had a friend who was named Sue (Short for Suki) went to visit MIT and she and her Dad told us that they treated them like they had just gotten off of a boat. Sue was born in the US right outside of Dallas and had a Texas accent even though she was 100% Japanese and looked it. She said the “bowing contest” at the beginning made her want to scream; “MORTAL KOMBAT…FIGHT!”. She really threw them for a loop when she greeted them with her favorite; “Konichiwa, Ya’ll!” She said they just did not know how to deal with her parents, who had embraced american culture (both dad and Sue love to bass fish).
MIT turned her down even though Sue had an SAT score of just over 1500 (only missed maxing the math by about 40 points, had tested out of all of her undergrad basic math, and taken college level science and advance math in High School. Her Dad said it was because he had figured out where they were hiding all the white folks! Sue even told them her Sushi joke; “I don’t eat raw fish, because little hunks of raw fish are what we use as bait to catch real food.” LOL