Stanfurd, UC L.A., and USC involved in bribery scheme for admissions (along with two celebs)

Here’s a news story I never expected to write about. News broke today of a scheme to funnel children to top schools by cheating on college entrance exams and fabricating athletic success.

According to the indictment, the scheme worked to help potential students cheat on college entrance exams or pose as recruited athletes to get admitted to high-profile universities with bribes of up to $6 million. The scheme allegedly facilitated admittance for some students as athletes regardless of their athletic abilities.

Parents allegedly paid a California man a predetermined amount which he would then steer to either an SAT or ACT administrator, or a college athletic coach. Coaches would help non-recruits get into school by saying they were recruits. Most of the students allegedly admitted under these false pretenses that they did not know their admission was contingent on a bribe.

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One student was allegedly posed as a USC lacrosse recruit despite the lack of a lacrosse team in the Trojans’ athletic programs.

The weird kicker is that it involves actresses Lori Laughlin (Full House) and Felicity Huffman (Desperate Housewives) and some Pac-12 rivals—the Stanfurd Cardinal, the UC L.A. Bruins, and the USC Trojans. The California Golden Bears do not appear to be tied to this crime; either we have outstanding ethics and refuse to budge on admissions despite our crippling debt or fancy-pants families don’t want to send their kids here. What part of People’s Park isn’t appealing to you?

The Pac-12 coaches involved include “current Stanf[u]rd sailing coach John Vandemoer, ... several USC Olympic sports coaches, [and] current UCLA men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo”; however, “there is no indication that the schools were directly involved in wrong-doing.”

Here are some details on how the Stanfurd sailing program was involved thanks to Coach Vendemoer.

As for USC, Laughlin’s daughter reportedly once anticipated a unique college experience, saying “I don’t know how much of school I’m gonna attend” and their water polo program was involved.

There were also plans to manipulate the system to get a student—from a high school without a football program—onto the USC football team as a kicker or punter after the fake athlete was rejected by the Stanfurd team because it would be “too tough” to accept him.

As for the Baby Bears, here’s some information on the involvement of Jorge Salcedo—coach of men’s soccer. The good news is that this crazy scheme transcended rivalries as USC and UC L.A. (through Salcedo) worked together in some instances.

That was your daily dose of WTF news and schadenfreude. I can only imagine things will get crazier as more news breaks—hopefully none of which involving Cal.