Yale University has rescinded its first admission offer following a wide-reaching $25 million college admissions scandal that resulted in the arrests of 50 people in six states.
In a Sunday interview with the Yale Daily News, Yale spokesman Tom Conroy said the university has hired outside counsel and begun an internal review, which so far resulted in one student having her acceptance rescinded. That student has not been identified.
Conroy said the university does not believe there are more students enrolled at Yale involved in the scandal.
Former Yale women’s soccer coach Rudy Meredith was arrested in the sweep. He was charged with two counts of wire fraud and allegedly accepted a $400,000 bribe to accept the application of an individual who did not even play the sport. Meredith resigned in November and was reportedly a cooperating witness for the FBI.
The scandal itself, which was described by the Justice Department as the largest admissions cheating scheme it has ever prosecuted, resulted in the arrests of 50 different people. Among those charged include “Full House” star Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, who is known for her role in the show “Desperate Housewives.”
The complaint alleges that Loughlin and her husband paid $500,000 to get their two daughters into the University of Los Angeles under the false pretense that the kids were on the rowing team.
Former first lady Michelle Obama’s tennis coach, Gordon Ernst, was also netted as a result of the investigation. He is accused of accepting upwards of $2.7 million in bribes to help get at least a dozen students admitted to Georgetown University’s tennis team.
In addition to using sports teams as vehicles for admittance, it is alleged that the architect of the scheme, William Rick Singer, was also involved in facilitating cheating on standardized tests. Singer was indicted on four charges for his alleged involvement in the scandal.
The DOJ believes most of the children admitted to the schools, which also include Stanford University and Wake Forest University, were not aware of the scheme.
