While the faces of the college admissions scandal so far have generally been American - with photos of actresses like Lori Loughlin and ringleader William Rick Singer being plastered across the news - it turns out that the two families who shelled out the most money in the scandal were Chinese, according to the Wall Street Journal.
One Chinese family paid an astounding $6.5 million to Singer, the scheme's mastermind, while a second family was found to have paid $1.2 million. The family involved in the $6.5 million payment has not yet been identified. The $1.2 million payment was in exchange for 21 year old Sherry Guo's admission to Yale University. Guo moved to Southern California from China to attend high school in the U.S.
Most of the other parents in the scandal paid between $250,000 to $400,000, making the huge sums out of China noteworthy to those investigating and following the scam. They are easily the largest sums reported thus far, by an order of magnitude.
Ms. Guo had her eye on Columbia University or Oxford University but Singer insisted that she go to Yale, calling it a "sure thing".
Guo learned English after arriving in California about five years ago and attended JSerra Catholic High School in San Juan Capistrano, Calif., starting high school as an older student. Her lawyer is trying to tuck her behind the defense of ignorance.
Guo was “so unfamiliar with how people apply to schools in the U.S., Rick Singer’s instructions to her didn’t seem as out of place as they would to a student who grew up in the United States and has more of an expectation of free choice,” her lawyer said. Guo’s family was introduced to Singer by an LA-based financial adviser, who said that Guo's family told Singer they wanted to make a “donation” to “one of those top schools” for his daughter’s “application.”
The next day, Singer contacted disgraced Yale Women's Soccer coach Rudy Meredith, giving Meredith a resume and personal statements, including links to her art portfolio. Singer indicated he would "revise" the information to include a false history playing soccer and subsequently listed her as a member of a junior national team in China and co-captain of a soccer club in So Cal. Mr. Singer paid $400,000 to Mr. Meredith in exchange for having him designate the girl as a recruited athlete, nearly guaranteeing her a spot at the school.
Meanwhile, Guo had actually won awards for her artwork previously, with her former high school principal calling her an "unbelievable artist". She was eventually admitted to Yale after being tagged as a recruited athlete last fall. She is no longer at the university. The family has not been charged.
“I just don’t think the question of guilt is clear-cut in Sherry’s case, at all,” her lawyer said.
Guo is part of a larger trend of Chinese families bringing children to the U.S. for primary schooling in the hopes of helping them gain college admission down the line.
She is the last on a long line of names that have been profiled as a result of the admissions scandal. Last week we reported that former USC soccer coach Laura Janke was cooperating with prosecutors after pleading guilty.
Janke's guilty plea stood in contrast with our prior update on the scandal, where we noted that some parents had decided to "punch back" and vigorously defend themselves in court.
“I expect a lot more guilty pleas,” Diane Ferrone, a criminal defense lawyer in New York who isn’t involved in the case, told Bloomberg about a week ago.
16 parents were recently indicted in the scandal about 2 weeks ago. Several weeks before that, we noted that parents charged in the scheme were seeking out "prison life consultants" to find out what life would be like in the big house.
We have been following the admissions scandal at length. As part of our coverage, we detailed how financial speaking gigs and elite high schools helped facilitate the scam for years. We've also covered the fallout from the scandal, like when UCLA's Men's Soccer Coach and former U.S. Men's national team player Jorge Salcedo recently resigned from his position at the university as a result of taking bribes. We also wrote about how students were being encouraged to fake learning disabilities in order to cheat on college entrance exams.