Top U. S. University Admissions For Sale to Highest Bidders

The investigation expands.  From the Times:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Sitting in a plush chair and wearing a white blouse buttoned up to the neck, the young woman looks into the camera, smiles and offers advice about getting into a top American university.

“Some people think, ‘Didn’t you get into Stanford because your family is rich?’” the woman, Yusi Zhao, says in a video posted on social media. It wasn’t like that, she says. The admissions officers “have no idea who you are.”

She adds, “I tested into Stanford through my own hard work.”

The video was recorded in the summer before Ms. Zhao began her freshman year, in 2017. It now stands in sharp contrast with recent news: that her parents paid $6.5 million to a college consultant at the center of an international college admissions scheme, according to a person with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Prosecutors say that the consultant, William Singer, tried to get Ms. Zhao recruited to the Stanford sailing team, providing a fake list of sailing accomplishments and making a $500,000 donation to the sailing program after she was admitted.

The payment to Mr. Singer was by far the largest known in the case, and the disclosure immediately added Ms. Zhao and her family, pharmaceutical billionaires from China, to a cast of powerful figures swept up in the scandal, including two Hollywood actresses and prominent names from the American legal and business worlds.

The new turns in the investigation, including reports that another Chinese family paid $1.2 million in connection with their daughter’s application to Yale, have illuminated the global reach of Mr. Singer’s operation and the wealthy Chinese families eager to get their children into prestigious American universities. . . .