FIFTY people nationwide, including celebrities, powerful financiers, and university coaches, were charged Tuesday in a massive alleged admissions bribery scam that illustrated how wealth and fraud enabled students with mediocre grades and unremarkable accomplishments to get into some of the United States’ most elite institutions.

Federal prosecutors said wealthy parents tapped a California admissions counselor who helped their children cheat on the SAT and ACT exams and bribed college coaches to ensure that the students were flagged as athletic recruits, nearly guaranteeing them seats at institutions including Yale University and Georgetown University.

Families allegedly spent US$100,000 to US$6.5 million apiece to help their children cheat on tests, to produce Photoshopped applications showing their children playing water polo and pole vaulting, and to bribe college coaches, all to land a seat at these institutions.

The parents included two Hollywood actresses, Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, the chairman of a worldwide law firm, real-estate developers, a vineyard owner and an executive of a global equity firm.

“The parents charged today despite already being able to give their children every legitimate advantage in the college admissions game, instead chose to corrupt and illegally manipulate the system for their benefit,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling of Massachusetts. “There can be no separate college admissions systems for the wealthy. And I’ll add that there will not be a separate criminal justice system either.”

The plea deal said William “Rick” Singer has agreed to forfeit US$3.4 million, as well as additional funds in the name of the Key Worldwide Foundation.

Elite college admissions are already under intense scrutiny, and the cheating and bribery scandal will likely add fuel to arguments that the balance is dramatically tilted in favor of wealthy students.

In the same Boston federal courthouse where Lelling described the bribery scheme Tuesday, Harvard University spent weeks last year defending its admissions system in a separate case stemming from allegations that it discriminated against Asian-American applicants. The Harvard case is widely seen as a potential challenge to the use of race in admissions nationwide. A Boston federal district judge is likely to make a decision on that case in the coming months.

Nearly a dozen college coaches including those from Yale and Georgetown, along with Stanford University, the University of California Los Angeles, University of San Diego, University of Southern California, University of Texas at Austin, and Wake Forest University, were charged. (SD-Agencies)