Judy Rothman Rofé Opinion contributor The Neurotic Parent and USA TODAY have managed to get ahold of the transcript of a conversation between a desperate aspiring Ivy League parent and a cooperating witness from Key Worldwide Foundation, the organization that pocketed $25 million in bribe money to get children into elite colleges. Here is the transcript in its entirety: Desperate Parent: Hi, I’m calling from the set of a new Hulu romcom and I’m looking for a college counselor for my son. One of my co-stars recommended your service. Cooperating Witness: Of course. We’re delighted to hear that you have your son’s best interests at heart. Desperate Parent: Yeah, he’s a good kid. And such a pro at Fortnite. But he panics when he takes tests, even though he’s not that bad at HQ. Cooperating Witness: I feel you. Desperate Parent: This ACT he’s about to take will affect his whole life. We made sure he got into the best kindergarten, and then an amazing private school…thanks to my agent. She sent out a memo to the whole agency to find out who was on the board. Read more commentary: Flashback: Our flawed college system takes toll on families years before tuition is due Don't assume high school graduation fraud is only in D.C. It's not. I was assaulted at Berkeley because I'm conservative. Free speech is under attack. Cooperating Witness: That’s what agents are for! Desperate Parent: But when we went to Malawi last summer so he could found an orphanage, he failed the drug test because of one little edible he needed for the plane. The system just isn’t fair! Cooperating Witnesss: Of course not. It’s never been. Why should one exam or one transgression influence his whole future? What he needs is extra time - double time! triple time! We can arrange that. And in case twelve hours in our state-of-the-art facility isn’t enough, our compassionate proctors will help him get his numbers up. Desperate Parent: He tanked on his third ACT and got a 21, so it might be a red flag if the score was above a 32. Or maybe a 33. Cooperating Witness: We’ll aim for the 31-32 range. Desperate Parent: Will that get him into Yale? Or his safety, Wesleyan? Cooperating Witness: Once we tweak his GPA, teacher recs, essays and extracurriculars, it will. He rows crew, right? 'We take PayPal and Venmo' Desperate Parent: Um…he shops at J. Crew. And we went kayaking in Maui when he was nine. Cooperating Witness: That counts. Just send us a photo of him on the beach wearing an unstructured jacket. That, along with 400k wired to Gluten Anonymous will entice the coach. We take PayPal and Venmo. Desperate Parent: But what if he gets in and doesn’t actually join the crew team? Won’t they notice that he’s out partying at 5am instead of rowing? He is an influencer on instagram and someone might notice. Cooperating Witness: No worries. Everybody quits crew the first semester anyway. It’s too cold in Connecticut to even think about going near a river; they’ll understand. Desperate Parent: My husband said I was going overboard with the micromanaging. But all students get help from parents, right? Cooperating Witness: Of course. For a while those affirmative action kids were taking all the spots. Now diverse students are getting in legitimately, go figure. The middle class can no longer afford the elite schools so there’s less competition, but we still have to do what we have to do. As long as U.S. News & World Reports randomly ranks schools, parents will lie and cheat so their kids don’t go somewhere embarrassing. 'Top schools are begging us to cheat' Desperate Parent: Yeah! The top schools all send brochures enticing my son to apply so they can turn him down and their rankings will go up. If nobody ranked the schools, my husband and I might be okay with sending him to one of the 3500 institutions where he could still get a fine education. Those top schools are basically begging us to cheat. Cooperating Witness: This is age old. Who hasn’t given their kids a boost? How is this any different from getting inspiration from Nelson Mandela or Gloria Steinen for essays. Or asking your guru for a rec from the Dalai Lama. Desperate Parent: So it’s not cheating! It’s just gaming the system, no worse than what Jared Kushner’s parents did. Cooperating Witness: Back in the day, you put your name on a building to get your kid in, but there were no guarantees. Today, you can pay a legit counselor $3500, hold your breath and pull strings. Or you can give us $6 mil and rest easy, because we guarantee admission to your kid’s first-choice school. Desperate Parent: The bottom line is I want my guy to have every opportunity that hardworking, qualified kids have. Cooperating Witness: Trust us, that can be arranged. And we’ll even find a suitable tutor, because once he gets in it could be….challenging. But what isn’t challenging about being a young person these days? Or even worse, a concerned parent. Judy Rothman Rofé is the author of "The Neurotic Parent's Guide to College Admissions: Strategies for Helicoptering, Hot-housing & Micromanaging" and The Neurotic Parent. Follow her on Twitter: @neurotic_parent<doc-sep>LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among approximately 50 people indicted Tuesday in a widespread and sophisticated college admission bribery scheme in which parents are accused of paying off college coaches and standardized testing administrators millions of dollars in order to get their children into elite universities. The racketeering conspiracy case includes 33 parents, as well nine coaches from universities that include USC, UCLA, Yale, Stanford and Georgetown. The entire operation was masterminded by William Singer of Newport Beach, authorities said. Prosecutors said the coaches were bribed to indicate students were being considered as athletic recruits because universities, “typically apply different criteria when evaluating applications from students with demonstrated athletic abilities.” “These parents are a catalog of wealth and privilege,” U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said at a Tuesday news conference in Boston. “They include, for example, CEOs of private and public companies, successful securities and real estate investors, two well known actresses, a famous fashion designer, and the co-chairman of a global law firm.” Parents charged in the alleged scheme are accused of paying Singer a total of $25 million between 2011 and February 2019 for the arrangement. Singer used some of that money to bribe test administrators and college coaches. He would hire stand-ins to take SAT and ACT exams for the students, along with proctors to correct wrong answers. He would also create fake athletic profiles to help get students admitted into athletic programs. Singer, who bills himself as an admissions consultant, is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to charges including racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, obstruction of justice and conspiracy to defraud. Lelling said coaches used slots that schools had allocated to them for athletic recruitment, and “worked with Singer, meaning they accepted bribes…to convince everyone else internally that this was a good person for the team.” Singer’s method of cheating on standardized tests was laid out in the indictment’s description of his arrangement with Huffman. MORE: Read The Indictments Singer advised Huffman, who is married to actor William H. Macy, to arrange for her daughter to be granted extra time for her SAT exam by having her certified as having a learning disability. Prosecutors say Singer then arranged for a specific person to proctor that test and correct the girl’s answers. Her daughter received a 1420 on the test. “Make no mistake, this is not a case where parents were acting in the best interest of their children. This is a case where they flaunted their wealth, sparing no expense to cheat the system so they could set their children up for success with the best education money could buy, literally,” said Joseph R. Bonavolonta, FBI special agent in charge of the Boston Field Office. Macy was seen undergoing a security inspection before entering a downtown Los Angeles courtroom, where his wife, Huffman, appeared on a charge of paying a bribe to secure her daughter’s admission to college. Court documents say Huffman paid $15,000 she disguised as a charitable donation so her daughter could partake in the college entrance cheating scam. Macy has not been charged; authorities haven’t said why. Representatives for Huffman haven’t returned a message seeking comment. Huffman was set to be released on a $250,000 bond. The actress has been ordered to appear in federal court in Boston on March 29. Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli, the founder of clothing brand Mossimo, “agreed to pay bribes totaling $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as recruits to the USC crew team – despite the fact that they did not participate in crew,” the indictment reads. Also named in the indictment are current UCLA head men’s soccer coach Jorge Salcedo, current head USC water polo coach Jovan Vavic, former head USC women’s soccer coach Ali Khosroshahin, former assistant USC soccer coach Jaura Janke and current senior USC Associate Athletic Director Donna Heinel. UCLA confirmed that Salcedo had been placed on leave. MORE: Lori Loughlin’s Daughter Says ‘I Don’t Really Care About School’ “The conduct alleged in the filings revealed today is deeply disturbing and in contrast with the expectations we have of our coaches to lead their teams with honesty and integrity,” UCLA said in a statement. UCLA added that none of its current student-athletes “are under suspicion.” Huffman was among 13 people arrested in the L.A. area Tuesday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. An arrest warrant was served at Loughlin’s residence Tuesday morning, but she was not home, according to FBI spokesperson Laura Eimiller. USC released a statement Tuesday morning, which read: “We are aware of the ongoing wide-ranging criminal investigation involving universities nationwide, including USC. USC has not been accused of any wrongdoing and will continue to cooperate fully with the government’s investigation. “We understand that the government believes that illegal activity was carried out by individuals who went to great lengths to conceal their actions from the university. USC is conducting an internal investigation and will take employment actions as appropriate. “USC is in the process of identifying any funds received by the university in connection with this alleged scheme. Additionally, the university is reviewing its admissions processes broadly to ensure that such actions do not occur going forward.” This is just the latest in a series of scandals which have plagued USC over the past few years. In January, a former USC men’s basketball assistant coach pleaded guilty for his role in a pay-for-play scandal in which schools would funnel money through shoe companies to a player in exchange for their commitment. In May of 2018, USC revealed that longtime former USC gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall was being investigated for sexual misconduct. Since then, hundreds of women have come forward over accusing Tyndall of misconduct and alleging the school attempted to cover up his behavior. The scandal prompted USC President Max Nikias to step down. In August of 2018, USC revealed that it had hired and fired former California Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-West Los Angeles) as a professor. USC asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office to conduct a criminal investigation into a recent suspicious $100,000 donation from a campaign fund controlled by his father, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The 30-year-old Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was hired by USC as a professor despite not having a graduate degree. In April 2016, Carmen Puliafito stepped down as dean of the USC Keck School of Medicine after it was revealed he had partied with underage girls and provided drugs to his girlfriend, who was a prostitute. The California medical board later ordered Puliafito be stripped of his license to practice medicine. In November 2016, Dr. Rohit Varma, a noted ophthalmologist, was named dean to replace Puliafito. However, in October 2017, however, he also resigned amid a report that 15-years-prior, USC reached a financial settlement with a female researcher who accused him of sexual harassment. © 2019 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.<doc-sep>
WASHINGTON – The college admissions bribery investigation that led to charges on Tuesday against 50 people, including CEOs and Hollywood celebrities, has placed a new focus on how President Donald Trump's son-in-law got into Harvard. Jared Kushner, who serves as a top aide to Trump, and his acceptance to the Ivy League school was investigated as part of the 2006 book "The Price of Admission" written by ProPublica editor Daniel Golden. The book examined how the nation's wealthy buy their children into prestigious schools with tax write-offs and other donations. One such donation was made by Kushner's father, real estate developer Charles Kushner. Golden wrote a 2016 story after Trump won the presidency, about his book and specifically a legal $2.5 million donation that Charles Kushner pledged to Harvard in 1998. It wasn't long after, according to Golden, that his son was accepted to the prestigious school. Start the day smarter:Get USA TODAY's Daily Briefing in your inbox More:Felicity Huffman released on bail after allegedly bribing to get kid into college as part of sweeping admissions scandal Golden noted that at the time, Harvard only accepted one out of every nine applicants and those at Jared Kushner's high school didn't believe his grades or test scores were good enough to attend the school. In response to the allegations, Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, told ProPublica that it was "false" that the donation was linked to Jared Kushner's acceptance. She said that his parents "are enormously generous and have donated over 100 million dollars to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes." He continued: "Jared Kushner was an excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honors." While others who made large donations to Harvard had been former students, Golden noted Charles Kushner had not attended the school. Golden said he examined why Kushner would give millions to the school and found both of his sons enrolled there. Golden reported that unlike other large gifts to the school, Harvard hadn't sent out press releases announcing the donations. He said he found the donations in Kushner's finances after subpoenas from federal authorities made them public. Charles Kushner was convicted in 2005 of tax evasion, making illegal campaign donations and witness tampering. But the tale of Kushner's donation and his son's acceptance was only one case. The book also examined how others, including the sons of former vice president Al Gore, were admitted into schools. Those admissions became the center of conversation on Tuesday after federal officials announced what they called the nation's largest-ever college admissions bribery case prosecuted by the Justice Department. The investigation netted charges against 50 people, including CEOs, prominent financiers, college athletic coaches and actresses such as Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. More:'Full House' fans express shock as Lori Loughlin is indicted in college admissions bribery case More:Fake disabilities, photoshopped faces: How feds say celebrities, coaches and scammers got kids into elite colleges Federal prosecutors say it was all part of an elaborate conspiracy that involved cheating on the SAT and ACT and parents paying coaches "enormous sums" to get their children into elite universities and colleges by fabricating their athletic credentials. Huffman, best known for her role on TV's "Desperate Housewives," is accused of paying $15,000 to a made-up charitable organization that then helped her daughter cheat on the SATs. Huffman also discussed the scheme in a recorded phone call with a cooperating witness, according to the investigation. Loughlin, who starred in the 1990s sitcom "Full House," is also facing the same felony charges — conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Prosecutors say Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, another defendant, paid bribes of $500,000 in exchange for having their two daughters designated as crew team recruits at the University of Southern California even though neither participated in the sport. As part of the nationwide conspiracy, coaches agreed to pretend that the children of parents who paid bribes were highly recruited athletes when they didn't even compete in that particular sport, prosecutors said. More individuals, including additional parents, could be later charged amid the still-ongoing multi-state FBI investigation, which took on the code name "Operation Varsity Blues" by law enforcement when it was launched 10 months ago. The schools, including Yale, Georgetown and Stanford universities, USC, UCLA, the University of Texas and Wake Forest University, are not targets of the sweeping investigation, prosecutors said. And no students were charged.