USC prioritized rich college students as walk-on athletes
The College of Southern California admitted candidates from rich households as walk-on athletes for years, typically after their mother and father made donations of thousands and thousands of {dollars}, although many by no means appeared on a group roster, a new Los Angeles Occasions investigation discovered.
The controversy bears similarities to the 2019 Varsity Blues admissions scandal, which concerned a number of extremely selective universities, together with USC. However in contrast to a few of these implicated in Varsity Blues, the scholars admitted to USC as walk-on athletes largely did play the sports activities listed on their functions, simply not at a extremely aggressive degree.
In accordance with a evaluate of paperwork acquired by the L.A. Occasions, one worldwide applicant with poor grades who was described internally as a “mediocre scholar at finest” was accepted as a walk-on golfer after his father donated $3 million to the USC golf program.
The L.A. Occasions investigation of 1000’s of inner information discovered that directors typically manipulated the admissions course of to favor candidates from the households of enterprise executives, actual property builders, sports activities group homeowners and others with deep pockets. Candidates from these households typically had an 85 to 90 p.c acceptance charge, even when their lecturers had been mediocre. Against this, USC’s acceptance charge usually hovers beneath 10 p.c over all.
Households that spoke to the newspaper denied making donations in change for admissions.
USC additionally downplayed the matter, telling the L.A. Occasions, “This fraud concerned a restricted variety of staff solely in athletics who’re not with the college.” Officers additionally mentioned they added new safeguards in 2020 and “have discovered from it with a purpose to guarantee it doesn’t occur once more.”
USC officers declined to debate particular person instances, the newspaper famous, citing privateness legal guidelines.
