Stanford Students File Admissions Scandal Class Action Lawsuit

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Two Stanford students have lodged an admissions scandal class action against top tier universities alleging they, along with a so-called college entrance service company and wealthy parents, conspired to gain admissions for their children through a web of bribes and deceit.

Lead plaintiffs, Erica Olsen and Kalea Woods, allege that Yale University, the University of Southern California, Stanford University, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Texas, Wake Forest University and Georgetown University engaged in two fraudulent admissions schemes.

One of the scams centered on cheating on college entrance exams on behalf of well-to-do children of the wealthy who couldn’t seem to make the cut otherwise.

A second scheme was allegedly masterminded by William Singer who facilitated bribes through his fake non-profit to falsely land wealthy offspring onto various college sport teams in order to facilitate the admission of otherwise unqualified, undeserving applicants.

The admissions scandal class action lawsuit was initiated after a federal investigation dropped a net on wealthy parents, Rick Singer and his fraudulent college admissions company, and university administrators and coaches who accepted bribes to reportedly facilitate the admission of unqualified students into elite universities.

Bloomberg reports that bribes ranged from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, facilitated by Singer from the parents.

According to the admissions scandal class action lawsuit, unqualified rich kids made their way into top universities, while the plaintiffs and other students had to get by on their own merits — paying steep application fees along the way.

The plaintiffs accuse the University of Southern California, Stanford University, University of San Diego, The University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Yale University, and Georgetown University of failing to provide adequate security measures to protect their admissions systems from the widespread fraud and bribery allegedly perpetrated by the rich and influential on behalf of their undeserving children.

“Each of the qualified, rejected students was damaged by the fraudulent and negligent conduct of the Defendants in that, at a minimum, each Class member paid college admission application fees to the Defendant universities without any understanding or warning that unqualified students were slipping in through the back door of the admissions process by committing fraud, bribery, cheating, and dishonesty,” points out the class action lawsuit.

“Each of the universities took the students’ admission application fees while failing to take adequate steps to ensure that their admissions process was fair and free of fraud, bribery, cheating and dishonesty.”

Celebrities reportedly implicated in the scheme include Felicity Huffman, who acted in a mid-2000s comedy-drama series “Desperate Housewives,” and Lori Loughlin, who played Aunt Becky on “Full House,” a blockbuster sitcom from the late 1980s and 90s, and “Fuller House” which premiered in 2016.

According to the college scandal class action lawsuit, “California con-man” Rick Singer ran The Edge College & Career Network, also known as The Key. Singer touted his ability to get unremarkable rich kids into elite schools.

Allegedly, Singer asked celebrities and other wealthy parents to make donations to his fake nonprofit, The Key Worldwide Foundation. The plaintiffs allege that some parents even took the bribes as deductions on their tax returns.

From those funds, Singer would facilitate cheating on college admissions tests and even create false athletic histories with Photoshop, claim the plaintiffs.

Singer allegedly went even further, bribing coaches and university admissions officers to help admit his clients’ children as student athletes, when they were anything but.

The admissions scandal class action lawsuit seeks to represent all individuals who applied to any of the listed universities between 2012 and 2018, paid an application fee, and were subsequently rejected by the institution.

The plaintiffs are represented by John F. Medler, Jr. of The Medler Law Firm APC, David M. Cialkowski, Celeb Marker, and Brian C. Gudmundson of Zimmerman Reed LLP.

The College Admissions Scheme Class Action Lawsuit is Olsen, et al. v. William “Rick” Singer, et al., Case No. 3:19-cv-01351, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.