How many students cheated to get into USC? A look inside the admissions investigation
LOS ANGELES - Shortly after federal authorities took down a national college admissions scam in March, officials at USC launched their own investigation with emails to dozens of students.
They did not mince words: The school wanted to know whether the 33 students had lied on their applications to USC. Some of the students understood what was happening because their parents had been charged in the federal case. Others were in the dark.
The reason for the emails would soon become clear to them all. They had been linked to William "Rick" Singer, the confessed leader of the admissions con, and they now faced expulsion, depending on what university investigators discovered.
USC officials told students that decisions would come within weeks, according to lawyers representing several of the students. But the probe has turned into a protracted, fraught push by USC to clear its ranks of any students who were complicit in the trickery Singer carried out to sneak them into the highly selective school. So far USC has ruled on only a few students - clearing each of them of wrongdoing
