College Admissions Bribery

Temi Lufadeju ‘24, Staff Writer

Full House is a popular American sitcom that came out in 1987. During the nineties, Full House was the show to watch. Despite the first season of the show not being a success, it was renewed for a total of 8 seasons. She played Rebecca Donaldson Katsopolis on Full House. She won her first award in 1987 at the ‘Young Artist Awards’ in the category of the ‘Michael Landon Award’ for ‘CBS Schoolbreak Special’. Lori Louglin is married to Mossimo Giannulli and together they have 3 children; Olivia, Gianni, and Isabella. At the end of 1995, Full House came to an end. Before the show went off air, Full house was consistently ranked as a Top 25 show. The show Full House rose actress Lori Louglin into fame and popularity.

Moving up the timeline a little bit into the 2000s, the American comedy drama, Desperate Housewives began in 2004. Similar to Full House, Desperate Housewives went on for 8 whole seasons. Like Full House, Desperate Housewives was well recognized as a show. The

Kahramanmaras Earthquake

John Ursomarso ‘24, Staff Writer

On February 6 2023 a massive earthquake hit the border of Turkey and Syria resulting in serious damage to both regions. The quake was caused by a collision of the Anatolian and Arabian plates and resulted in a primary quake of 7.5 magnitudes and numerous subsequent quakes.

Across Turkey, an estimated fifty thousand buildings have been destroyed, including essential infrastructure such as hospitals, electrical grids roads, and power lines. In response to the quake, 34 counties have given financial and material aid to Turkey, including China, the US Great Britain, and Russia. Even with international humanitarian support the victims of the earthquake are struggling to get basic supplies and resources. The WHO has reported show won multiple Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. The show elevated Felicity Huffman as an actress and celebrity. She is married to William Macy who plays Frank Gallager on Shameless. Together they have 2 children; Sophie and Georgia.

Lori Louglin and Felicity Huffman are very notable and popular figures, but what do they have in common other than their famous roles on television? In 2019, there was a scandal that involved a criminal conspiracy to sway the college admissions decisions at the top prestigious schools in America. Most parents want their children to attend good schools, but what makes it ok for them to take away opportunities for other candidates who aren’t as fortunate as these “figures”? The answer is money. Felicity Huffman served 14 days in prison for paying to have her daughter’s SAT scores fixed by a proctor. Huffman was issued a $30,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. Mossimo Giannulli was sentenced to five months in prison, two years of supervised release, $250,000 fine, and 250 hours of community service. Lori Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison, two years of supervised release, $150,000 fine, and 100 hours of community service. Giannulli and Loughlin, paid to get their daughters into the University of Southern California; Giannulli paid to recruit his that in Turkey approximately 20 million people are in need of aid and Turkey has reported that one million Turkish citizens are complete without shelter. In response, Turkey has created an official camp zone with 300,000 tents. However, hundreds of thousands of victims are still without government-aided shelter. To cope with the lack of humanitarian resources many victims have created their own campsites in now-abandoned stadiums and sports fields. One resident of these camps claimed, “There’s nothing for us here to eat, there’s no gas, no heating system, no electricity. We don’t have money or any of our cards.” daughters to USC as “crew athletes”. Even though Huffman and Loghlin are both highly known actresses who were involved with the scandal; they were not the only high profile parents who used their wealth to benefit their children. A well known real estate developer Robert Flaxman, hanged himself on October 20th in his Malibu home three years after paying $325,000 to the Varsity Blues college admissions to get both of his kids into school. Over 33 people were involved in the scandal, a few of them were Gregory Abbott, Marcia Abbott, Gamal Abdelaziz, Todd Blake, Diane Blake, Jeffrey Bizzack, Jane Buckingham, Gordon Caplan, I-Hin “Joey” Chen, Gregory Colburn, and Amy Colburn. Even coaches from top notable Ivy League schools accepted bribes. Rudy Merdeith was the women’s Yale soccer coach who was accused of accepting $400,000 to depict a student as a Yale soccer commit. Meredith had been with Yale since 1995, and after the Scandal broke, Meredith resigned in November of 2018. Gordie Ernst was the head coach of Georgetown’s tennis.

The havoc caused by the earthquake has caused some to criticize the government and wonder if there was something that could have been done to prevent a disaster on this scale. Corruption has long been theorized to be an issue in the construction sector in Turkey, and this most recent earthquake proved that the vast majority of the country’s buildings were not up to earthquake code.

In spite of the fact that these wealthy privileged parents paid their way for their children to attend highly prestigious colleges, they needed to go through a specific person to do so. That person was Rick Singer. Rick Singer set up a decade-long scam helping the most elite families cheat their way into universities; Singer bribed athletic coaches and college admission directors. Singer used “college prep businesses” he ran: Key Worldwide Foundation and The Edge College & Career Network. In a recorded call by the FBI, Singer supposedly said to a client, ““We help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids in school”.

Wilmington Friends School is divided on its response to the earthquake. While some students such as Peter Connelly and Sameer Vidwans have organised a drive in the Upper School to help victims, others are unsure of how they should feel. When asked about he thought about the international response to Turkey and Syria, Ethan Weiner said, “I, honestly, I have no idea.” While people in Turkey and Syria suffer, it is our duty at WFS to wonder what can we do.