Over the past month the Justice Department has put their foot down to stop bribery in the college admissions process. Stars like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman paid upwards of 500,000 dollars in bribes to get their kids into top universities.

Huffman is likely to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud after paying a college counselor $15,000 to arrange for cheating on her daughter’s SAT.

Loughlin on the other hand along with her husband Mossimo Giannulli are said not to plead guilty even after the paid $500,000 in bribes to the University of Southern California to accept their two daughters.

On March 12 in Winston Salem, Wake Forest’s Bill Ferguson was indicted after accepting a bribe from a parent for the student to play volleyball for the school. Ferguson accepted the $100,000 bribe to allow a girl who was on the waitlist of the volleyball program to play.

Wake Forest has openly communicated with authorities throughout the investigation and takes a strong stance as the victim in this matter, as they were unaware of the bribe that had taken place.

“I think Wake handled the scandal relatively well, though some of the wording used in statements to the allegations attempted to displace the blame,” student teacher Maddie Dickens said. “They claimed the university too was a ‘victim of the fraud.’ Despite the word choice, I do think they will make positive changes to the admissions process.”

President Nathan Hatch issued a statement in which he expressed dedication to keeping Wake’s admissions process as fair and unique as it has in the past.

“I commit that Wake Forest will continue to invest the talent and resources of many to ensure the integrity of our admissions process and our institutional expectations for ethical conduct,” said President Hatch in his email.

Many Reynolds students will be headed to Wake Forest in the fall and some feel that the situation was handled well by Wake Forest.

“From the information I have heard from the admissions scandal it seems that they handled it pretty well and from my perspective it seems that they are taking it very seriously,” senior Lilly Reed said.

Part of the blame for the rise in bribery to admittance is due to the fact the college is harder to get into every year.

“Honestly the reason this has been happening and not just with faking being an athlete but with bribing people’s ways into college is that every year getting into college gets harder and harder.” Lilly Reed said. “I believe the best way to prevent this would be for everyone to stop having this idea in their head that they have to go to the best college to impress other people or to please other people.”

Photo courtesy of Creative Commons