Syracuse University was not implicated in a national college admissions cheating scandal, an SU official confirmed to The Daily Orange.

Sarah Scalese, SU’s senior associate vice president for communications, said in a statement that the university is carefully monitoring the case, and has not been approached by investigators about any cheating.

“We regularly review our policies and procedures to preserve the integrity of our recruitment and admissions processes,” Scalese said Sunday.

Dozens were charged last week in connection to a cheating, bribery and lying scheme that wealthy parents used to get their children into competitive universities. Parents paid bribes to university officials and third-party educational services, cheated on standardized exams and falsified accomplishments to get their children admitted to prestigious schools, according to prosecutors.

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College officials, standardized exam proctors, teachers, coaches and parents were charged. It was the United States Department of Justice’s largest prosecution related to college admissions to date, law enforcement said.

The admissions cheating occurred at several of SU’s peer institutions, including Georgetown University, the University of Southern California and Wake Forest University. Coaches at several of those schools face charges of racketeering.

Gordon Ernst, former head coach of men’s and women’s tennis at Georgetown, and William Ferguson, women’s volleyball coach at Wake Forest, were charged. At USC, several officials were charged: Donna Heinel, senior associate athletic director; Jovan Vavic, former water polo coach; Laura Janke, former assistant coach of women’s soccer and Ali Khosroshahin, former head coach of women’s soccer.

The University of California, Los Angeles, Yale University, Stanford University, University of Texas at Austin and the University of San Diego were also implicated. Those universities are not peer institutions of SU.

Published on March 17, 2019 at 7:34 pm

Contact Kennedy: krose100@syr.edu | @KennedyRose001