You have probably already heard about this because it’s making the rounds. But in case you haven’t:
A private school in Louisiana got black students into elite colleges by lying about their grades, activities and family problems, reports the New York Times.
BREAUX BRIDGE, La. — Bryson Sassau’s application would inspire any college admissions officer.
A founder of T.M. Landry College Preparatory School described him as a “bright, energetic, compassionate and genuinely well-rounded” student whose alcoholic father had beaten him and his mother and had denied them money for food and shelter. His transcript “speaks for itself,” the founder, Tracey Landry, wrote, but Mr. Sassau should also be lauded for founding a community service program, the Dry House, to help the children of abusive and alcoholic parents. He took four years of honors English, the application said, was a baseball M.V.P. and earned high honors in the “Mathematics Olympiad.”
The narrative earned Mr. Sassau acceptance to St. John’s University in New York. There was one problem: None of it was true.
. . . Bryson Sassau had never started an organization called the Dry House — he had never even heard of it — and had never taken the classes or earned the accolades listed.