A white California prepschooler whose parents worked with the mastermind of the college admissions scandal was nearly accepted to several of top schools — as an African American tennis star, a report revealed Wednesday.
Orange County attorney Adam Bass hired scammer William “Rick” Singer to help get his daughter into college — but the plot was uncovered by a savvy guidance counselor at the girl’s tony high school, according to Vanity Fair.
The article doesn’t give the teen’s real name, but an LA Business Journal article names his kids and a source confirmed it was his eldest daughter, Eme.
A Tulane University admissions officer in December 2017 called Buckley School counselor Julie Taylor-Vaz to say they’d gladly accept Bass’ daughter — who they believed to be an African American tennis ace whose parents had never attended college, the article said.
But Taylor-Vaz knew the girl was white and didn’t play tennis — and that Bass is a wealthy attorney with a law degree.
Officials at Buckley then made calls to Georgetown University and Loyola Marymount University, where she had also applied, and found those schools were also told she was an African-American tennis champ — and wanted to recruit her, the magazine reports.
School brass then spoke to Bass, who eventually admitted he’d hired an outside consultant for his daughter.
Bass, the president and CEO of the Buchalter Law Firm, claimed Singer had asked for his daughter’s application file password and must have tweaked it without their knowledge. She then wrote to Georgetown and Tulane to offer the same explanation.
But the schools didn’t accept the excuse, as no third-party should have had control of her application in the first place, the report says.
The same lies were also found on her applications to University of California schools — but she was able to retract those forms and reapply. She ended up at UC Berkeley without Singer’s help.
Under Singer’s guidance, Bass also successfully lobbied Buckley headmaster James Busby to change his daughter’s grade in a math class from a C-plus to a B-minus, according to the article.
Rumors about the grade change in February 2018 sparked angry protests against the board and headmasters from students, who demanded an investigation. The school’s probe cleared Busby of wrongdoing, but he was later pushed to resign, the mag says.
While dozens of wealthy parents were charged in Singer’s sweeping scheme, Bass has not faced any charges.