The government asserts that many of the students received acceptance letters from USC, Georgetown, or other schools citing their athletic qualifications, which they surely knew they did not have. One received a directive from her faculty counselor at USC to change her course schedule, since one of the classes would conflict with her soccer team’s traveling plans; she also received an email directly from the school’s new women’s soccer coach, who wasn’t in on the fraud, asking who she was since he had never seen her name before. She allegedly evaded both issues by claiming that an injury would keep her off the soccer team.

Source: Los Angeles Times March 18, 2019 14:48 UTC