behind paywall:
'They need to pay up': Emails in college admissions trial show USC’s interest in wealthy applicants
This link works:
New USC Emails Reveal Ties Between Admissions, Athletics Fundraising
In the emails, athletic-department administrators and staffers who raise money for USC speak openly about prime donor prospects and how to close deals. The correspondence includes former athletic director Pat Haden, former senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel, and USC fundraisers Scott Wandzilak and Alexandra Reisman, who at the time had the last name Bitterlin. Ms. Heinel has pleaded guilty for her role in the scandal; the others haven’t been accused of any wrongdoing.
“Will be at least a $1 million ask if we get her in,” Ms. Reisman wrote in 2013 to Ms. Heinel regarding one applicant’s family.
The grandfather founded a beer company, Ms. Reisman noted, adding, “They’re like the Anheuser Busch family $$$$.”
In a 2016 email to Ms. Heinel, Ms. Reisman complained that the family of an admitted student potentially “was going to screw us on a gift.” “We shouldn’t get the student a job until we get a gift first,” she wrote, referring to a role the teen wanted with the football team.
“You’ve done enough to get her in—they need to pay up,” Ms. Reisman wrote.
“VIP” students were described in spreadsheets with references such as “father is a surgeon” and “given 2 million already.”
In one email from 2014, Ms. Reisman reminded Mr. Haden that he had been introduced to a wealthy father via the headmaster of an exclusive Los Angeles private school, and that a message came from the headmaster “saying if the kid got in [the parent] would support USC with $2M.”
Mr. Haden, a former USC and NFL quarterback who served as USC’s athletic director from 2010 to 2016 and stayed on in a fundraising role until 2017, told Ms. Reisman in connection with another student who had been admitted as a walk-on for USC’s track and field program, “Are they really thinking of a gift?…If they truly are, I can speak to the coach.”
In another email, in 2016, Ms. Heinel wrote to Mr. Wandzilak about an applicant whose file “leads me to believe she will be denied,” and asked if the applicant “was someone that has capacity for you.”
“Yes, her family has capacity,” Mr. Wandzilak replied. He noted where the family lived, that her father was successful and that they were referred by someone else with ties to the school.
“I need a better resume,” Ms. Heinel replied, referencing the girl’s application package.
