Yale University, one of several elite institutions embroiled in an admissions bribery scandal last week, announced Friday that it is taking steps to investigate what went wrong and what can be done to fix it.
As reported by Connecticut Magazine, U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling in Boston revealed Tuesday that former women's soccer coach Rudolph "Rudy" Meredith had accepted a $400,000 bribe, allegedly from William "Rick" Singer of California, owner of the Edge College & Career Network LLC, also known as The Key. Meredith recruited an applicant from Southern California who was admitted to Yale despite not playing competitive soccer.
In a statement emailed Friday, Yale president Peter Salovey indicated that an internal investigation doesn't end with Meredith. "I have decided that we must conduct our own searching review in order to learn whether others have been involved in activities that have corrupted the athletic recruitment and admissions process,” Salovey wrote.
"The University will be conducting its own independent review of the admissions system at Yale in response to the FBI investigation," the email states. "External advisors will assist the administration in the University’s investigation. These external advisors will “be asked to recommend changes that will help [the University] detect and prevent efforts to defraud our admissions process," including examining the practices of commercial admissions consultants "whose work is conducted out of the view of admissions officers," as reported by the Yale Daily News.
The email also noted that director of athletics Vicky Chun has been independently implementing new policies and actions regarding the oversight and assessment of coaching staffs, including "more robust training for all coaches to ensure they understand" Yale's recruitment policies and a review of every coach’s roster of recruits before the roster is sent to the admissions office. Situations in which a recruited athlete "fails to make a team will receive close scrutiny," according to Salovey's email.
Of two non-athlete students who sought admission from Yale through its soccer program, only one actually got in, and her future at Yale may be in jeopardy. “Although I do not comment on specific disciplinary actions taken with respect to an individual student, our longstanding policy is to rescind the admission of students who falsified their Yale College applications,” Salovey wrote in his email, as reported by Bloomberg Quint.
As of Friday, the Office of the President's web page featured "frequently asked questions about the admissions scandal," covering the timeline of events, the alleged bribe's impact on Meredith's resignation and an endowment in his name of a coaching position, and Yale's plan to address the issues the scandal presents.
On Saturday, the Yale Daily News reported that two Yale soccer players allege that Meredith, who sought and received a graduate degree in 2018 from Ohio University while coaching at Yale, had members of the Yale team not only edit his own academic work but write significant parts of his papers. Meredith resigned from his coaching position that same year for undisclosed reasons.
