Education

Georgetown Intends To Expel Two Students In Admissions Scandal Aftermath

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Neetu Arnold Contributor
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Georgetown University intends to expel two students linked to the massive college admissions bribery scandal.

“Today, we informed two students of our intent to rescind their admission and dismiss them from Georgetown,” university spokesperson Meghan Dubyak said in a statement Wednesday. “Each student case was addressed individually and each student was given multiple opportunities to respond and provide information to the University.”

Adam Semprevivo, one of the students who was notified according to lawyer David Kenner, filed a lawsuit hours before the university informed the students of the expulsions. Adam Semprevivo believed he should not face any academic penalties or be expelled from Georgetown because of his father’s acts, NBC News reported Thursday.

Georgetown did not explicitly name the two students who were informed. Kenner said Adam Semprevivo was expelled, according to NBC.

Federal officials accused William Rick Singer of cheating the college entrance system to help parents get their children into top colleges. He allegedly ran and used his purported charity Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF) to facilitate the bribes. The scam included bribing college athletic coaches.

Semprevivo’s dad, Stephen, pleaded guilty to paying $400,000 to have Georgetown tennis coach Gordon Ernst help his son gain special admission as a tennis player. Adam Semprevivo said he was unaware of his father, Singer or Ernst’s involvement, according to NBC.

The former student continued that his high school records did not mention he played tennis and Georgetown could have spotted the inconsistency. (RELATED: College Board Openly Trying To Skirt The Supreme Court With Secret ‘Adversity Score’)

“Despite the fact that these misrepresentations could have been easily verified and debunked before Georgetown formally admitted Semprevivo in April 2016, no one at Georgetown did so … his high school transcripts, which were supplied to Georgetown by Campbell Hall High School, made no reference to Adam ever having played tennis,” the lawsuit said, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Adam Semprevivo, however, reportedly sent an email to Ernst in 2015 saying he “played very well with terrific success in Doubles this summer and played quite well in singles too,” according to a Justice Department document.

Adam Semprevivo had a weighted high school GPA of 4.067 and scored a 1980 on the SAT, back when it was out of a total of 2400 points. At Georgetown, he had a 3.18 GPA, NBC reported.

His family paid more than $200,000 to attend the school, according to NBC. Adam Semprevivo’s lawyer David Kenner wants “credits intact with no negative reference in his [Semprevivo] transcripts.”

Ernst was immediately placed on leave and later asked to resign after university officials “discovered irregularities in the athletic credentials of two students who were being recruited to play tennis,” in 2017, the statement said. The two students were not admitted at the time.

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