Mom, who lied about her white son’s race to get into college, goes to jail

Another casualty of the now infamous 'college admission scandal,' a mother is sentenced after falsely claiming her child was Black and Latino

Marjorie Klapper took college admission scheme further, and pretended her white son was Black and Latino and a first-generation college student.

Kia Morgan-Smith

Oct 17, 2019

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On Wednesday, a mom felt the aftershocks of the wide-ranging college admissions scandal when she was sentenced to three weeks in prison for shelling out $15,000 to a proctor who altered her son’s ACT scores.

Marjorie Klapper, 50, of Menlo Park is the latest offender to face a sentence for her role in a scheme. Early this year, theGrio.com reported that a group of rich parents bribed college coaches and insiders at testing centers to help their kids get a leg up and a way into some of the most elite schools in the country.

Hollywood actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin were charged along with 5 other people.

Klapper took her scheme even further and pretended her white son was Black and Latino and a first-generation college student, according to BuzzFeed.

Folks want to be Black only when it’s convenient.

For her crimes, Klapper was also sentenced to a year of supervised release, she must complete 250 hours of community service, and pay a $9,500 fine.

“Ms. Klapper thereby not only corrupted the standardized testing system but also specifically victimized the real minority applicants already fighting for admission to elite schools,” US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling.

The attorney disagreed with the three-week prison sentence, calling it insufficient.

In May, Klapper copped a plea of guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud.

She paid money through William Rick Singer’s fake charity, Key Worldwide Foundation. Prosecutors argued that Klapper had a history of wrongdoing and should have been sentenced to more time.

When her son scored 2140 out of 2400 on an SAT test, the Educational Testing Service suspected cheating and ultimately canceled the scores. They argued there was a big discrepancy between his PSAT score and his SAT score.

Klapper asked Singer to create a fake invoice with 170 hours so she could show the agency he received private tutoring, according to court documents. But it didn’t work.

Klapper also paid $15,000 for her younger son to take the ACT at Singer’s bogus test center. The proctor changed the score so that her son scored a 30 out of 36, prosecutors said. Those lies accompanied his college applications where she also falsely indicated that her son was Black and Latino and a first-generation college student. Both Klapper and her son’s father graduated from college.

“She purposefully sought to portray her son as a minority, and the child of parents who did not attend college, despite the fact that he was neither because she thought that lie would further bolster his college prospects,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo.

“She thereby increased the likelihood that her fraud would come at the expense of an actual minority candidate, or an applicant who was actually the first in his or her family to attend college.”