The next shoe in the admission scandal saga has dropped.
The University of Southern California has now blocked students who were involved in the admissions scandal from registering for classes and getting their transcripts, according to a brand new CNBC report. Additionally, the students could see their admission revoked and are facing potential expulsion.
Among those students enrolled at USC are actress Lori Loughlin’s daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli. Olivia Jade also recently saw two of her advertising partners — Sephora and TRESemme — drop ties with the social media personality.
“USC has placed holds on the accounts of students who may be associated with the alleged admissions scheme; this prevents the students from registering for classes or acquiring transcripts while their cases are under review,” the school announced in a Tweet.
We immediately terminated two employees associated with the allegations.  We also placed on leave a faculty member who was named in the federal indictment as a parent. This leave is a required procedural step in the process for evaluating the termination of tenured faculty. More employment actions may be possible as new facts come to light.
The university is conducting a full review of the matter and continues to cooperate with the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation. We are in the process of identifying donations that may have been received in connection with the alleged scheme and will determine how best to redirect those funds to a non-USC organization that will benefit underserved students.
USC determined which applicants in the current admissions cycle are connected to the alleged scheme and they will be denied admission. A case-by-case review of current students who may be connected to the alleged scheme is also underway. We will make informed decisions about those cases as the reviews are completed.
We will take all necessary steps to safeguard the integrity of our admissions process and to ensure we conduct ourselves in a manner consistent with our values.
We recently profiled one Harvard test-taking “whiz” that was responsible for helping students at the center of the scandal get high scores. Late last week we reported on the tipster who gave the SEC the lead on the admissions scandal. He was in the midst of being investigated for a pump and dump scam at the time.
We also reported that the universities involved were now facing class action lawsuits from their students. Additionally, we reported on major tax implications that could be waiting for the parents involved – including potential civil tax fraud penalties and interest charges on any bribe amounts they wrote off.
After the scandal was reported, we unveiled that William Rick Singer was the man who brokered and facilitated many of the bribes.
Our original take on the entire scandal can be read here.