Sam Eshaghoff
Sam Eshaghoff, the 19-year-old Emory University student at the center of the SAT cheating scandal, believes he was saving the lives of students who paid him up to $2,500 to take their college entrance exams but admits the scam was wrong.
The 2010 Great Neck North High School graduate made the seemingly contradicting statements in an interview with 60 Minutes that aired Sunday night. Eshaghoff’s attorney reportedly negotiated a plea deal with Nassau County prosecutors sentencing him to community service as an SAT tutor instead of years in state prison.
“I mean a kid who has a horrible grade point average, who no matter how much he studies is gonna totally bomb this test, by giving him an amazing score, I totally give him this like, a new lease on life,” Eshaghoff said in the segment, dubbed The Perfect Score. “He’s gonna go to a totally new college, he’s gonna be bound for a totally new career and a totally new path in life.”
District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who also appeared in the segment, called him an “academic gun for hire.” Both agreed that he is not the only one who’s done it and there are brokers who arrange the deals in some cases.
“This was lots of money changing hands, there were high stakes involved, and there was forgery, there was criminal impersonation,” Rice told 60 Minutes. “That’s a fraud on many different levels, but most importantly against the kids who play by the rules.”
Eshaghoff admitted making fake school identification for his “clients,” variying testing locations to trick proctors and taking the test twice in the same weekend. He even took it for girls with unisex names, such as Alex.
Kurt Landgraf, president of Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit that administers the test, denied in the report that the problem is as widespread as some have claimed and cautioned against overreacting.
State Sen. Ken LaValle (R-Port Jefferson), chairman of the senate higher education committee, held a hearing on the scandal shortly after the first arrests were made in the case. The College Board and Educational Testing Service announced at the hearing that they have hired a security firm to review test security measures.
Nineteen other students are currently facing charges after the allegations spread to other high schools while others who were implicated couldn’t be charged because the statute of limitations had expired, authorities have said.
Those who hired the test takers have not been identified and the colleges they got into will be notified of the their involvement, 60 Minutes reported.
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