Felicity Huffman handled her guilty plea the way people should – she admitted guilt, she apologized and she seemed properly humbled by the entire ordeal. Her guilty plea was for the federal charges associated with paying Rick Singer to have her daughters’ SAT scores changed. The initial plan was to pay Singer to change the SAT scores for both of her daughters, Sophia and Georgia, but they had only arranged it for the older girl, Sophia, at the time of Felicity’s arrest.
As part of her guilty plea, Felicity got to make a statement where she tried to explain (while still admitting guilt) why she had tried to scam the SATs for her daughters. Her explanation was that both her daughters have “serious learning disabilities,” and something something, she wanted them to get into good performing arts schools. Honestly, it didn’t make a lot of sense overall – if her daughters had such serious learning disabilities, surely there were about a million other options besides “do crimes and cheat on the SATs,” right? Anyway, the point of rehashing this is that after Felicity’s arrest, Sophia was no longer allowed to audition for this performing arts school she wanted. But… good news? Sophia will be allowed to take the SATs:
Felicity Huffman’s daughter will get a second bite of the apple — as in she can take another SAT test — because there’s no proof she was involved in rigging the first one she took. As we extensively reported, Felicity paid Rick Singer $15k to get a proctor to cheat up daughter Sophia’s SAT score. The proctor gave Sophia extra time to take the exam and then fixed some of the wrong answers. For that, Felicity pled guilty to a felony and will serve 14 days.
We’ve heard Sophia wants to go to college and must take a legit SAT test. Here’s the thing … the College Board security policy states, “College Board will prohibit individuals from taking the SAT … when we conclude they have deliberately gained or attempted to gain or share an unfair advantage on any College Board test, or otherwise threatened the integrity of the test.” So far, everyone who has looked at Felicity’s case has concluded Sophia was in the dark. There is one thing … up to this point, authorities have looked at the players in the case with an eye toward criminal prosecution. There is no proof — certainly beyond a reasonable doubt — that Sophia knew what was going down. As such, there’d be no reason she couldn’t take another SAT test.
A College Board rep tells TMZ, even if they felt Sophia had some culpability, there would only be a 6-month suspension under these circumstances and the 6 months has already passed. Another rep says students are generally able to register for the test without issue … but there can be exceptions. All in all, it appears Sophia will be just fine.
Sophia is 19 years old and Georgia is 17. Just going off of my high school/college experience, I started doing PSATs and SAT-prep stuff at 16, and I’m trying to remember, but I think I took the SATs once or twice around my 17th birthday. My point is that… I guess it’s good that Sophia gets to retake the SATs, but mostly I just wonder if Felicity has completely warped her daughters, and I kind of feel like Sophia is going to end up taking the SATs and then she’ll decide she’s not into this or that and she’ll just end up being supported by her parents anyway. Are those girls able to do sh-t for themselves? Are the diagnoses of “serious learning disabilities” just another scam? Are they actually interested in higher education or was that Felicity being a helicopter parent? I don’t know.
Photos courtesy of Getty.
Whatever. Im not giving her credit for $hit. If they had such learning disabilities why didn’t they have a tutor or go to a special school for children with severe learning disabilities?? You know ALL the other options that parents with children with severe learning disabilities use INSTEAD of cheating.
I have a feeling her idea of a “severe learning disability is something like dyslexia or ADHD”. BOTH of which can be managed.
Nah this woman gets NO sympathy from me. She will probably spend less than a week in jail and will go on with her life. Meanwhile poor people will struggle to get THEIR kids – who DO work hard into goo schools. And black mother will be incarcerated for years for faking a damn home address to get their kids into a decent school district.
I think Huffman’s statement at sentencing included something about her daughter crying and asking Huffman why she didn’t believe she could do this on her own. I had so much sympathy for the kid when I read that. My mom never did anything as big (or illegal) as rigging the SATs, but she was definitely a helicopter mom and I’m familiar with the frustration that no one seems to think you can do thing X on your own. I turned out more or less ok though and I hope Huffman’s daughter will too. I think the fact that she’s upset that her mom didn’t believe in her and that she wants to take them for real are good signs. If they really take the time to do the work instead of waiting for their rich parents to hand them things I think they’ll be okay. Fingers crossed anyway.
Yeah, that broke my heart too.
It was 100% wrong for her to do it. But I also don’t see the harm in letting the kid – who by all accounts didn’t know the lengths her mother had gone – do the test for real, and allow her earned score to stand.
That’s really sad, and if that’s the case, then I do feel bad for their daughters. I wonder if they felt a lot of pressure from their parents growing up, or if their parents just took care of everything.
Pfft, she wasn’t being a helicopter mom, she was being a lawnmower mom. And I feel bad for her girls because I really do think they were in the dark. She could have legitimately gotten extra time to take the test just by petitioning through the proper channels. One of my spawn wanted to go to Brown. She didn’t get accepted. Case closed. She went to Skidmore. No cheating or rigging necessary. Sometimes we don’t get what we want most in life. Part of living is learning to deal with it. Felicity did her children no favors by shielding them from that truth.
How did Felicity think her daughters were going to manage their classes? If they have learning disabilities and their mom wanted to “cheat” their way in, what was she planning to do to ensure her daughters passed their classes in college? Makes you think.
They both have serious learning disabilities, but one of them and Felicity also tutor as part of community service they’ve been doing? Nope. Felicity went through her plea agreement the right way, but her reasoning are lies.
So someone with a learning disability is tutoring others? Hmmm…
someone with a “severe” learning disability – not believable at all
My daughter has dyslexia and adhd, and she’s also extremely bright. She can absolutely tutor kids, but she’s also going to need accommodations for standardized tests and her own tutor for executive functioning. Please don’t mistake learning disabilities with lack of intelligence.
This is ridiculous. Why is this nonsense even being announced. Peak privilege. She should just go to community college and transfer to a state school theatre program or whatever. So done with this woman and her remorse.
Well whatever, study this time I guess. Still a spoiled brat but hopefully she learned a lesson.
Except it sounds like this one didn’t know the mom was cheating and she thought she was legit taking the test, and was really upset when she found out her mom didn’t believe in her enough to do it on her own.
So I don’t see how she was being a spoiled brat.
I think she should be allowed to retake the test and let her legit score stand, and if she does need test accommodations for a disability she should get what is offered to others
I think it’s possible the daughter might want to go to a less elite school, and for that you still need the SATs.
After this scandal, I’m wondering if more kids will simply admit they’d rather go to a less elite school than Harvard and Stanford. You’ll still turn out fine even if you don’t go to one of the Ivies. Although maybe they belong to some snooty Hollywood set that remarks on those things — that’s the only explanation I have for why Aunt Becky, who DIDN’t go to college, would insist her daughters couldn’t go to Arizona State. I can understand a Harvard-educated parent like Caroline Kennedy wanting her children to go Ivy. It’s clearly a tradition of some kind in the Kennedy family. In Aunt Becky’s case, I don’t get it AT ALL. She herself didn’t even try to go to college.
It’s all image and bragging rights.
I agree with you. In the case of this Sophia girl, her mother basically said she wanted her in a school with a good performing arts program but that Sophia probably couldn’t get into without ‘help.’ And I side eye because I think the daughter of Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy would be able to break into acting based on nepotism and connections and lack of a college dramatic arts credential isn’t going to affect that.
I hope Felicity knows that a lot of actors never completed college. It takes talent to succeed. Art school is not necessary in their line of work.
Are you a professional actor? I’ve been working as an actor since 1998 and it’s almost impossible to break into the industry without going to drama school. Obviously the daughter of a celeb will have an easier ride but many CDs won’t even audition anyone who didn’t go to drama school.
How are we 100% sure the daughter didn’t know or take part in anything illegal? Was there any sort of proof or they are just taking her word for it? If a non-rich, non-famous person did the exact same thing we know the outcome would have been much different. I have no sympathy here. How ironic, the daughter is getting to take her SAT’s after all, without any “extra help”. Why didn’t they just do this the first time around then?
You don’t have to be sure someone DIDN’T do something to exonerate them- you have to be sure they DID do something to punish them. Key distinction.
Additionally, how would she know how long she gets for the test? If the proctor says “you have 40 minutes left,” OK I have 40 minutes left. Answers were changed by the proctor- you think the proctor just leaned over her and erased?
I teach Middle School science, I’m the special education learning specialist for my grade level departments, and this excuse fills me with sadness and rage. Either Huffman is exceptionally foolish (how did she think her daughter with a “severe learning disability” was going to cope after getting into a college with expectations of work she was so incapable of producing that mom had to fake her exam results?), or a complete asshole (how dare you use disability as an excuse for setting your child up for anxiety and failure when there are parents and educators of truly disabled children working their hearts out doing the hard work of helping children develop the life and academic skills they will need to function as independently as possible?). I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for either. And her 2 week sentence is a joke. If a child has learning disabilities, cheating on their behalf is the one of the worst things you could do for them. As others have noted, these people had every advantage and resource available to them to help their children achieve at their highest level, and access programs and schooling that would cater to them and their interests, benefits most teachers and parents can only dream of, but the best they could come up with was cheating. Cheating other students out of a spot in college, and cheating their children out of the opportunity to actually develop skills and character. All Huffman did with this BS apology was reveal her own bias against people with exceptional needs, and her entitlement in thinking cheating is a legitimate way to deal with an obstacle, and you can bet her children are internalizing that. That’s way more damaging than the disappointment of a low SAT score.
Even colleges have to comply with ADA parameters and provide learning services.
Lots of professional actors have severe dyslexia. It’s not like she was applying to MIT – she was trying to get into acting school!
Not to be cynical, but how do we know Felicity won’t pay to jack up the scores again? I mean in a different, more un-find-outable way?