AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Either way, she had to finish this job so she could have her life back.
Montford entrance qualifications were steep. Greg was waiting for them so, sitting at her table later that afternoon, she read through them, studying the various methods by which they measured academic proficiency. She visited websites of private institutions that issued accredited testing opportunities. Compared them to accepted public scholastic exams.
If acceptance into the university was behind the threats against Will, an attorney defending him in court would need to have the statistics she was compiling.
She had to have them in order to fairly compare the specific entrance qualifications of individual applicants.
Addy knew from experience that any one of the names she’d given Greg Richards could easily file suit against the university. Especially with athletics involved.
These days, courts were looking closely at the things universities covered up with regard to their athletes.
Her search engine stalled briefly between sites. Addy listened to her fountain.
The website for the testing facility she was looking at declared that it had been founded by college professors from Yale and Georgetown. Their tests were administered under strict supervision at secure sites during regularly scheduled intervals. They appeared to be valid and legitimate, so she moved on to the next facility.
Several hours of research later, Addy had found nothing of concern regarding Montford’s entrance exam practices.
She moved on to scholarship applicants. She performed a search of their student records and compiled various testing and GPA data into a spreadsheet. From there she made three lists: applicants who’d been denied entrance due to lack of scholarship funds, those who’d been denied due to lack of qualifications and those who’d been granted scholarships and entrance in spite of the fact that they lacked the entrance qualifications.
Looking up only specific names might have gained her the information pertinent to the question at hand, but any prosecutor or civil attorney would search out all possible incidents of discrimination. Just because one person sued didn’t mean there’d only been one who’d been wronged. And the case would be much stronger if there were more.
Thinking like an attorney was what Addy did best. It was why Will had hired her.
She wasn’t there to think like a woman—about the man next door.
She looked over the scholarship applicants who were turned down due to lack of qualifications. Six of the names she’d given to Greg Richards were listed among the more than two hundred applicants who’d been turned down for scholarships due to low test scores the semester that Randi Parsons Foster had privately accepted Susan Farley into the basketball program.
Which gave rise to a fourth search. Students who’d been admitted to the university without meeting academic standards. On scholarship and not, at any time in university history. Will Parsons and Randi Parsons Foster needed that spreadsheet to be empty.
Addy held her breath, expecting it to be empty.
It wasn’t.
Eleven names were on that list.
There were eleven times in the more than one hundred years the university had been in existence that students had been admitted without the proper qualifications.
Skimming the list quickly, Addy wanted first and foremost to assure herself that Susan Farley wasn’t named there. The female basketball player posed the biggest risk to the university based on the perceived benefit her time at Montford had provided to her. She had measurable assets, which meant measurable damages to those who’d been denied the opportunity she’d been granted.
There it was. Second on the list. Farley, Susan. The girl’s high school grade point average had been a full point lower than Montford’s minimum acceptance score. Looking further, she noted that Susan’s collegiate GPA had been above minimum by the end of that first semester, and according to official records, the girl had maintained an average that met Montford guidelines through graduation.
All bad news to Addy. The point could be argued that Montford’s superior tutelage had fostered the girl’s higher scores, which could then be argued in defense of the external economic value theory that would award damages against Will and the university if charges were pressed.
The worst-case scenario would be if there was proof that Susan’s assignments and tests had actually been written by another university student. It happened. Her first year in practice, Addy had argued a case against a junior college for expelling a student due to a low GPA when athletes with equally low classroom performance had been allowed to stay. She’d been able to prove false testing—papers being turned in by athletes that had actually been written by someone paid to write them on the athlete’s behalf.
In lieu of an expensive civil lawsuit, the college had allowed Addy’s client to remain enrolled and paid for a private tutor for her client, after which her client’s performance had improved substantially. He’d graduated just below honors and entered a four-year degree program at a state college. The athletes who’d been involved in educational fraud had been expelled. She had no idea what had happened to them.
Addy’s mind shot memories like bullets, reverberating back and forth, blocking her focus from the here and now.
From the third name on the spreadsheet of eleven. Right below Farley.
She’d seen it. She just didn’t want to be in possession of the knowledge.
Didn’t believe it. So she performed another search. This one for specific test score data. She rearranged the information by date, most recent first.
And the name rose to the top.
Mark Heber.
