What she did was wrong and it does matter but it’s the harm to society that concerns me more than the potential loss to the college’s brand. I’d convict if the proof was there, but I’d be a lot more interested in community service in this lady’s case because she already admitted guilt.
I'm not sure that what she did here should even be characterized as "wrong" in any sort of legal context. Consider this:
1. She paid a lot of money to bribe college admissions officials to get her child into a school. Rich donors engage in different forms of "back-door bribery" to get their unqualified children into schools all the time -- by making large donations to the endowments of these schools.
2. She paid someone to rig her child's SAT scores. Colleges have already rigged their admissions processes to admit unqualified minorities all the time -- so clearly the SAT scores aren't relevant to the process for EVERYONE.
3. Her child allegedly wouldn't have qualified for admission to the college without these "illegal" actions by the mother. And yet the child was still in school a couple of years later -- which meant she was obviously capable of meeting the school's academic standards for a student.
Like I said ... I don't think this woman committed a crime at all. Her only "crime" was that she exposed the entire college admissions process as a farce.