No offense, but are you really a lawyer? How can the parents who submitted false applications be guilty of fraud if they PAID for all these things after their children were admitted?
Suppose my name is Albert S. Child and I earn an annual salary of $50,000. I go to a Lamborghini dealership to buy a car, and I tell the sales representative that my annual income is $25 million. I fill out a purchase contract as John Q. Smith, pay $250,000 cash for a car, and drive it off the lot. Did I defraud the car dealership?
In the case of a college admissions process, there is even LESS of a fraud case to be made because the applicant is almost always paying a fee just to file the application.
That's not an analogous example. A better example is this: Suppose I apply for membership to a prestigious club that requires not only money, but also a certain pedigree. On the application I falsely claim that I have a net worth of $4 billion, a BS in engineering from MIT, an MBA from Wharton, sit on the board of directors of several publicly traded corporations, hold multiple patents, and was the CEO of a small biotech company that I sold for billions of dollars -- all supported by false and fraudulent documentation. The club, relying upon my misrepresentations, offers me a membership, which I gladly accept, and pay the $250,000 initiation fee and $50,000 annual dues with my life's savings from a small inheritance and a second mortgage on my raised ranch. Six months later, one of the club members catches me working the night shift stocking shelves at Walmart, and seeks to revoke my club membership on the grounds that I misrepresented myself on the application. I respond, "What's the big deal, I paid the fees." Did I defraud the club?