“They have a strong case, Joy,” Mr. Spence says. “It’s not a slam dunk, but it’s pretty close. There are arguments we can make in court, of course. There are always arguments. But you have to understand these are very serious charges against you, and you’re in much deeper legal jeopardy than many of your codefendants. Some of them were caught up in the SAT scam, but not the bribing of coaches at the universities themselves, or vice versa. You are charged with both,” Mr. Spence says.

“I didn’t bribe anyone. I made a donation to a charity,” my mom insists, and this time, it is me who laughs, though it comes out as a desperate puff of air. I reread the complaint again last night, all two hundred pages, and I’m still blown away by how simple the scam was. Parents paid money to a nonprofit, and Dr. Wilson then used that money to pay off coaches at various schools across the country to add students to their team rosters as recruited athletes. Once deemed a recruit, voilà, the student was pretty much an automatic admit, despite, you know, not playing the sport.

According to the application to SCC that Dr. Wilson submitted on my behalf, I’m a renowned pole vaulter. This is hilarious for a number of reasons, not least of which, I still have a scar under my chin from when I tripped with a pair of scissors in kindergarten. Had to get seven stitches.

In other words, I learned my lesson early about not running with pointy objects.

This scheme, falsely identifying me as an athlete, was what Dr. Wilson called the side door to admissions. The front door is the way Levi got into Harvard: blood, sweat, and tears. The back door is the way Xander got into Princeton: His parents donated a library wing. The side door was the only way in for people like me: not smart enough to get in on their own, not quite gilded enough to buy their way in legally.

“I’m also worried that if you don’t plead guilty, the prosecutor will pile on more charges—tax fraud, conspiracy—that can add additional significant time,” Mr. Spence says. I notice his cuff links are tiny gold handprints, a surprising choice. Mr. Spence must have his own family. Perhaps the four-figure hourly rate he’s currently accruing camping out at our house is being spent on private school for his own precious children so they too can one day go to law school at Stanford and defend actresses from criminal charges.

“I am not going to prison,” my mother says.

“I think you should plead guilty, Mom,” Isla says.

“Me too,” I say, my voice froggy, like it hasn’t been used enough lately. “But not because of my target letter. Because otherwise it’s too big a risk for you.”

“No way,” my mother says.