After the Federal Bureau of Investigation released documents incriminating nearly 50 people in a college admissions scandal on Tuesday, many wondered how applicants were able to cheat on standardized tests without raising eyebrows. Thirty-two parents, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were named in the indictment, which alleged the defendants — principally parents of high school-aged children — conspired to use bribery and other forms of fraud to facilitate their children's admission to elite universities, including Stanford University, the University of Southern California, the University of California - Los Angeles and others.

Particularly glaring in the 204-page indictment is that the majority of the children, whose parents were charged on Tuesday, had seamlessly secured disability accommodations on their standardized tests. This enabled them to have additional time on the exams and to take them alone with the proctor at a private testing facility that was located, in some cases, thousands of miles from the test-takers' residences.Typically, the ACT and SAT are administered to large groups of students at their high schools on specific dates with strict time limits.

Students with disabilities — ranging from visual impairment to dyslexia and so on — can request extended time on the tests and in some circumstances, can ask to take the test alone, under the supervision of a proctor employed by ACT, Inc. or the College Board, which administers the SAT. To verify the student's disability, the College Board requires the student submit proper documentation, such as the recommendation of a physician, school official or psychologist.

According to the College Board website, the organization "will consider any accommodation for any documented disability." Accommodations include, but are not limited to, time extensions, a private testing room, extra breaks or a scribe who writes dictated answers. In the case of what the FBI are calling "The College Entrance Exam Cheating Scheme," parents would connect with a representative from the Key Worldwide Foundation, a nonprofit corporation based in Newport Beach, Calif.

The founder of The Key is identified as Cooperating Witness 1 in the indictment.CW-1 allegedly instructed clients to purport their children had learning disabilities to obtain medical documentation that the College Board and ACT, Inc. typically require for granting time extensions. In one instance, CW-1 told defendant Gordon Caplan to instruct his daughter "to be stupid" when the psychologist evaluated her, the documents allege.

Once the disability documentation was obtained and the students granted extended time, which often enabled them to take the exam over two days instead of one in a private setting, CW-1 reportedly instructed clients to change the location of the test center to one of the two test centers he claimed to "control": the West Hollywood Test Center, at a private college prep school in West Hollywood, or the Houston Test Center, located at a public high school in Houston.

The complaint claims CW-1 instructed parents to "fabricate a reason," like a "bar mitzvah or a wedding," that required their children to take the test in Houston or West Hollywood instead of at their own high schools. CW-1 allegedly bribed test administrators at the test centers to allow a third party to take the exams in the place of the students, or to serve as a proctor while providing the students with correct answers, or to review and correct the students' answers after completion of the exam.

"In many instances," the complaint stipulates, "the students taking the exams were unaware that their parents had arranged for this cheating."Clients paid CW-1 between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, with payments typically sent as "donations" to the KWF charity, documents show.Tuesday's revelations "are not surprising to any of us," said Kristen Hansen, Director of the College and Career Center at Piedmont High School in Piedmont, Calif."I regularly see things that make my stomach turn," she said.

Hansen noted a "recent trend" of students securing testing accommodations that allow for extended time. Often, "these students don't need to have severe learning differences to be eligible.""It looks like what happened here relates to schools not having the resources to accommodate all of the students who need additional time," she said. This, in turn, spurs the creation of private testing centers, which are regulated by the College Board.

"The regulation of these centers is something that has to be looked into," she said. "Are they being monitored on video, and so on?"

The College Board provided the following statement to SFGATE:

"Today's arrests resulting from an investigation conducted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts send a clear message that those who facilitate cheating on the SAT - regardless of their income or status - will be held accountable. The College Board has a comprehensive, robust approach to combat cheating, and we work closely with law enforcement as part of those efforts. We will always take all necessary steps to ensure a level playing field for the overwhelming majority of test takers who are honest and play by the rules."

Regulations only go so far. The underlining problem, Hansen said, is that "college admissions have become so competitive, people feel like they have to do something to get better scores.""Colleges have sort of created this," she continued. "A lot of schools still put a ton of weight on standardized testing," including the University of California.

Some programs are trending away from testing requirements, acknowledging that a single-day exam can be influenced by a handful of variables, ranging from the student's access to test preparation services to the temperature in the testing room."It's one day of testing that has so many inconsistencies and inequities associated with it," Hansen concluded. "This issue pre-exists the scandal."