Felicity Huffman's daughter Sophia accepted into prestigious university 1 year after college admissions scandal
While Felicity Huffman’s daughter Sophia Macy “paid the dearest price” for her mother’s involvement in the college admissions scandal, she has landed on her feet. The aspiring actress has been accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s drama program.
The teen shared her college decision publicly in her Instagram bio (“CMU Drama ‘24”) and Yahoo Entertainment has since confirmed it.
“Felicity is so proud and grateful that Sophia has kept her chin up over the last year,” a source close to the family tells Yahoo. “It was a painful, challenging time and she pulled through it with strength and grace.”
According to the New York Post’s gossip site Page Six, the 19-year-old — who was thrust into the spotlight when her mom was indicted for paying to “fix” her SAT test results — retook the SAT. (Per the program website, “All freshman applicants to the School of Drama are required to take either the SAT or ACT test.”)
Sophia will begin the prestigious program in Pittsburgh this fall, if the coronavirus allows, the same time her younger sister, Georgia Macy, 18, starts at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Sophia, who attended Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, was unaware that her Desperate Housewives star mom paid disgraced college admissions expert William “Rick” Singer $15,000 to have a proctor improve her SAT scores after she turned in the exam. Huffman was arrested in March 2019 as part of the wide-spread scam. She quickly pleaded guilty — saying she cheated the system in "desperation to be a good mother” and to help Sophia, who she said has an unspecified learning disability — and served 11 days in prison last fall.
In a letter to Huffman’s judge written by William H. Macy — Huffman’s husband and Sophia’s dad — the Shameless actor said “Sophia has certainly paid the dearest price” for Huffman’s involvement in the scheme. She had been accepted to multiple colleges, but her heart was set on one, “which, ironically, didn’t require SAT scores.” However, on her way to a final audition for the unspecified school’s drama program two days after Huffman’s arrest, the school withdrew the invitation. “She called us from the airport in hysterics,” he recalled. The girl also suffered nightmares from the FBI raiding the family’s home and arresting her mother.
When Huffman was sentenced in September, she said, “One of the hardest things I’ve had to face after my arrest is when my daughter found out what I had done and she said to me, ‘I don’t know who you are anymore, Mom. And then she broke down and asked, ‘Why didn’t you believe in me? Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?’ I had no adequate answer for her then. I have no adequate answer for her now. I can only say, I am so sorry, Sophia. I was frightened, I was stupid, and I was so wrong.”
Sophia took a gap year after graduating last June — and it proved to be a wise decision. She was cast in the second season of Jordan Peele’s Twilight Zone reboot earlier this year. The 19-year-old will appear in the episode titled “Among the Untrodden” with Abbie Hern — before she even starts college.
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