today on getting answers a changing landscape for college hopefuls harvard is the latest university to bring back the standardized testing requirement. we'll tell you who else might follow and what high schoolers should do. then. a

once up and coming political star in san francisco accused of raping or abusing three women. today, after our media partner, the san francisco standards year long investigation, was published. he resigned, but first six jurors were seated today in the hush money trial of former president trump. opening statements could start as soon as next week. how will this affect his presidential campaign? you're watching, getting answers. i'm kristen sze on this day two of jury selection. half the jurors spots have been filled in his hush money criminal trial. this after 100 potential jurors were brought in. but half were quickly excused after saying they could not be impartial. as this trial in new york proceeds, the u.s. supreme court heard arguments in a different case, a january 6th rioter case, but one that could ultimately affect trump. abc news reporter reena roy has the latest. >> a pool of new yorkers being questioned in a lower manhattan

court for a second day, as lawyers tried to determine which of them should help decide donald trump's fate in his historic hush money trial. multiple jurors now seated kara mcghee went through questioning but was excused because of scheduling conflicts with her job. >> i don't like him. i don't approve of what he did as president, but the right to a fair trial is extremely important. >> prosecutors and defense attorneys asking potential jurors things like, what do you make of trump and how their social media might influence their opinions? the former president ordered to be in court at times looking directly at the jury box, even smirking when one man said he's read trump's books. prosecutor is telling them no one is suggesting you can't be a fair juror because you've heard of donald trump, adding we don't expect you to have been living under a rock for the last eight years or the last 30 years, some pledging to give trump a fair shake. one man saying feelings are not facts. so long as we get those 12 and six individuals who aren't

laughing and scoffing or saying they can't be there. >> uh- trump gets what everyone deserves, and that's to be judged by a fair and impartial jury of his peers. >> trump is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a payment to adult film actress stormy daniels to keep their alleged affair secret from voters before the 2016 election. he's pleaded not guilty and has denied any wrongdoing or any relationship with daniels. >> i was paying a lawyer and marked it down as a legal expense. some accountant i didn't know. >> prosecutors have filed a formal request to hold trump in contempt over a series of recent social media posts blasting witnesses michael cohen and stormy daniels, his attorneys saying trump was only responding to their repeated attacks. reena roy, abc news, new york. >> all right, we're going to take a short break. but up next, the return of the dreaded s.a.t. why top universities are requiring scores again as part of applying to college, and how

to negotiate financial aid and improve your students chances of getting off that wait list. getting answers. we'll

list and final financial aid before making their choices. high school juniors are stressing out about the return of testing as part of college admissions. member colleges made testing optional at the start of the pandemic, and it seemed as if they were never going to come back, right. they were never going to require it again. but as you might have heard, some of the nation's top universities have recently announced they are bringing back the sat or act requirement. these schools include. there are others,

caltech here in california, the ivy league schools, harvard, yale, brown and dartmouth, and mit, which actually was first to reinstate the test requirement last year. joining us live with tips on managing testing, financial aid and waitlists and more. lauren cook, dean of college advising at jewish community high school of the bay in san francisco. lauren so happy to see you because it's college decision season and people have questions. >> yep. i'm ready. >> all right. well, we have some time. so and i'm really happy for it. i want to dive into the sats. the latest to announce that, you know, sending in an sat or act score will be required starting this fall. is harvard and also caltech. were these surprises? >> they were, in fact, first of all, it's a little late in the season for juniors, to be potentially thinking about a pivot in their testing policy. it is the middle of april, but these two schools in particular, caltech, had been in a test free

zone, so they actually weren't accepting any test scores. uh- and harvard, you know, had announced this longer test optional policy trial that i think was initially said it was going to go until about 2030. so these were both surprise us to have this kind of really hard pivot, and really a good reminder that these temporary suspension announcements are not binding commitments even to the date the school might have said they'd be waiting until right. >> but lauren, it just didn't feel so temporary because it's been this way for a few years now, right? why are universities reversing course? what are they saying? >> well, i think it can be all manner of things. first of all, a lot of these admission policies are actually set by faculty. and so there may be pressure from faculty to think about turning back to the tests, i think there's also concern that some high school transcripts are representing inflated grades. and so it's hard to sort of compare apples to apples or think you're comparing apples to apples across, high schools across the

nation. i think in some cases, at first it was nice to have all those extra applications that came up as students found that they could be freer in trying to test the waters with, highly selective options. but that may have become burdensome on some of these campuses, and frankly, we got a lot of explanation from some of those first schools. you mentioned yale and dartmouth, not as much with harvard and mit, and i do think the more institutions that change their policies, the less likely we are to hear a lot of, it's just easier for them to make this change without a lot of explanation. >> right. well, what about the main reasons for which they made testing optional in the first place? access right. early in the pandemic, obviously a lot of people just couldn't go to some place and have a test, right? take the test. but also equity, there was talk of, you know, bias and some kids couldn't do as well. they didn't have the tutoring support. are those concerns gone? >> they are not gone. and i think there's very much an

ideological debate going on in the college admission world right now about what these tests, tests are. they sufficient? are they equitable? i know just right here in the bay area, we're going to continue to have an access issue in that there aren't any test settings available right now for the act or the sat within 100 miles of the bay through the summer, and so college board and act have yet to meet the demand. and, even in this test optional sort of environment, so i would argue that we've still very much got some equity issues on the table just in trying to sit down and take the test to say nothing of what the content of the actual tests are. >> right. which leads me to, you know, obviously with these schools, the leading schools, some of the most elite institutions doing this, do you expect others to follow? because if more schools follow right, then you're really going to have a squeeze on demand. >> yeah, i think we're not done, and there are specifically a subset of schools who had some

shorter terms test optional policies announced that are set to expire this year, where we haven't yet seen them. comment, and there's a range of these schools. you can see a list of some of them on the compass education prep group website, but includes places like boston college, colgate, emory, nyu, northwestern, stanford, right here in our backyard, so i do think especially for those schools who had given a set time limit, we are going to see some announcements go one way or another, but i think for students that are concerned, if a school they are particularly interested in might reverse course, a couple of things to think about, one, were they protesting prior to the pandemic? a lot of institutions had gone test optional, close to 800, some before covid, came for some of those equity reasons. you mentioned. but for the wait. >> sorry. protesting, not protest, but, right in favor of testing in general. sorry.

>> correct. if they were in favor. yeah if they required the test before the pandemic, they are more likely to revert back to it. right. if they also had announced a short terme suspension, like some of these places that are saying, you know, the class of 2025, we don't know yet, they may be likely to revert back. and then, of course, places that have overlap, meaning that students that apply to one school that is now requiring testing again, also tend to apply to another school if those applications overlap, then it's more likely for those schools to revert and go with what their peers are doing. >> sounds like you wouldn't be surprised if stanford reinstated, right. >> we'll see. i mean, what i will say and i do want to remind, i want to remind viewers that, there is no public university in the western half of the country right now that is requiring testing for a big one for kids here in the bay area. >> you don't think they won't bring it back? >> i, i have heard from some,

higher ups at the ucs that there aren't any current plans. and even if the discussion arises again, which comes from faculty, that it would be a multi year transition option because they do have to work through the bureaucracy of proposing, voting, etc. so there shouldn't be any sudden changes with the ucs. the csus and some of our peers up in oregon and washington as well. >> okay, so now before i wrap up with this topic and move on to others, what's your advice? right, both for juniors who are now suddenly going, oh no, i need a score. but like you said, it's hard to get a test. i'm not going to be able to get a spot in may or june or whatever, what should they do? and then what about the sophomores who are coming up looking at this? they don't know where they're going to go to college yet, but should they start preparing? who should prepare? >> right, right. so i think that, staying in touch with your college counselor, hopefully you have one at your high school about what's happening with these changing policies, if you are someone who had set yourself on a course to not pursue testing, which is a larger chunk

of students than it had been in the past, you might need to revisit that decision now and think about, starting some prep and at least sitting for one test. so you've got a score in your back pocket to keep your broadest options open, again, as i noted earlier, that can be a little harder in the immediate future, than in other parts of the country, given how precious those test settings are. i do know that at this point last year, towards the end of april, act announced and opened up the fall sitting registration, for both their july and into the fall of 2024 sittings and then sat should open up their, fresh amount of seats in may. so you've got to keep an eye on those websites, get yourself booked for something, and then probably at least try to do one test again so that you've got those options on the table. >> boy, it's like scoring taylor swift tickets. it shouldn't be like that. lauren. okay. let's read. right. okay now let's talk

about the issues that concern high school seniors right now who have been maybe accepted to a couple colleges, but many are unable to decide which college to commit to because of the delay in the rollout of the new federal financial aid form known as fafsa. this means many don't have the responses back, don't much. don't know how much money, right, that their families will get, or would they have to contribute to their tuition. so what is the situation right now and what's your advice for students waiting for those numbers? >> yeah, we're still seeing a painfully slow rollout of the, simplified fafsa, but i have heard that, in this past week, colleges have all the 7 million fafsas that have been submitted, have been processed, and have been sent to colleges, so colleges should be very busy right now trying to get those documents open. process those awards and start pushing them out to students, we do have two small hang ups. one is typical each year that some families or students have made errors on their fafsas. they have just learned if there are you know,

sort of family errors and been given the ability to correct those, typically you would have been able to do it earlier in the cycle, but there are some of those errors to work out. but this year we also have apparently 30% of the fafsas with errors on them from the feds in terms of miscalculation, getting the aid. so colleges are being made aware if they've got fafsas in the bunch that have some of those miscalculations, they're being redone. so that's going to be another delay as colleges have to wait for better information to then push awards out the door. so we've still got a ways to go here before students have all of their offers and can have some sense that they're accurate. >> all right. and right now, lauren, we're in that difficult time where you've gotten your decisions right. but you haven't maybe committed yet. you still deciding many students got waitlisted by their preferred colleges. what should they do if they're in that situation? yep >> so, the most direct advice is follow the instructions you are

given by that college and colleges tend to be very clear about what they want, and maybe what they don't want. but i will say, you know, obviously everyone is going to ask you if you want to opt in to the wait list. and some students don't because they got into other places. they're excited about. but if you do want to stay on that wait list, you opt in and whatever mechanism they give to you. and then there may be some instructions about, we don't want extra recommendation letters, long emails, bouquets of flowers, others may say if you've got updates, if you've got new grades, if you've won some awards, if you've got other things to tell us about, sense your point of application. here's a little text box. it's got, you know, two 300 words limit in it. and, and you can send us something and that's it. and so i would really encourage students to follow those instructions. i sat with a group of college representatives on sunday at an event and did a quick straw poll about waitlist candidates, and they uniformly said, please do not stalk us. do

not call us every day. do not email. the squeaky wheels in this case, do not necessarily get the grease. they might get their name hung up in the admission office. as someone who is not going to get an offer of enrollment. >> so don't make freshly baked cookies or write a poem using the name of your admissions officer. nothing like that. okay. all right, lauren cook, you're always full of great information. i can't tell you how much i appreciate, and i'm sure the students out there appreciate this advice. thank you so much. >> you are so welcome. thanks for having me on. all right. >> take care. coming up next. shocking abuse and rape allegations against a once rapidly rising star in san francisco politics. after our media partner, the san francisco standard, published their investigation, the police chief responds and the man in question resigns is the stunning story.

a man who had been a rising star and seemingly teflon in san francisco politics, resigned from his powerful job. the stunning development happened after a media partner, the san francisco standard, published its investigation into john jacobo, who had been in charge of an extremely connected and well-funded housing nonprofit. in this new article, three separate women paint a picture of rape and abuse against the powerful political figure and claim that they were met with a wall of silence. joining us live in the studio now is the standard senior reporter, josh cahn, who spent a year investigating this. >> this story took about a year to come together. yes. >> and it came together, josh, today in a big way. before we go further, i just want to show people san francisco police chief bill scott's response actually, after your article was published. here it is. i won't read the whole thing, but he essentially promises a thorough investigation on this matter. so josh, let's back it up now. who

is john jacobo and what are the allegations against him? >> yeah, john jacobo is a director or was a director for a very powerful, affordable housing nonprofit in san francisco. it's called tocco, and it's actually got multiple properties around the south of market area, and they rack up millions of dollars in federal revenue to run these properties. they also channel a lot of that money into local politics. usually progressive causes. john jacobo was a director for them, and he was also a once rising star in local politics, seen as the an heir apparent to the mission district supervisor seat. however in 2021, he was publicly accused of rape and that kind of derailed his political aspirations. but did nothing to affect his status at tocco and with other community groups. >> in fact, we have video of him because we've done stories on him or involving him, right? also very active in the latino community, leading some task forces as well. right? absolutely. >> he's actually been recently serving as the spokesperson, spokesperson for the mission

street vendors association, doing tv interviews, very much trying to get back in the spotlight and kind of resurrect his career, so to speak, maybe politically, and then this story is now today had some pretty, pretty big implications. >> okay, so who are the women accusing him and what kind of evidence did you see? did they show you. >> yeah. so there are three women who have accused john jacobo of everything from domestic violence, which included strangulation to threats to harassment, stalking and then sexual assault and rape. these are the accusations means all three of these women, unbeknownst until today, filed police reports against jacobo after sasha perrigo went forward with her accusations. we confirmed that they filed the police reports. we had numerous conversations over the course of a year, making sure that we were methodical in making uh- fact checking, as well as making sure that the women were comfortable with the way that we were reporting this story, because we

wanted to make sure we got it right, because these accusations are very explosive and very damaging, and there was a lot of fear for not only their professional careers, but also their safety, because obviously when you see the story, you hear the audio recordings of him threatening one of the women. it's very clear that this is someone who could be dangerous. >> and some of the texts that were also published as part of your article exchanges between him and some other women, and they were pretty stunning. so chief scott responded today and urged sexual assault. if we can put that up again, in his tweet, you know, he urged sexual assault victims to come forward to all of them. but in your article, the women said that they felt like their police reports really went nowhere for a long time. right? yeah. >> and this is actually a common complaint. why a lot of women don't come forward with allegations of sexual abuse and violence, it's a rigorous, grueling process for the victim survivors. and a lot of times, law enforcement warns them of this, which can come off as like, you know, dissuading them. but also these women said that, hey, we filed our police

reports, we followed up, we didn't get calls back when we did get contact from police. they were not necessarily showing that they were really going after it in the course of this year of reporting, i reached out to witnesses, friends, associates of the women who had contemporaneous accounts of what happened within the days and a week or so of the incidents occurring. these people told me they never heard from police. if you're going to do a thorough investigation as one, expert, a legal counsel on the larry nassar gymnastics case told me if san francisco is going to be the progressive capital that it wants to be, you can't drop the ball on cases where you have multiple women alleging very serious crimes. >> look, usually when there is an allegation, the accused sort of becomes a pariah and the invitations to big events stop coming. did that happen to jacobo, in some cases, maybe. but actually. right after he was publicly accused of rape in 2021, a former supervisor, jane

kim, brought him to a political event, and it caused a massive amount of backlash. she ended up apologizing, but he was still able to run in a lot of the same circles that he had been in the mission district, and he still served on community organization boards, he obviously still kept his powerful job at taco. he was actually being groomed. no less to take over the financial operations of taco. i found out. and that is super alarming because if you have, hundreds of thousands of dollars at your disposal for political efforts, that makes you a real player on the level of even an elected official. so that's kind of an end around to really get his aspirations politically. >> but again, after your story aired today, you found out from taco directly that he's resigned, right? >> i got a statement from the ceo announcing that john jacobo resigned today. he is no longer with the organization. they said they were not aware of the allegations outside of his work at taco. they said they did an internal review in 2021, but didn't look at what happened

outside of his work. and i mean, obviously this is not something you expect to be happening on the job. there were a lot of rumors, speculation, people talking about other women who could be out there. what i found in the course of the reporting of this story is that people who could have done something didn't, people who could have actually looked into this and tried to help these women did not take that extra step. and that was what the story was all about. these women pleas for help, for accountability, feeling like they just kept running up against a brick wall. and that is why they decided to work with me on this story. >> so any response from him or from police today? >> so there's been no response from jacobo for this story. he did not respond to multiple requests for comment. in a detailed list of questions laying out the breadth of this story, police, as you mentioned, police chief bill scott said that they are diligently investigating this, and i would say that when you look at the kind of totality of these cases,

there's an opportunity for police to really take action. >> all right. josh, thank you so much. you can check out josh story and more of the san francisco standa

experts from around the tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. multiple reported tornadoes, the severe storms across several states at this hour. tonight, we have also just learned that seven jurors have been selected in donald trump's criminal case. those seven jurors now in place for trump's trial, including a salesman who