You really can’t make this about “why would someone turn over their lives to get into Yale”.
There are scams every month, ranging from people ripping off lonely singles, people pretending to be lawyers and actually showing up in court to “defend” their “client”; don’t forget Theranos and all the other VERY sophisticated lying, cheating, Ponzi schemes, and a wide range of Nigerian Prince schemes.
People run fraudulent, complicated scams all the time and sometimes the payoff seems quite pathetic compared to the time, expense, and hassle of the prep. The “lonely hearts” ones particularly- people pretending to be someone else so they can gain access to an elderly person’s bank account and steal $15K? Or someone faking a CNA license and ending up a caretaker for a dementia patient and stealing a $3K pair of earrings before they get caught?
You fake a CNA license– you’re still working as a CNA, as unglamorous and hard as that is, until you figure out where the key to the safe deposit box is, and show up with your patient pretending to be the daughter….
Yale- sure. Tomorrow it will be someone pretending to have graduated from Southern CT State with a Series 7 license and at sentencing the judge will be wondering “why”?