Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal

Introduction

The operation of William Rick Singer was organized around the objective of rigging the college admissions process (Pascus). His clients were wealthy elites looking to secure for their children a place among the nation's top colleges. Singer had a host of accomplices working with him: a test taker, Ivy League coaches willing to take a bribe to allow a student to pass herself off as an athlete, a test administrator, an athletic director, a head coach — the list went on and on. In total, as of summer 2019, more than 50 people had been implicated in the scheme — from high-ranking partners on Wall Street to Hollywood actresses to employees of America's top-ranked universities. Operation Varsity Blues, as the investigation was known to law enforcement officials, had exposed the underbelly of American higher education and the lengths the rich would go to make sure their kids could get the credentials needed to make the family proud.

The Scale and Structure of the Scheme

Singer used two firms to control the operation. The first was Key Worldwide Foundation, known as The Key, and the second was The Edge College and Career Network. While federal investigators were only able to round up a few dozen parents, Singer confessed to helping more than 700 families take advantage of his services to get their children into top-tier schools (Winter, Burke). All said and done, Singer was charged with orchestrating a $25 million admissions scheme that started in 2011 and ended when he was arrested in early 2019 in a headline-making bust that sent some of the nation's most well-connected people running for cover.

Singer knew what every wealthy parent wanted: acceptance among their peers. One way to achieve that acceptance was to show that one could get one's children into the best schools, regardless of how bright or academically challenged those children might be. Singer reeled in his big fish by appearing at conventions and seminars, using speaking themes like "Raising a Balanced Child in an Affluent Environment" to lure his wealthy clients (Armstrong). Word of mouth spread as well. He had hundreds of clients over the course of a decade — many of them from the same elite social circles. Higher education in America is a big business, operating as an elite credentialing system much the way a luxury brand offers prestige goods to wealthy clients.

High-Profile Defendants and the USC Connection

Among the biggest names revealed in the bust were Lori Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, whose daughters' admission to USC was purchased to the tune of half a million dollars (Pascus). Another prominent name was Felicity Huffman: she paid The Key $15,000 to have one of Singer's accomplices proctor her daughter's SAT test. While Huffman pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two weeks in jail, 250 hours of community service, and a $30,000 fine, her Hollywood peer Lori Loughlin chose to fight the charges. Her case was still pending as of October 2019. The irony is that Loughlin's daughter Olivia Jade was yachting with a friend on the yacht of the Chairman of USC's Board of Trustees at the very moment her mother was being arrested by federal agents. How much did that chairman know or suspect? That information will probably never come to light, but one can reasonably surmise that at that level of power, one does not ask questions when a friend's daughter — known up to that point only for a YouTube makeup channel — gets admitted to USC.

Considering that Agustin Huneeus Jr. had also bribed USC officials to get his daughter admitted, one should start wondering just how rampant the scheme truly was and how much figures like Rick Caruso — the billionaire Chairman of USC's Board of Trustees — actually knew. Huneeus Jr. was no small player himself: he was "owner of a family wine vineyard in Napa Valley" and was "accused of participating in both the college entrance cheating scheme and the college recruitment scheme for his daughter, including bribing USC senior associate athletic director Donna Heinel and Jovan Vavic, the USC water polo coach" (Pascus). Huneeus and Loughlin were far from the only ones to get their children into USC through Singer's network.

Doug Hodge, a former Pimco CEO, was charged with paying The Key nearly half a million dollars to get two of his children into USC. Michelle Janavs was another: she went through USC's volleyball program to secure her child's admission. Elisabeth Kimmel, a media executive, got her son onto USC's track team for approximately half a million dollars paid to Singer's Key. Toby MacFarlane paid a quarter million to Singer's Key to place his daughter on USC's soccer team. Marci Palatella paid half a million to get her son onto USC's football team. Bill McGlashan Jr. was charged with bribing USC's athletic director to secure his child's admission. Devin Sloane paid $200,000 to Singer to place his child on USC's water polo team. John Wilson paid Singer half a million dollars to get his three children into USC, Stanford, and Harvard. Homayoun Zadeh was charged with paying Singer a bribe to get his daughter onto USC's lacrosse team, even though she did not play the sport. Bob Zangrillo paid $200,000 to Singer to have his daughter accepted as an athletic recruit (Pascus).

In short, at least a third of the parents arrested under Operation Varsity Blues were sending their children to USC. How could the Chairman of the Board of Trustees not know what was going on at the school, with so many wealthy, well-connected parents using Singer to pass their children off as athletic recruits when they were anything but? Did he never think to ask Olivia Jade, while she sat on his yacht, how she enjoyed rowing on the crew team — since that was her purported ticket into the school? Apparently not. Or perhaps he simply knew better than to ask.

Conclusion

When it comes to morals and ethics, the wealthy class is no different from the criminal class in terms of using money, positions of power, and influence to get what they want. That so much of this scheme centered on USC should be grounds for opening a wider investigation not only into that school but into every other top-tier institution in the country. The reality, however, is that little systemic change is likely to follow. If this wake-up call to the rest of America can be minimized and the majority of public attention focused on celebrity defendants like Lori Loughlin, one can reasonably assume that the deeper structural problems will remain unaddressed — and that ordinary Americans will continue to be disadvantaged by a higher education system so obviously implicated in fraud that one should question whether its credentials retain any authentic meaning. Thanks in part to Lifetime's dramatization of events, the college admissions scandal risks becoming little more than pop-culture entertainment rather than a catalyst for genuine reform (Yahr).

Works Cited

Armstrong, Robert. "How Much Meritocracy Can We Take?" Financial Times, March 29, 2019. https://www.ft.com/content/a2d18024-509c-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626294

Pascus, Brian. "Every Charge and Accusation Facing the 33 Parents in the College Admissions Scandal." CBS News, June 3, 2019.

Rubin, Joel, Matthew Ormseth, and Richard Winton. "Must Reads: The Bizarre Story of the L.A. Dad Who Exposed the College Admissions Scandal." Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2019. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-morrie-tobin-college-admissions-scandal-20190331-story.html

Winter, Tom, and Minyvonne Burke. "College Cheating Ringleader Says He Helped More Than 750 Families with Admissions Scheme." NBC News, March 13, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/college-cheating-mastermind-says-he-helped-nearly-800-families-admissions-n982666

Yahr, Emily. "The 5 Most Bonkers Scenes from Lifetime's 'College Admissions Scandal' Movie." The Washington Post, October 13, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2019/10/13/most-bonkers-scenes-lifetimes-college-admissions-scandal-movie