Four Years Later: The Varsity Blues Admissions Scandal
Article by Melu Woldu, TPT Staff Writer
With yet another high school class wrapping up their college application process, it is common to come across viral videos, social media posts, and news stories detailing the grades, test scores, and extracurriculars that got certain students into prestigious American colleges and universities. Many of my peers, myself included, were guilty of binge-watching these videos as underclassmen and remember feeling an overwhelming amount of pressure to have the best test scores, grades, and activities in hopes of being the “perfect” applicant that could secure admission into a top school. The countless hours that students put into their schooling and outside commitments in an effort to market themselves to these universities highlights how the effort to achieve this level of prestige can become increasingly obsessive. The appeal has gone so far that even the wealthy and famous are seeking unethical ways to beat the system, widening the disparities between the privileged and underprivileged.
It’s no secret that wealthy parents are able to provide their children with the resources and support they need to not only succeed academically but also in every other facet of their life. For many, however, this is simply not the case, especially for marginalized groups of people. Students who are the first in their families to go to college and/or those that come from low-income backgrounds generally lack the support systems necessary to gain knowledge and advice about the college admissions process. As a first-generation student myself, I worried early on about who I could trust to provide guidance on how I could be successful throughout my college search process.
Meanwhile, the rich have used their status and wealth to extend power and get their children into various elite universities like the University of Southern California, Georgetown, and Yale. “Operation Varsity Blues” exposed some high-profile families for taking corrupt measures to guarantee their children access.
“Varsity Blues” was the name given to the college admissions scandal in 2019 during which famous celebrities, CEOs, and lawyers were busted for trying to illegally get their children into prestigious schools through an approach called the “side door.” This approach essentially worked in two ways. The first method included parents falsifying their kids’ involvement in niche sports like sailing, rowing, and water polo by producing a fake résumé for recruitment. This was especially enticing to families as colleges leave spots for student-athletes in their incoming classes, and with fake photos and credentials sent to these schools, their children were on the way to receiving admission as athletic recruits.
The second component of the side door method involved fraudulent college entrance exam scores. Wealthy parents secured fake documentation for learning disabilities, which would allow their children more time on their exam with only the proctor supervising them. Parents bribed these test proctors to either correct the student’s answers or completely take their exam for them to achieve a more desirable score. Known as the “test-taking savant”, Mark Riddell, a Harvard graduate and former director of college entrance exam prep at IMG Academy in Florida, was paid to do exactly that.
Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli. Photo via Vanity Fair/Katherine Taylor/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
For the wealthy and resourceful, this “side door” strategy was an easy way to steal spots from students who had already been putting in the real work throughout their high school years. William “Rick” Singer has been cited as the mastermind behind this scheme with high-profile clients like Full House actress Lori Loughlin and husband Mossimo Giannulli, Felicity Huffman, and Gordon Caplan, a Connecticut-based lawyer.
In 2019 when the scandal first surfaced, 50 people were charged by federal prosecutors with almost all defendants having to forfeit assets and pay fines. On January 4th, 2023, Rick Singer was sentenced to 3.5 years in federal prison, the longest sentence in this case, and was instructed to pay $19 million in forfeitures and restitution followed by serving three years of supervised release. In March 2019, Singer also pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit racketeering and money laundering, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
With such a scandal gaining attention quickly, many have wondered what measures the colleges and universities involved are taking to ensure this does not happen again at their institutions or others. Public criticisms have sparked discussions among higher education leaders.
One higher education leader calling for changes to the admissions process is Robert Massa, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education. Massa and others have proposed ideas that suggest increasing enrollment at selective universities and developing non-negotiable firewalls between admissions and development directors. More ideas have circulated that include following in the footsteps of institutions like Johns Hopkins University. Johns Hopkins ended legacy admissions in 2014 in an effort to increase diversity and spots for first-generation, low-income students. Currently, there is general consensus among those working in college access that in order for admissions practices to show real, equitable change, institutions have to be willing to admit students from marginalized groups and create initiatives that actively represent and attract them while addressing their needs.
The extreme lengths to which powerful figures will go in order to get their children a seat at renowned colleges and universities seem unnecessary – if these families already come from a well-resourced background from the start, why would they not take advantage of their ability to pay for services like tutoring and standardized testing prep instead of bribing their way in? The college admissions process has become a fierce and competitive game as the number of applications to colleges has increased more than 150 percent in the past two decades. These statistics should not leave room for those who deceptively leverage their economic status in order to dishonestly get into college. Instead, colleges and universities must focus on increasing diversity and equity in the admissions process.
The views articulated in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the official stances of High School Democrats of America or The Progressive Teen.