Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal is one of the latest documentaries released on Netflix, detailing a scandal that broke about two years prior involving various wealthy parents, CEOS, celebrities, and actresses such as Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.
Complete with reenactments, revealing data, and forthright interviews with educators and others involved in the scandal, Operation Varsity Blues gives the audience a multifaceted look at the admissions scandal, while also highlighting acute classism in higher education.
A Total Of 50 People Were Indicted In The Scandal
Parents, test administrators, and university athletic department employees all became suspects once federal officers did a wiretap on Rick Singer, the conman behind the scandal. The unsuspecting participants incriminated themselves rather quickly over the phone as they candidly discussed details of Singer's "side door" scam.
As former federal prosecutor Robert Fisher points out, 50 indictments for a federal crime is an unusually large number - he also expressed his amazement at what the individuals revealed in their conversations with one another when they believed no one was listening in.
The Scam Was More Effective For Admissions Than Donations & Elite Sports
Singer would pitch his scam to parents who wanted their kids to get into elite schools, describing his method as a "side door." The documentary goes on to explain the different doorways rich students and their parents can take for college admission. A student enters through the "front door" of a university when they're accepted based on their merit. For Ivy League schools, this often includes success in niche sports like water polo, equestrian sports, or fencing - activities that underprivileged kids often couldn't afford or have access to.
The "backdoor" was simply about paying the students' way, one example being Jared Kushner's Harvard education. His father pledged a 2.5 million dollar donation to Harvard, and he was admitted despite having few academic accomplishments and average grades. But with this second method, despite the hefty prices, the acceptance wasn't always a guarantee - and Singer emphasized this. Singer charged these wealthy parents between $300,000 and $500,000 and with guaranteed acceptance - no matter the grades or what, if any, sports their kids played.
The Lightest Prison Sentence Was Just Three Weeks
While there was some level of justice for this string of white-collar crimes, so far, many of the individuals involved in this scandal got off easy. At the end of the documentary, a few of the sentences were listed: the shortest sentence was that of Jane Buckingham, who spent just three weeks in prison. The longest the documentary lists was a seven and eight-month sentence for Elizabeth and Manuel Henriquez. But the doc doesn't mention everyone's sentences and many, like Singer's, are still ongoing. So far, Felicity Huffman actually had the lightest sentence, of just two weeks.
This doesn't include Standford sailing coach, John Vandemoer, who served one day in jail and two years of house arrest. Vandemoer was painted in a more sympathetic light, as he was the only individual caught in the scandal that used the bribe money solely to benefit his sailing program and team - getting a lesser charge as a result.
The Dialogue Comes Directly From FBI Transcripts
While lightly edited for length and clarity, all of the dialogue in the reenactment scenes of this documentary is real and pulled directly from FBI transcripts. Not only do the parents often incriminate themselves in these transcripts by detailing the illegal activity they're participating in, but they often speak in blunt and revealing ways.
One parent comments that he doesn't care about the ethics of what they're doing and is just concerned about getting caught, while another indelicately compares the intelligence of each of her daughters as she converses with Singer.
From Mastermind To Cooperating Witness
About midway through the documentary, it's revealed that the FBI eventually confronted Singer, revealing that they had been listening in on his phone conversations and were aware of his illegal activity. They offered him a lesser sentence if he became a cooperating witness and help them take down the parents and university employees that were also involved in the admissions scandal.
Being the opportunist that he was and seeing that he didn't have much choice, Singer immediately folded and agreed to wear a wire.
Some College Coaches Were In On The Scam
Besides Vandemoer, there were several coaches that were paid off by Singer to accept students, including soccer coaches, tennis coaches, water polo coaches, and volleyball coaches from Georgetown, USC, UCLA, and several others.
In some cases, the scandal proved to have infiltrated all the way to the top of the university's athletic departments. Donna Heinel, a senior associate athletic director for USC, was involved in Singer's web of bribery and later charged.
Singer & Parents Paid $10,000 For An Adult To Take Their Kids' SAT & ACT Tests
Singer had many facets to this scam, one of them involving giving wealthy students an incredibly unfair advantage when it came to testing scores.
For example, Singer selected a 36-year-old tennis player and Harvard graduate Mark Riddell to act as a private SAT or ACT test proctor for each wealthy student. After the student would turn their test into Riddell and leave, he would re-do the test and fix any incorrect answers. Singer and parents would pay Riddell a whopping $10,000 per test.
Bribe Money Was Laundered Through A Fake Charity
Singer helped to conceal his client's large briberies by disguising them as donations to "The Key Worldwide," a fake non-profit organization run by Singer that claimed to provide after-school programs, college admissions guidance, and counseling to "underserved kids", and also funded dental work for Cambodian children.
Since they appeared to be donating to a charity, parents were able to deduct the "donation" from their income tax, essentially rewarding them for participating in an illegal scam and laundering money.
They Used Photoshop To Depict Kids In Sports They Never Participated In
Along with fake signatures on forms and fabricated test scores, Singer would have parents give him photos of their children and would have them doctored to look like action shots of them playing a sport they've never played in order to increase their chances of acceptance.
Coaches and university administrators were, in turn, bribed by Singer to go along with the lies and recruit students with no experience in the respective sport, with the understanding that they would not actually be joining the team.
Singer & Parents Encouraged Kids To Fake Learning Disabilities
Likely the most egregious detail of this scandal, FBI transcripts revealed that Singer and parents talked about encouraging their children to fake a learning disability as a way of having extra time to complete an exam.
Even more heinously, in some cases, Singer would change the white student's race and ethnicity on forms to Black or Hispanic in order to get them in on a basis of affirmative action. As one interviewee stated, "they had every advantage and they still cheated."