It’s not every day that the world is talking about college admissions, and honestly, for
good reason-- if you're not applying to college, it's not that interesting.
So, when I heard about the $25 million dollar college admissions scandal affecting celebrities,
business magnates, and YouTubers-- I knew I had to make a video about this.
As a student who is currently enrolled in an elite university AND a college Youtuber,
this scandal hits really close to home.
I’m going to start by going over the facts of the initial investigation, how it happened,
who's involved, and what the outcomes will be.
One quick disclaimer before I begin: I am a college student and a college consultant;
but what I am NOT is an experienced journalist.
So, this is my first time doing a video like this.
If you have critiques as to how I'm presenting facts vs opinions or you want to see the list
of my sources, just go down into the link in the description and you'll see a whole
list of different articles that I've read in preparation for this video.
Also, feel free to leave a comment if you disagree with something; I'd love to get a
discussion started.
Now that we got all that settled, let’s get into the details of this case.
About one year ago, federal prosecutors were looking into a financial executive for securities
fraud.
The financial executive, knowing that he was toast and trying to get a bit of leniency,
told investigators that he actually had a lead about a college admissions scandal at
Yale University.
According to his story, a Yale women’s soccer coach was accepting bribes to help undeserving
students get into the Ivy League university through the recruitment process.
Within a month of receiving this tip, the FBI set up a sting operation in a Boston hotel
room.
The financial executive, tapped with a wire, met with Yale women’s soccer coach Rudy
Meredith, posing as a parent interested in paying him off in exchange for his daughter’s
admission to Yale.
Meredith, who was the Yale women's soccer head coach for 24 years, solicited a bribe
of $450,000 from the executive.
This meeting provided more than enough evidence for the FBI to further pursue Meredith, and
that they did.
He was quick to cooperate with authorities, and eventually led them to the ringleader
of this whole college admissions scandal, William “Rick” Singer.
On the surface, Singer was just a successful entrepreneur with charitable inclinations.
He was the CEO of the Edge College & Career Network, and on his website, claimed to be
a “master coach” of college admissions who could help students to establish their
“personal brand.”
But, when investigators stumbled upon evidence that this “master coach” was actually
the leader of one of the largest college admissions scandals of all time, an investigation now
known as “Operation Varsity Blues” was set into motion.
What the FBI uncovered about Singer was unimaginable to most people.
From 2011 to 2018, Singer accepted a collective $25 million from the world’s richest parents
in exchange for their childrens' acceptance to elite schools.
But how did he get them in?
He certainly wasn't telling them how to take the SAT or develop two strong passions.
In many cases, he would present a bribe to a high school athletic coach in exchange for
that coach's endorsement of the child as a “star athlete.”
He would even ask parents to provide pictures of the students so that he could photoshop
their faces onto pictures of actual varsity athletes and submit those to colleges.
If the students weren't scoring well on the SAT (spoiler alert: they weren’t), the student
would take the SAT by themselves with a “special proctor” who would correct their answers
at the end of every section.
And finally, Singer would go bribe college coaches like Rudy Meredith to ensure that
the child was admitted in to the school through the athlete recruitment program.
A whopping 33 parents were indicted in this college admissions scandal, along with 17
other people, either coaches, proctors, or Singer himself, all involved with faking these
students' college applications.
Among the parents who took part in the scandal, most notable was “Full House” TV star
Lori Loughlin and her husband, whose name I can't pronounce (Read it right there).
They were arrested earlier this week, and their daughters, one of which is a YouTuber
herself with almost 2 million *subscribers*, are reportedly dropping out of USC, where
they are on paper, rowers.
Like I mentioned, one of the daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli, has a YouTube channel with
just under 2 MILLION subscribers.
Since news of the admissions scandal broke, though, she hasn’t been doing so hot.
Olivia Jade immediately disabled comments on all of her YouTube videos, and her most
recent video amassed over 20,000 dislikes.
According to some sources, Olivia Jade has already lost a brand deal with Sephora and
other brands she partners with are considering dropping her as well.
None of the indicted parents or their children have released official statements about the
scandal yet, and it is unclear whether all the students knew what their parents were
doing.
But, Ido have to go out of reporter mode here and just say this-- if you know so little
about the SAT that you aren’t weirded out when your proctor comes over to “grade”
the test for you, then you should NOT be attending an elite college.
I’m sorry.I said it.
So that was a quick recap of the story, or at least what we know now as of March 16th.
Before I get into the lawsuits that were filed in response to this scandal and and talk a
little bit about my own opinions on how this is going to affect the college admissions
process in the future, I want to give a shoutout to our sponsor, Crimson Education.
Crimson provides top-of-the-line college consulting services (yes, the real kind).
Just this month, they released this really cool database of extracurricular activities,
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When you work with Crimson, they will also will put together a full team of admissions
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They are also offering a free 20 minute consultation so check out the link in the description if
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That's $500,000 less than some people I know...
Oh, and if you are interested in learning about how to improve your SAT score, write
your college essays, find activities that you're passionate about, and general college
admissions stuff, I'm your guy.
Please hit this video with a big fat like to show that you appreciate it and subscribe
to my channel, I post weekly on Saturdays.
So, back to the video.
This college admissions scandal was super alarming to me when I first read about it.
But, as I continued to research the topic, I realized that things like this have happened
before, and they happen pretty much all the time, it's just that it never happens on this
large of a scale.
Take, for example, Jared Kushner's admissions into Harvard.
Yes, that’s the son of law of the president of the United states, and husband of Ivanka
Trump’s.
He bought himself into Harvard.
How do I know this?
One of the administrators at the Frisch school, where Jared attended, stated the following
in an interview regarding Kushner’s acceptance into Harvard: “His GPA did not warrant it,
his SAT scores did not warrant it.
We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen.
Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted.
It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought
should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”
How did Jared get into Harvard?
We don't know much, but what we do know is while Jared was looking for colleges, his
father pledged $2.5 million to Harvard University, a University that he did not even attend himself,
to be paid in ten monthly installments of $250,000.
What I’m trying to say by bringing up this example is that given our current college
admissions system, the ultra wealthy will always find a way to get ahead.
They have been doing it since this process started, and they always will.
The only thing that sets the recent college admissions scandal apart from others is the
sheer magnitude.
Whether a parent donates $5 million to Harvard or $500,000 to William Singer, the result
is the same: a super wealthy and remarkably mediocre student takes the place of a hardworking,
intelligent kid who could've gotten into that university and better taken advantage of its
resources.
So, as we rave about this college admissions scandal, let’s remember that this isn’t
anything new, and we should place the burden on the universities to create an admissions
system in which extreme wealth result in extreme benefits.
Lashing out Olivia Jade on instagram, not going to be super helpful.
And, luckily, placing the blame on the colleges themselves is EXACTLY what people are doing!
Recently, a few college students filed a lawsuit against several universities including Yale,
Georgetown, and Stanford, seeking damages and the refunding of all application fees.
They stated that the colleges failed to maintain an admissions process that was fair to all
and free of fraud.
Now, like I said, I am all for keeping colleges accountable for maintaining a fair admissions
process.
But unfortunately, I do not think that lawsuits of this sort will really go anywhere or pay
out.
The first reason is that you can't say one person deserves admission to an elite school.
College admissions officers at Princeton University famously said that they could fill up their
class up 5-6 times over and still have excellent choices when it comes to their applicant pool.
So, the plaintiffs in this case have no real way of proving that Olivia Jade, for example,
"took" their spot.
The second reason that I think this lawsuit won't pay out is that the students have a
sort of unrealistic ideal for how thoroughly colleges should be checking whether each extracurricular
activity is valid.
Applications include a whole host of different parts such as application essays, letters
of recommendation, activities lists, and a lot of subjective things that are near impossible
to prove the validity of.
Ultimately, colleges hire sports coaches expecting integrity from them, and when students like
you and me fill out our college applications, colleges expect integrity from us as well.
When we break that trust, maybe we’ll get into USC, but maybe we'll also become the
spotlight of a national scandal and be embarrassed forever.
To me personally, that risk is much more costly than the reward of an "elite" university.
That’s it for this video guys, again comment down below if you have any thoughts you want
to add on to this conversation.
I will try my best to respond to each and every one of them because I think this is
super important.
Speaking about super important things, 10,000 subscribers is RIGHT around the corner, and
I want to do a special video for you guys.
Please let me know in the comments what you want to see as a 10,000 subscriber special.
Right now I have a few ideas floating around, I could do a video with my girlfriend, I could
do a vlog type video like a day in my life at Princeton, I mean the video is something
I want to do for you guys so whatever you suggest, I will do.
That said, if you haven't subscribed already, help me get to 10,000, 20,000 whatever I'm
at and I'll see you next week!
Bye!