Forget studying hard, putting in practice, and volunteering in your community.
It turns out that if you want to get into the best colleges, none of that stands a chance
against rich parents, Photoshop skills, and a scammer with a side door.
Here's what's come out about the college admissions scandal that's tripping up the rich and famous.
Fifty people have been charged in what the FBI has code-named Operation Varsity Blues
a multi-million dollar college admissions scam that helped the children of wealthy parents
cheat their way into the country's most elite colleges.
According to NBC News, the families of these prospective students - including celebrities
Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman reportedly paid a whopping $25 million to fake athletic
profiles, bribe coaches and administrators, and cheat on college exams to help their children
gain acceptance into prestigious universities like Stanford, Georgetown, and Yale.
The scam, which US Attorney Andrew Lelling described as, quote, "the largest college
admissions scam ever prosecuted," was reportedly orchestrated by William Rick Singer, the man
behind California-based college prep business The Edge College & Career Network — also
known as "The Key."
The alleged fraudster reportedly used The Key and Key Worldwide Foundation, his business'
nonprofit arm, to funnel tax-free bribes to top athletic coaches and administrators.
Singer has already pleaded guilty to counts of racketeering conspiracy, money laundering
conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and obstruction of justice, and agreed
to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
NBC News reported that out of the 50 people charged, 33 were parents, nine were college
coaches, and the rest were test administrators and other people in charge of managing the
scheme, like Singer.
The FBI wasn't looking for a college admissions scandal when it stumbled upon the multi-million
dollar scheme.
According to NBC News, the bureau launched a probe in May 2018 after uncovering evidence
of large-scale fraud taking place during a different undercover investigation.
Since then, Operation Varsity Blues has spanned 10 months and six states, involving 200 agents.
The probe utilized court-authorized wiretaps, recorded phone calls, and a key cooperating
witness: William Singer himself.
According to one recorded phone call, Singer has claimed more than 800 families have used
his so-called "side door" to buy their way into college.
In court documents obtained by The Washington Post, Singer said,
"What we do is we help the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school.
... They want guarantees, they want this thing done."
Standardized test scores are already viewed as a gateway into the best universities, with
their results supposedly making the difference between a scholarship and a rejection letter.
Those families with means to spare can pay top dollar for the best SAT prep courses and
tutors the country has to offer, which undeniably gives affluent students a leg up on their
peers.
But this alleged scam takes things to a whole new level, with wealthy parents going far
beyond test preparation, into straight-up score fabrication.
"Especially with kids, I think we put so much pressure and stress on them.
A lot of it is unnecessary."
According to the New York Times, participants in the scheme paid anywhere between $15,000
and $75,000 per test to help their kids cheat on the SAT and ACT by providing them with
answers in advance, correcting their work afterward, or even having completely different
people take the tests while posing as their children.
One man hired to help facilitate the scheme provided his services at roughly $10,000 a
pop, changing students' answers and taking tests for them, with the funds for his work
being funneled through a charity Singer operated.
To make matters worse, NBC News reported that Singer encouraged parents to have their children
falsely diagnosed with learning disabilities in order to get medical clearance that would
allow them more time to take their tests.
This forced children to take their exams in a special location in either West Hollywood
or Houston where Singer allegedly bribed the proctor to alter the scores.
Collegiate sports recruitment historically allows for the admission of students with
lower grades and test scores than the rest of the academic class.
For this reason, Singer allegedly racked up $25 million from parents between 2011 and
2018 for the purposes of bribing Division 1 coaches and university administrators.
The plan was to recruit students with subpar GPAs and test scores as athletes even if those
students didn't even play sports.
In some cases, their schools didn't even offer the sports they claimed to play.
"That's preposterous."
According to the New York Times, Singer created fake sports profiles for students that outlined
impressive but totally made up athletic credentials.
He even went as far as to encourage parents to supply staged or Photoshopped images of
their children playing sports.
In one instance, a family paid $1.2 million to frame their daughter as the co-captain
of a prominent Southern California club soccer team in order to get her recruited to Yale.
She didn't even play soccer, and the coach of Yale's team, Rudy Meredith, knew it.
But instead of turning away the fraud, he allegedly accepted a $400,000 bribe to recruit
her, reportedly all while knowing that her athletic profile wasn't real.
At some point Singer's lies started becoming so unbelievable that at least one admissions
counselor at the University of Southern California raised concern.
The situation was reportedly smoothed over by USC's Senior Associate Athletic Director
Donna Heinel, who allegedly served as a backbone for Singer's USC-related admissions fraud,
along with water polo coach Jovan Vavic.
Vavic and Heinel reportedly worked to recruit kids with bogus athletic profiles, like one
student who claimed to be a three-year varsity letter winner in water polo, but included
a photo of someone else playing the sport in her application.
The most egregious example of their fakery is probably the student whose school never
offered water polo to begin with.
Reports say that the student's parents purchased water polo equipment on Amazon to stage a
photoshoot, but a high school guidance counselor still raised questions with USC's admissions
office.
Heinel allegedly lied as part of a cover-up, telling the USC Director of Admissions that
the student didn't play water polo at school, but instead at the LA Water Polo Club, and
in international tournaments.
Heinel also allegedly earned herself $20,000 worth of bribes per month after recruiting
a fake basketball player, and even helped further the scheme by suggesting Singer use
that student's fake profile as a template for future women's basketball recruits.
According to The Orange County Register, both Vavic and Heinel were fired in the wake of
the investigation.
Reportedly, Full House actress Lori Loughlin was pretty much begging USC's admissions counselors
to have mercy on her two daughters.
The star, along with her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli, whose name you
may recognize from Target, reportedly paid for $500,000 worth of bribes.
According to NBC News, a phone call recorded by the FBI revealed that Loughlin also tried
to position her daughter as the L.A. Marine Club team's crew coxswain.
The actress reportedly arranged to have her daughter photographed on a rowing machine
to make things look extra authentic.
If you haven't guessed the punchline yet, her daughter does not row and the coxswain
doesn’t even row anyway - they’re the one sitting up front yelling “ROW”.
According to CNN, Giannulli and Loughlin were charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud
and honest services mail fraud.
The two were both arrested, indicted, and forced to surrender
their passports, with the couple's separate bail charges totalling to $1.25 million.
Apparently, Shameless actor William H. Macy was wrapped up in exactly the kind of scam
you'd expect from one of his on-screen characters.
"Ma'am, I answered your question.
I answered the darn - I'm cooperating here!"
The star, along with his wife, Desperate Housewives actress Felicity Huffman, reportedly paid
$15,000 to ensure their daughter unlimited time to take her SATs.
According to NBC News, Huffman also looked into boosting their daughter's SAT scores
by allowing someone else to take the test for her.
Ultimately, according to a recorded phone call, she decided against the substitution
after fearing that the test score discrepancy would be too suspicious.
According to TMZ, the FBI arrested the Desperate Housewives star at gunpoint around 6 a.m.
on March 12, the morning the news broke.
Later that day, she was released on a $250,000 bond, and ordered to surrender her passport.
Stanford University's head sailing coach, John Vandemoer, almost raked in $770,000 from
Singer's scam.
According to a federal indictment, the veteran coach held recruitment spots for two students
who had been falsely talked up as competitive sailors.
He did so in exchange for hefty bribes made out to the Stanford sailing program.
These payments were allegedly funneled through Singer's charity foundation, though neither
student ended up attending the university.
Vandemoer allegedly got involved during the summer of 2017 when he agreed to hold a sailing
team spot for one of Singer's clients in exchange for some cash.
According to the indictment, the coach received a $110,000 payment made out to the sailing
program in May 2018 when the student deferred his application for a year.
Later that summer, the student decided to attend a different university altogether,
and Vandemoer allegedly agreed to hold another spot in exchange for a $500,000 payment which
Mercury News reported was never actually paid.
That student also decided to attend a different school, but Singer reportedly still paid the
coach $160,000 via his charitable accounts as a deposit for a future student's spot.
As a result of his federal indictment and guilty plea for racketeering conspiracy, Vandemoer
was fired from his coaching job of 11 years.
He told the court that he didn't actually pocket any of the $270,000 he did receive,
but rather used it to buy equipment for the sailing team.
Hopefully the new coach ends up liking it.
Getting recruited for UCLA's soccer team is a dream for young athletes across the nation,
but it comes at a price approximately $100,000 per spot if you don't have the athletic prowess
to win a position on your own.
According to the Los Angeles Times, UCLA's men's soccer coach, Jorge Salcedo , was charged
with conspiracy to commit racketeering for allegedly taking hundreds of thousands of
dollars in bribe money to recruit soccer players who didn't actually play competitively for
the school's men's and women's teams.
Salcedo was reportedly paid by Singer from his charitable account, with the money being
transferred to a sports marketing company Salcedo controlled.
From one student's parents, the coach allegedly received 2,150 shares of Facebook stock, worth
over $250,000.
Salcedo was charged with conspiracy to commit racketeering, indicted, and placed on leave
by the university.
Beyond the celebrity part of the scandal, the reason this scam hit so hard is because
it highlighted an already big problem in college admissions.
While this case is uniquely illegal, the idea that the wealthy can buy their way into top
schools is really nothing new.
Children of affluent families have always had a leg up.
The Los Angeles Times reported that it's not abnormal for parents to hire admissions counselors
who edit or rewrite their children's college essays, which is easy to see as simply cheating.
Outside of the exam room, the wealthy can also afford private coaches to guide their
children toward becoming recruited athletes, and can even shell out cash for their kids
to perform community service in developing countries, padding out their transcripts with
some charitable flair.
"I'm in love with Asia, I guess, that's just what brings me here.
My dad inspired me to do volunteering."
Rich people also have the option to make significant donations to universities in return for preferential
treatment.
The only difference is that pay-to-play money usually gets handed off in plain sight, dressed
up as a gift for the university at large not passed off as covert bribes in a conspiracy.
Either way, though, it's pretty unfair, leaving many students who legitimately earned their
way into a school left out in the cold.
. "I mean we're all in the honors college too, so it's — it kind of hurts when you
see someone getting in for not really doing anything, you know?"
As many commentators have pointed out, the real victims in the scam aren't the colleges,
or the parents they're the students, both those who were passed over unfairly, and in
some cases, even the children of the filthy rich schemers.
According to the New York Times, many students who benefited from the scam weren't even aware
their parents were stacking the deck.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.