ENCORE: Making Up The Grade: The College Admissions Scandal | 207

We’ll be back next week with new episodes. In the meantime, enjoy this episode about the college admissions scandal that swept up some of the richest families in Hollywood. Rick Singer is a college admissions consultant whose elaborate, secretive network of college coaches and admissions officers can rig the system to get rich kids into top tier schools of their parents’ choosing… for a price. But when the feds start listening in, Rick will fail the ultimate test, and expose the dark side of the American education system. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Audible subscribers can listen to all our episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app.

• 0:08Sarah Hagi?

  We'll be back next week with a brand-new episode of Scamfluencers, but this week, we've been informed it's college acceptance season. We mostly experience that as viral videos of children opening emails. Then they either go ballistic with their parents or suffer a life-damaging hit to their self-worth. Fun! We thought it was the perfect time to revisit the man behind Operation Varsity Blues, Rick Singer.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  Ah, yes, the admissions consultant who masterminded a nationwide bribery scheme that funneled wealthy students into elite universities and landed celebrity parents like Felicity Huffman in federal court.

• 0:45Sarah Hagi?

  And guess what, Sachi? He's back. Rick was released from federal prison in March 2025, and as of last summer, he's working in, wait for it, college admissions!

• 0:57Speaker 00

  Well, that makes sense. I mean, he's very good at it. He has a lot to prove.

• 1:01Sarah Hagi?

  Yes, and Rick is now the master coach and lead advisor at a company called ID Future Stars, which is owned by his sister. On their website, he says he, quote, "made a mistake and took full responsibility."

• 1:15Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:15Sarah Hagi?

  True, kind of.

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Sounds technically true.

• 1:18Sarah Hagi?

  No follow-ups. While federal prosecutors had some concerns about Rick jumping back into the same industry, but his defense attorneys argued that the work is lawful and allowed under the terms of a supervised release. And the judge agreed with a condition. Rick was required to post a 270-word disclaimer on the company's website explaining the charges against him and the fact that he pled guilty.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  Embarrassing, but okay. I guess it's the least you can expect.

• 1:49Sarah Hagi?

  I'm sure everyone reads that fine print, right? So with acceptance emails rolling in, we're revisiting the story of Rick Singer, the fixer who gamed the system and is now advising students how to navigate it.

• 2:08Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, as someone who lives in America, isn't the American college world just so confusing?

• 2:14Speaker 00

  It's so confusing. And also, Sarah, it is so embarrassing, the way these people care about where they went to school, where their kids will go to school, what they do at that school. They talk about it. It's so mortifying.

• 2:28Sarah Hagi?

  I know. It's really crazy. And the most shocking part for me is that I can't believe they have to do so many extracurriculars to get into school. But I want to know what the most shocking part for you is.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Every time I hear how much it costs to attend a post-secondary in this country, I feel like screaming.

• 2:46Sarah Hagi?

  It's so expensive. And it turns out that getting into an American college isn't just something that's confusing for us Canadians. The process is so complicated that there's an entire industry devoted to helping people get in. Today, I'm going to tell you a story about a guy who helped people spend even more money on even shadier methods of getting their kids into elite schools.

• 3:12Sarah Hagi?

  It's November 2023, and 60-year-old Felicity Huffman is in a dark studio in L.A. waiting for cameras to roll. The Desperate Housewives star looks sophisticated with clear-framed glasses and her blonde hair blown out to perfection. She's a veteran and knows the drill, but she's probably more nervous than usual because she's not here to film a TV show. She's going to sit down with a reporter from ABC 7 News, and it's the first time she's speaking publicly since her brief stint in prison three years ago. Felicity was arrested for paying someone to cheat on her daughter's SAT. She pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, served 11 days in prison, and completed 250 hours of community service.

• 3:55Sarah Hagi?

  But she was just one of more than 50 parents, coaches, and school administrators who were charged in connection with one of the biggest college admissions scandals ever. The investigation that took them all down was known as Operation Varsity Blues. Felicity was among the more famous people who were charged and convicted. This was huge news when it all went down in 2019, and there's been tons of media coverage about it since, including a Netflix documentary. Through it all, Felicity hasn't said a thing, even as she became a tabloid punching bag. But now, she's ready to break her silence. The reporter wants to know one thing that's been on everyone's mind. How did you get caught up in this?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys. But that was not the case. I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer and trusted him implicitly.

• 4:55Sarah Hagi?

  Rick Singer was the mastermind behind the entire scheme. He was charged alongside Felicity and others, but he didn't get nearly as much media attention. Felicity tells a reporter that, at first, Rick's work was all above board. But she says that as the application deadlines approached, his advice turned from helpful to criminal.

• 5:16Speaker 02

  After a year, he started to say, "Your daughter's not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to." And I believed him. And so, when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like, and I know this seems crazy at the time, that that was my only option to give my daughter a future.

• 5:38Sarah Hagi?

  It's so nuts to me that the US college racket is so complicated and so terrifying that even a celebrity feels like, "My kid will not be successful if they don't get into a particular school, despite their wealth and their connections." Exactly. Rick found that extreme wealth, status anxiety, and natural parenting impulses made for a toxic and lucrative blend. So, people were willing to do just about anything to get their kids into elite colleges. All he had to do was ask them how much they were willing to pay.

• 6:15Speaker 03

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• 6:43Speaker 04

  I'm Lauren Malloy, the host of the podcast My Mom's Murder. For 30 years, I thought my mom died of natural causes. That's what everyone told me. That's what I believed. Until one day, I got a phone call that changed everything. A woman claiming to be my mom's best friend told me my mother was murdered and that no one had ever investigated it. So I did what the detectives wouldn't, pulled the threads, knocked on doors, and confronted the contradictions. And what I found, it's worse than I imagined. Something happened to my mom. Someone killed her. And I won't stop until I find out who.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  The system may have given up on my mom, but I never will. Listen to My Mom's Murder wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all 10 episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 7:46Sarah Hagi?

  From Wondery, I'm Sarah Haggy.

• 7:48Speaker 00

  And I'm Scaachi Cole.

• 7:49Sarah Hagi?

  And this is Scamfluencers.

• 8:00Sarah Hagi?

  This is a story about the parents who want their kids to get into a top-tier college, not just for the education, but also to signal their own social status and superior parenting. And with a zero-sum admissions process full of loopholes and subjective decisions, it's easy to see how these parents could be convinced that they needed to lie to guarantee their kid's future. By offering a shortcut to the upper crust, Rick Singer made a fortune. And his downfall exposed the dark side of the American education system. This is Making Up the Grade: The College Admission Scandal.

• 8:38Sarah Hagi?

  In the early 60s, decades before he convinces any parents to commit fraud, Rick Singer grows up in a lower-middle-class family in a suburb of Chicago. Rick's a chubby kid with brown hair and boundless energy. We don't know much about Rick's upbringing, but court documents later suggest his dad was very intense and put a ton of pressure on his son to succeed. We do know that from an early age, Rick learns to hustle. When he's 12, he gets older kids to buy him booze and then sells it to underage kids for profit. And he starts working out obsessively after being bullied for his weight. He becomes an accomplished athlete, playing football, baseball, and basketball. After high school, Rick jumps from college to college.

• 9:22Sarah Hagi?

  Eventually, at 26, he graduates from a small private school in Texas. He takes a series of jobs as a basketball coach for high school and community college kids, first in Texas and then in Sacramento, California. By this point, he's tall and athletic with a long face and a prominent nose. Here's a picture of him as a young man from his local newspaper, The Sacramento Bee. He kind of still looks like this, actually, but younger. He's got brown hair. He looks like Trent Reznor and Michael Phelps smushed together into one person. He's got a long face and some very piercing eyes. I feel unsettled. Yeah, he really looks intense.

• 10:04Sarah Hagi?

  And turns out, he was super aggressive on the basketball court, too. He even got fired from one high school for reportedly being super agro to referees. But while coaching, Rick gets a firsthand look at the college recruitment process. For star athletes, it's easy. Schools seek them out. But Rick notices that for the other players and their parents, the process is much trickier. And these parents are desperate to figure out how to get their kids into a good school. That's when Rick decides to shift to college consulting. In the early 90s, when he's in his 30s, he starts his own company, Future Stars. But Rick isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart. He wants to make money, so he decides to target the richest parents he can find,

• 10:49Sarah Hagi?

  the ones willing to pay top dollar for help getting their kids into school. He starts hustling across the Sacramento area, pitching his company at high school college nights and places like country clubs. He explains that high school guidance counselors are swamped, but he can give dedicated support to each and every student. And the pitch works. Nervous parents line up to pay for Rick's services. The panic of suburban parents is such a profitable industry. It really is. And Rick takes full advantage. Over the next three decades, he opens and operates several different college prep businesses. And thanks to word of mouth recommendations, he works with clients from all over the world.

• 11:32Sarah Hagi?

  But while he suggests that every student will get his undivided attention, he doesn't actually do it all himself. Rick offloads a lot of the work on the tutors he hires. And then he takes a hefty chunk of their fees. Here's what one of his former employees told the Gangster Capitalism podcast.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  He would charge the families, I found out later, $50 cash per hour for me. And he would give me 20 and keep 30. He liked nice things. He liked to dress well. He drove a nice car.

• 12:02Sarah Hagi?

  Despite handing off lots of his work, Rick's business is actually mostly above board. But that will only take him so far. He needs to gain a competitive edge to prove that he's the best college counselor money can buy, even if it means straight up lying.

• 12:20Sarah Hagi?

  Federal authorities later estimate that Rick starts explicitly committing fraud in 2011, about 20 years after he first gets into college admissions. Coincidentally, that's the same year Rick's wife files for divorce. Soon after that, he picks up and moves to Newport Beach, California, where he buys an expensive Mediterranean-style house flanked by lemon trees. At the same time, he throws himself into his college admissions business. And business is booming. In fact, a few years earlier, Rick taped an audition for a reality TV show about his work. And TMZ actually got ahold of the footage.

• 12:57Speaker 06

  There's families all across the country that I work with, and many of them have their own planes. You know, we have families in Champagne and Miami, and they send their plane to come pick me up, comes to the meeting for a couple hours, two, three hours, pull me right back on the plane, send me to the next place I need to go. It's amazing. I feel like, you know, this is a situation where they could think about dis-

• 13:17Speaker 00

  dismantling the existing education system because it's so flawed. But instead, they're just gonna double down on the capitalism portion of it. I love that.

• 13:25Sarah Hagi?

  It's so deeply sick. The show never goes anywhere, but Rick's reputation and his asking fee has only grown. For context, the average high school college counselor makes around $60,000 per year. Rick can make more than that on just one of his clients. And the reason he can charge so much is because when he says he can get results, he means it. But before we get into specific strategies, here's a little background. The quote-unquote "right" school for most of Rick's wealthy clients is one of a handful of super elite colleges. Wealthy parents have always sought a competitive edge for their kids to get into those schools, historically by giving large donations.

• 14:08Sarah Hagi?

  For example, Jared Kushner's dad famously donated more than $2 million to Harvard, most likely to get his son admitted. This method of acceptance is what Rick calls "the back door to college admissions." But no matter how much money you donate, it won't guarantee a spot. And for the non-Kushners, handing over millions of dollars on a risky bet just isn't possible. So Rick gives them other options he's used over the years. If a student applies more or less normally, Rick calls that "the front door." And he's found ways to, let's say, enhance those applications. If a kid's grades aren't good enough, Rick will find online classes their high school will accept for extra credit, hire someone to take them, and use those scores to boost

• 14:53Sarah Hagi?

  the kid's GPA. He can also help that kid get a near-perfect score on standardized tests. He'll get a doctor to diagnose a student with a learning disability, even if they don't actually have one. That will allow the kid to take the ACT or SAT with a private proctor and extended time. Here's how Rick describes it to one parent in a secretly-recorded call later released by the FBI.

• 15:17Speaker 06

  What has happened is all the wealthy families have figured out that if I give my kid tests and they get extended time, they can do better on the test. So most of these kids don't even have issues, but they're getting time. The playing field's not fair.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  You know, he's right, it's not fair. But his response, which is to make it even more unfair, seems ill-advised.

• 15:38Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and Rick goes beyond just getting more time. He has a proctor on his payroll who can actually take the test for the student in question or correct their answers. Rick can even arrange things so kids never know the test was fixed. The price of the service varies. Felicity Huffman paid $15,000, while other parents pay up to $75,000. Rick can also make a kid look more appealing by just straight-up lying. Like, he'll make up a fake award, and he often lies about a kid's ethnicity so they'll benefit from affirmative action. And if you don't want to roll the dice with an admissions office at all, Rick has yet another way of helping students get into school. It's a process he calls "the side door," which means getting his client's kid recruited

• 16:23Sarah Hagi?

  as an athlete for the college of their choice, even if they don't play a sport. At most colleges, each team gets a certain number of recruiting spots per year. Admissions departments often have the ability to lower their academic standards for these athletes, and they usually defer to the athletic directors and coaches. Luckily, Rick has established lucrative business relationships with coaches and athletic directors all over the country, including at Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, and USC. Rick likes to pick low-profile sports, like rowing or water polo. Then, he creates a fake athletic profile for the student, bribes his contact in the athletics department, and boom, the kid is in.

• 17:06Sarah Hagi?

  Parents still pay a lot of money for this side-door approach, but it tends to cost way less than buying a building at Harvard. That's still legal. But Rick's cheaper strategies are definitely not. So rather than paying him directly, parents send money to his nonprofit, Key Worldwide Foundation. On paper, the charity helps underserved kids get into college. In reality, Rick uses the foundation's bank account to pay himself, as well as anyone else involved in his schemes. And the best part? Parents can claim their shady payments as a tax write-off. No one at the colleges asks any questions. After all, lots of the people who are supposed to watch out for fraud are getting bribes. So Rick feels untouchable.

• 17:51Sarah Hagi?

  But he's overlooking a group of people who could seriously threaten his scheme. The same people he's been shit talking for years. High school college counselors.

• 18:03Sarah Hagi?

  In the winter of 2017, Julie Taylor Vaz is in her office making a phone call. Julie is in her early 50s, has a close cropped fro and a warm smile. She's a veteran college counselor at Buckley, a super wealthy, private high school nestled in the Hollywood hills. Julie used to work in admissions at Stanford. Now, she helps Buckley students through the college application process and talks them up to admissions departments. She's on a call with an admissions officer at Tulane University, who says she's especially impressed with one Buckley senior named Amanda. Now, we should note that Amanda isn't her real name. We've changed the names of the kids in the story because they weren't the ones charged with crimes. Tulane tells Julie they'd love to hear more about Amanda.

• 18:48Sarah Hagi?

  After all, she's a young black woman with incredible test scores who will be the first person in her family to attend college. You'd think Julie would be excited about this too, but she's confused. Because Amanda is actually white, and her father is a prominent attorney who not only attended college, but is on the Buckley School Board.

• 19:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would also find this kind of confusing, I think.

• 19:11Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Julie thinks there must have been some kind of mix-up. She tells her bosses and sets Tulane straight. Then, she starts looking into Amanda's other applications. Julie learns that a bunch of other schools Amanda applied to also think she's black and a potential first-generation college student. Then she learns something wild. Amanda had applied early to Georgetown. And Georgetown doesn't just have the wrong demographic information. They also think that Amanda is one of California's top tennis players and that she's being recruited to play the sport. But Julie has never heard of Amanda playing tennis at a competitive enough level to get recruited. Buckley's higher-ups call Amanda's father, trying to get some answers.

• 19:54Sarah Hagi?

  He says he and Amanda have no idea what happened, but he did hire a college counselor named Rick Singer, and someone who works with Rick must have changed the info on the applications. Now, this wouldn't be totally shocking. Last year, Julie had to deal with a student who wasn't able to access their applications because Rick changed the password. Buckley has already asked parents not to work with Rick, advice that Amanda's dad ignored. For what it's worth, we talked to a lawyer for Amanda's family, who told us that no one in the family knew about any of the cheating, and there's no hard evidence to suggest they did. But Julie thinks that, either way, no one should be filling out Amanda's applications for her. And a couple of months later, Julie watches as Buckley is rocked by another scandal.

• 20:39Sarah Hagi?

  Students learn that several members of the board, including Amanda's dad, successfully petitioned for teachers to change their kids' grades. The ensuing outcry leads Buckley's head of school to resign. Meanwhile, Georgetown opens an investigation, but apparently, they don't find evidence of anything major that leads back to Rick. Julie knows something isn't right, and just a few weeks later, in early spring 2018, she has her suspicions confirmed. She gets a call from USC, and they tell her they're offering a spot to a student we'll call Marcus. They say he made it into their water polo team, but Julie's never heard anything about

• 21:18Sarah Hagi?

  Marcus playing the sport competitively, and Buckley doesn't even have a water polo team. As ever, Sarah, I'm always impressed by the boldness of not just lying that you're participating in something, but lying that you're participating in something that does not. Yeah, it also is a pretty believable lie because I would just assume that every private school has a water polo team. But it turns out Marcus's father paid Rick a quarter of a million dollars to secure him a spot at USC. Marcus actually posed with a water polo cap and a ball his dad ordered from Amazon. Then he was photoshopped into an action shot that Rick used for Marcus's fake athletic profile.

• 21:59Sarah Hagi?

  Julie doesn't know all the shady details at this point, but she tries to raise the alarm with USC's admissions office. She tells them there must have been a mistake. But the athletic director isn't having it. She shuts down Julie's questions because she's on Rick's payroll. She even provides a cover story. Marcus plays water polo in Europe in the summer, which is where he met the USC coach. This seems beyond fishy to Julie, but the admissions department is in the process of confirming Marcus's recruitment. They're gonna accept him either way. Besides, her job is to get students into prestigious colleges, not out of them. Julie backs off, but she knows there's something not right here. And she's not the only one.

• 22:41Sarah Hagi?

  Because a surprising unwitting ally is about to help take the whole scheme down. In March 2018, Maury Tobin is at home when he hears a loud banging on his door. Maury's in his 50s and he looks like a nerdy Don Draper. He's a wealthy finance guy and lives in a chateau-style mansion in a bougie part of LA. He's shocked when federal agents swarm into his house and tell him he's under arrest. For a second, Maury's probably not sure what he's being charged with. Because he's been doing a lot of crimes. He was involved in a massive pump-and-dump stock scheme. It duped investors out of at least $15 million.

• 23:23Sarah Hagi?

  But he also agreed to pay the soccer coach at Yale almost half a million dollars to get his youngest daughter in as a recruit. I almost respect that this guy is doing so much crime that he's like, "I'm not even really sure what I'm in trouble for today." Well, he pretty quickly finds out that he's getting busted for the stock scheme. And a few weeks later, he flies to Boston so the agents can question him. That's when he makes an offer to save his own skin. He tells the FBI he knows an Ivy League soccer coach who's taking bribes in exchange for getting kids into college. It's a huge defeat for him because Maury loves Yale. He went there for a time, but left before graduating. And he's been trying to get all six of his kids to go there, too.

• 24:08Sarah Hagi?

  At this point, one has already graduated and two others are currently enrolled. It's not clear if he did anything to get them in, but he has been working behind the scenes to get his youngest daughter admitted. Maury knows his tips to the feds might eventually out her, but he just can't face the prospect of serious prison time. But soon enough, Maury's daughter won't be the only one thrown under the bus.

• 24:35Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm Cassie DePecce, the host of Against the Odds from Audible Originals. In each episode, we share thrilling true stories of survival, putting you in the shoes of the people who lived to tell the tale. In our latest series, we track the story of Hugh Glass, the real-life revenant that inspired the 2015 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio. In 1823, Glass was brutally mauled by a grizzly bear in present-day South Dakota and left for dead. His survival depended on trekking through 350 miles of wilderness alone with grave injuries. But he was driven by his thirst for revenge. Follow Against the Odds wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of Against the Odds early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 25:20Speaker 05

  Imagine you're reading Pride and Prejudice, except you're not reading it. Harris Dickinson and Marissa Abella are reading it to you on Audible. Her barbs sting you. This coldness sends a shiver up your spine. Your heart aches. Your ears burn. You yearn for Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy to profess their undying love for one another. You can't bear it any longer. Well, maybe a chapter longer. Performance is so good, you'll give love a second chance. Audible. Stories that speak to you.

• 25:59Sarah Hagi?

  Shortly after his arrest, Maury is in a Boston hotel room holding a wad of cash. He's meeting with the Yale soccer coach to hand over the bribe. It's part of the $450,000 he's promised the coach in exchange for getting his daughter into school. We'll call her Regina. But this is not a normal handoff. The hotel room has been bugged by the FBI. To save himself, Maury is serving up the coach on a silver platter, and his daughter is about to be collateral damage. Regina has already posted all about landing a spot on Yale's soccer team on her Instagram. Some of her classmates' parents were surprised by this news. Regina is a good soccer player, but probably not good enough for a top-tier athletic program.

• 26:44Sarah Hagi?

  Ironically, Regina has also gone out of her way to rat on fellow students she suspects of cheating. She thinks they're lying to get more time on standardized tests. I miss so much being 17 or 18 and starting college and just being so delusional about how good you are at something that even though you know you're not like that good at soccer, you're like, yeah, sure, I play soccer for Yale. Why not? Yeah, it really shows that these are actual children, and it also seems like it's one of those cases where her parents tried to hide it from her. But back in the hotel room, the soccer coach takes the bait. The FBI scoops him up shortly afterward, and just like Maury, he offers to cooperate

• 27:27Sarah Hagi?

  in exchange for lighter punishment. He tells the feds that he isn't the ringleader. He says it's a guy named Rick Singer. The FBI uses the evidence to start tapping Rick's phones. It's the beginning of a massive investigation into Rick and his many powerful clients.

• 27:49Sarah Hagi?

  The same day Maury helps burn the soccer coach, Massimo Giannulli storms into Marymount High School. It's a Catholic all-girls school in Los Angeles with mission-style architecture and tuition that costs more than $40,000 a year. Massimo is a tan and fit 55-year-old fashion designer. Yes, millennials, it's that Massimo. His daughter, Olivia Jade, goes to Marymount. Massimo is here to confront one of the school's college counselors, Philip Patron. Philip is in his 40s and handsome, with brown boyband hair and a big smile. He's been assigned to help Olivia apply to college. He even wrote her letter of recommendation. But Massimo has just learned

• 28:33Sarah Hagi?

  that Philip has also done something extremely unhelpful, and he is livid. Massimo heard that USC called Philip to say they planned to recruit Olivia for the crew team. This was part of Massimo's plan for his daughter. But to Massimo's extreme annoyance, Philip told USC that he highly doubted she was a competitive rower. Apparently, Philip told USC that most of Olivia's extracurricular time is spent on her budding career as a vlogger and beauty influencer. That part is true. She is extremely successful at it. In his letter of recommendation, Philip called her a, quote, "guru in her field." And Sachi, this is why we aren't changing Olivia's name like we did for the other kids.

• 29:18Sarah Hagi?

  She was already a public figure when this all happened. And as we'll see, she has some things to say about it. Massimo and his wife, the actress Lori Loughlin, have paid half a million dollars to get their two daughters into USC. And this plan includes claiming that Olivia is an accomplished coxswain, which is basically the captain of a rowing team. In order to make that believable, they've staged a photo of Olivia Jade. Sachi, will you describe it?

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's Olivia. Her face is blurred out in this photo. She's pretending to row on a machine. This is the body language of someone who has never before seen or experienced...

• 29:59Sarah Hagi?

  A rowing exercise. She looks uncomfortable. Yeah, it looks so awkward. But Massimo is still not going to let anything get in the way of all their work to get Olivia accepted. Philip's honesty is threatening his investment. But he keeps yelling until Philip promises to call USC back and say, my bad. Olivia totally has a rowing career. Satisfied, Massimo leaves campus. It's been challenging for him because actually, Olivia doesn't even want to go to college. She wants to drop out of high school and focus on her influencer career. And she's not hiding her feelings either. Here's what she said in a vlog about her first day of senior year, posted a few months earlier.

• 30:42Speaker 00

  On a real note, though, I know that I complain about school. I mean, who actually enjoys going to school? If you do, I'm very jealous. But I also feel the need to say that for all of us that like to complain about school, because I get how much it sucks, we have to remember how lucky we are to have an education and how many people would kill to have a good education. But I'm grateful that I get to be educated, even though I hate it.

• 31:03Sarah Hagi?

  Everyone is really mad at her about this. But I gotta say, like, I'm not. This is how I felt when I was going to school. I think a lot of people, even though you're like, yeah, I'm blessed and grateful for the opportunity. Going to school is annoying. It's annoying and you kind of want to be done. By the time you're like 20, you're ready to go do something else. I get it. Yeah, I really can't hate on a teenager for being like, I hate school. But it's not really about what Olivia Jade wants. And Massimo is relieved when Philip's apology seems to work and USC doesn't rescind his daughter's acceptance. But what he doesn't know is that USC starts an investigation into Olivia's recruitment. But the person they asked to lead the inquiry is the

• 31:45Sarah Hagi?

  same athletic director Rick bribed to get her in in the first place. So obviously, that investigation goes nowhere. For the moment, it seems like Massimo and Rick's scheme for Olivia has gone off without a hitch. Except that USC isn't the only organization investigating Massimo's bribe. And this is one authority that cannot be bought off.

• 32:10Sarah Hagi?

  It's July 2018, a couple of months after Massimo's visit to Philip's office. And for the last few months, FBI Special Agent Laura Smith has been secretly monitoring all of Rick's calls. Laura's in her late 30s and has been a forensic accountant with the FBI in Boston for eight years. And now she's on this case, which is getting to be so big, they need to give the investigation its own name. You know, like in a movie. And they decide to pay homage to one of the greatest teen movies of all time by naming it Operation Varsity Blues.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  This is why I think cops are embarrassing.

• 32:46Sarah Hagi?

  I mean, they have to have a little bit of fun. Since Laura started working on Rick's case, the number of co-conspirators she's identified has ballooned. I need to tell you about one of my favorites, Jane Buckingham. She's a blonde mom influencer and trend forecaster who's always looking like she's posing for a Christmas card. And Jane gives self-help speeches telling parents they're at fault for coddling their kids. Sachi, will you describe this Instagram post from 2018?

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Yes, it's a post with big block letters that says, "Don't cheat." And then the caption says, "Apply it to all aspects of your life, and you'll probably be okay." I love irony.

• 33:24Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I mean, I think she's doing the influencer thing of pretending you are a different person than you are.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 33:31Sarah Hagi?

  By the summer of 2018, Laura has discovered that Jane is paying Rick $50,000 to help her son cheat on his ACT. We're gonna call him Gerald. At this point, he's already gotten a fraudulent learning disability diagnosis so he can have extended time on the test. And he's supposed to fly to Texas in July to take it with the proctor who's in Rick's pocket. This person will fix his answers to be sure he gets a high score. Two days before Gerald is supposed to take the test, Laura intercepts a panicked call Jane makes to Rick. Jane complains that Gerald needs his tonsils removed and his dad doesn't want him traveling. So Jane suggests the proctor just go ahead and take the test for Gerald, even though they won't be in the same state.

• 34:16Sarah Hagi?

  But Jane also wants Gerald to take a fake test at home because he doesn't know about the cheating and she doesn't want him to find out. The other person she doesn't want to know? Gerald's dad. They're still dealing with the fallout of a nasty divorce. Laura can't believe what she's hearing. And then, on a second call, she hears Rick convince his proctor in Texas to go along with Jane's plan. Finally, Rick calls Jane back to tell her the good news. They're all set. Sachi, do you mind reading an excerpt of their conversation?

• 34:51Speaker 00

  Sure. Jane says, "I need you to get him into USC, and then I need you to cure cancer and make peace in the Middle East." And Rick says, "I can do that if you can figure out a way to boot your husband out so he treats you well." And Jane says, "That's impossible. But, you know, peace in the Middle East, you know, Harvard, the rest of it. I have faith in you." That's almost romantic.

• 35:11Sarah Hagi?

  They're kind of flirting, huh?

• 35:12Speaker 00

  They are going to the boneyard, yes.

• 35:16Sarah Hagi?

  Well, Laura lets the plan go through. She doesn't want to interfere with this goldmine of evidence. And sure, Gerald's classmates are confused when they find out he took the ACT at home because that's not really a thing. But ultimately, no one really questions it. The college admissions process has become so crazy that nothing is surprising anymore. In the end, Gerald gets a 35 out of 36 on the ACT. And a few weeks later, Laura decides that she's done preparing. It's time to give Rick his big test.

• 35:52Sarah Hagi?

  Not long after Gerald takes the ACT, Rick is in Boston talking to the Yale soccer coach turned FBI informant. It's September 2018, and they're in a room at a Marriott hotel to discuss an upcoming bribe. Of course, Rick doesn't know that the FBI loves a good hotel room sting and that they've planted cameras and mics to catch him red-handed. Once the conversation is over, there's a knock at the door. Rick opens it to find Laura waiting for him with handcuffs. The FBI has Rick dead to rights. So, ever the hustler, he changes tactics. He says he'll cooperate to help them nail parents and college officials in exchange for leniency. And Laura agrees.

• 36:36Sarah Hagi?

  This will help the FBI make an example out of the rest of Rick's network. Still, Rick is used to winning. So he tries to have it both ways. He's supposed to continue the fraud as if everything is normal, but he also tries to warn a few of his clients. He deletes text messages, meets with people in secret, and uses a second phone that he keeps hidden from the feds. But before one of his secret meetings, Laura catches on. They slap Rick with an additional obstruction of justice charge, and he gives in. He realizes he has no leverage to keep himself safe. But remember, Rick's a competitive guy. He probably figures that if he has to be an informant, he might as well be the best one the FBI has ever seen.

• 37:21Sarah Hagi?

  So Rick starts to actively trick his clients into incriminating themselves. Over the next few months, he sits with Laura and other federal agents to make a series of calls on a recorded line. The easiest targets are the clients he's currently working with, like Felicity Huffman and her husband, the actor William H. Macy. They're considering using the cheating scheme again for their younger daughter. Rick tries to get them to confirm that they paid $15,000 for their older daughter's false test score. And unaware that Rick is playing them, William just responds, "Cool." This is like the best case of someone not really listening and responding.

• 37:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean...

• 38:03Speaker 00

  Oh, no notes.

• 38:05Sarah Hagi?

  No notes.

• 38:05Speaker 00

  No notes.

• 38:06Sarah Hagi?

  Well, for past clients, though, there's no real reason for Rick to call out of the blue. They've already gotten their kids into college. So Rick and Laura use a cover story to dig up evidence. They agree that he'll tell the parents his foundation is being audited by the IRS and that he's calling to make sure they have the same story. Remember, most of the parents paid their bribes through his charity and wrote off the payments on their taxes. Here's what Rick says on a recorded call with a real estate developer who paid over $600,000 to get his daughters into USC and UCLA.

• 38:41Speaker 06

  So what's happened is my foundation is getting audited now. Uh huh. Which, as you know, is pretty typical. Uh huh. Right? So they're looking at all my payments.

• 38:52Speaker 00

  Is it that common to get audited?

• 38:55Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, I mean, also, it is just the way he's saying it is so slow and careful that I feel like it probably is a bit suspicious.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, this is filling me with dread.

• 39:05Sarah Hagi?

  Shockingly, no one seems to catch on that Rick's a snitch. Soon enough, the FBI has put together all the evidence it needs. Rick's clients have been trying to get their kids into high-profile colleges, but they're about to be admitted into a high-profile class of their own: indicted co-conspirators.

• 39:31Speaker 05

  Hi, I'm Kenya Paris. And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects. We'll sit down with extraordinary guests from the worlds of art, film, literature, comedy, and wellness to hear from their unexpected stories of success. And who do we have this season? Well, we'll talk with Grammy-winning artist Anderson Paak, athlete Rich Roll, portrait artist Amy Sherald, Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, legendary writer David Sedaris, and many more. These conversations are more intimate than last season, wouldn't you say? I would. Listen to season one of The Unusual Suspects wherever you get your podcasts, and sign up for a free trial Audible to listen to season two in the Audible app or by subscribing to Apple Podcasts.

• 40:19Speaker 00

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off. Until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered. Like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets. Overwhelming coincidence and the things that come back to haunt us.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 41:27Sarah Hagi?

  On the morning of March 14th, 2019, about six months after Rick's arrest, Maury's daughter Regina goes to school like it's any other day. She's a senior at an all-girls school in LA's wealthy Larchmont area. She's sailing through the last bit of senior year because she knows she's already been recruited for the Yale soccer team. But then the news starts to break. Dozens of people have been arrested as part of Operation Varsity Blues. It's a massive scandal, and the media is having a field day.

• 41:58Speaker 05

  A flurry of new indictments today, ensnaring celebrities, CEOs, college coaches, in a massive scheme to game the college admissions system.

• 42:07Speaker 03

  The bust is called Operation Varsity Blues, and the accusations range from paying thousands of dollars for higher SAT scores to presenting students as top athletes in sports they never even played. Actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman are among the 50 people now charged in this scandal.

• 42:24Sarah Hagi?

  Those are clips from CNN, ABC News, and CBS Evening News.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  I remember when this broke, and I feel like it probably would not have been as big of a deal were it not for two famous women who were wrapped up in this. Otherwise, it just would have been like, oh, another scam to get into college. Like, sure, whatever.

• 42:43Sarah Hagi?

  No, exactly. And this all seems like fun, juicy celebrity gossip, until Regina learns that her father, Maury, is also caught up in the sting, which means he bought her way into Yale. And worse still, he's being named as the source who outed the scheme to the FBI. He's a cheat and a snitch, and he didn't even warn her. She's learning about it alongside everyone else. It's Regina's worst nightmare. Everyone stares at her as she walks down the hall. Some of her classmates openly laugh at her. She turns around and starts running, tears streaming down her face.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  This is so mortifying. This would change my relationship with my family for the rest of my life. I would never trust them again.

• 43:29Sarah Hagi?

  She's a teenager who's suffering. I feel bad for her.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:33Sarah Hagi?

  And as you might expect, a couple of months later, Regina gets rejected by Yale. Her classmates reportedly cheer when they find out, leaving Regina in tears again. But her humiliation is just the beginning of the media circus surrounding Operation Varsity Blues.

• 43:51Sarah Hagi?

  In total, 50 people are charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. This includes parents, standardized testing professionals, college coaches, and administrators. The FBI says the parents paid Rick more than $25 million between 2011 and 2018. If found guilty, they could face decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines. Many of Rick's co-conspirators initially deny any involvement in the scheme. But when they learn of the overwhelming evidence gathered with Rick's cooperation, almost everyone pleads guilty, including Ma Simone Lorie, Jane, and Felicity. All of the athletic directors and coaches involved lose their jobs. In the end, sentences in the Varsity Blues case

• 44:35Sarah Hagi?

  range from probation to 30 months in prison. Regina's father, Maury, isn't charged, thanks to his snitching. But he ends up getting one year in prison for the stock scam, the charge he was trying to avoid in the first place.

• 44:50Sarah Hagi?

  The only person who seems to come out on top is Olivia Jade. Now, she has an excuse to drop out of college, like she always wanted. Her reputation takes a hit, and Sephora drops the Olivia Jade beauty line they were carrying. But she bounces back pretty quickly. After an eight-month hiatus, she returns to her YouTube channel. And a year later, she does an apology tour on the Facebook watch show Red Table Talk.

• 45:14Speaker 02

  I'm not trying to victimize myself. I don't want pity. I don't deserve pity. And for so long, I wasn't able to talk about this because of the The legalities behind it. I never got to say, I'm really sorry that this happened.

• 45:25Sarah Hagi?

  Olivia still has millions of fans on Instagram and YouTube and a thriving influencer career. She got a spot on Dancing with the Stars. Plus, as of this recording, she appears to be dating actor and internet boyfriend Jacob Allardy.

• 45:40Speaker 00

  Well, we all have crosses to bear. Some of us must date someone very tall. Others must make podcasts.

• 45:46Sarah Hagi?

  I'm glad she's OK. And she seems genuinely sorry to me. After everyone is sentenced, Rick finally has his day in court. He opts not to wear his usual athletic coach attire. Instead, he wears a gray pinstripe suit with a black and white checkered tie. His lawyers say that he's been living in a trailer park in St. Petersburg, Florida, unable to get a job. They say he's been offering paddle boarding lessons to autistic children and veterans. Looking for leniency, Rick's lawyers point out that he's already agreed to turn over $5 million. And they note that he helped the FBI with its investigation. But Laura and the court aren't jumping to applaud him.

• 46:27Sarah Hagi?

  In legal filings, they remind the judge of Rick's secret cellphone, how he got rid of evidence, and his sneaky meetings to warn parents. There's no indication that Rick would have ever stopped if he wasn't caught. He's sentenced to three and a half years in prison, which, if you think about it, is almost long enough to earn a bachelor's degree.

• 46:50Sarah Hagi?

  Sachi, this episode is very foreign to us. I remember first reading about all of this and being like, is it really that hard to get into college? Because plenty of dumb people I know have gone to colleges like USC.

• 47:05Speaker 00

  I mean, yes. I think this scam really lays bare that it isn't about whether or not you're smart. It's about where your money is and who you know. And you can kind of get anything you want. I mean, this is a country where you can buy anything. Why wouldn't you be able to buy an education like that?

• 47:21Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah, and I do wonder, like, you know, especially with some of these wealthier parents, you already have generational wealth set up for your kids. Why does it matter so much which college they go to? That's a part I still can't really wrap my head around.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's an importance to going to the same school that your parents went, or going to the school that they couldn't get into, or going into an Ivy. Like, think about how many TikTok videos you've seen of kids sitting with their parents to open their acceptance letters and hope that they got into a school. And they're like, wearing sweaters and everybody cheers. Like, that is not an experience I was ever gonna have that I think you were ever gonna have, that most people we know in Canada were ever gonna have.

• 48:05Sarah Hagi?

  Never.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  But there is an obsession about it. And like, the kids don't always have it. Sometimes it's just the parents.

• 48:12Sarah Hagi?

  I understand also, it matters to these people because it doesn't just end with getting into a good school. It's being around the right people, which is the part that also gets me. It's like, they kind of just got played by their own classism?

• 48:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess we put it that way.

• 48:30Sarah Hagi?

  And I do think, outside of this being ridiculous, there are kids that were not allowed to get into these schools because these rich kids took their spots.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, the unfortunate part about this truly is like, college admissions is a pie, right? There's only so many pieces of it. And when someone lies to get in, it means somebody else who maybe deserved it can't, and that sucks.

• 48:53Sarah Hagi?

  One thing I think isn't expected with the story is the whole Olivia Jade thing. Like, she was such a target at first, but she never wanted to go to school, so I don't really know why she had to apologize.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  I think unfortunately, Olivia became like the poster child for overprivileged children in LA, which, a lot of that is still true about her. She is still incredibly privileged and lucky. But I think like, a lot of kids, her parents told her that they were gonna handle something and she believed them. I can't tell you how many times my parents were like, "We're just gonna deal with this. Sign here. We're gonna get this sorted for you. We're gonna open your bank account. We're gonna help you with your college." Stuff. I said yes blindly to everything because of course I trust my parents. So I feel kind of bad for these kids because they're learning a really painful lesson at a very tender age, which is that sometimes your parents are full of shit. And what a brutal, public way to find that out.

• 49:45Sarah Hagi?

  Yeah. And also, you know, to give these parents a little bit of grace, this is kind of how society is built, where school is the most important thing in the world, especially in America, where people think you can't have a life without college. And I just want to say, you know, as someone who, let's say, dropped out of post-secondary, my life is great. Like, you could survive without school. Listen, man, I did graduate from university and you and I have the same job, so.

• 50:22Sarah Hagi?

  This is Making Up the Grade: The College Admission Scandal. I'm Sarah Haggie.

• 50:27Speaker 00

  And I'm Sachi Cole. If you have a tip for us on a story that you think we should cover, please email us at [email protected]. We use many sources in our research. A few that were particularly helpful were To Cheat and Lie in L.A. by Evgenia Peretz for Vanity Fair, The Yale Dad Who Set Off the College Admission Scandal by Jennifer Levitz for The Wall Street Journal, and Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admission Scandal, directed by Chris Smith for Netflix.

• 50:53Sarah Hagi?

  Rachel Borders wrote this episode. Additional writing by us, Sachi Cole and Sarah Haggie. Sarah Enni is our story editor and senior producer, and Eric Thurm is our story editor. Fact checking by Sarah Baum. Sound design by James Morgan. Additional audio assistance provided by Adrian Tapia. Our music supervisor is Scott Velazquez for Frieson Sync. Our managing producers are Matt Gant and Desi Blalock. Janine Cornolo and Stephanie Jens are our development producers. Our associate producers are Charlotte Miller and Lexi Puri. Our producers are John Reed, Yasmin Ward, and Kate Young. Our senior producers are Ginny Bloom and Jen Swan. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer Beckman, Marshall Louis, and Erin O'Flaherty for Wondery.

• 51:51Speaker 00

  Follow Scamfluencers on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Scamfluencers ad-free by joining Audible.