Duration

2011–2018

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts

United States

Operation Varsity Blues

First Reporter - Julie Taylor-Vaz

William Rick Singer via

  • Key Worldwide Foundation
  • The Edge College & Career Network

53

Felony conspiracy to commit:

bribing exam administrators to facilitate on college and university entrance exams;[21]

cheating

bribing coaches and administrators of elite universities to nominate unqualified applicants as elite recruited athletes, thus facilitating the applicants' admission;

[21]

using a to conceal the source and nature of laundered bribery payments.[21]

charitable organization

William Rick Singer, purported college counselor, and author of self-help books for college admission. Singer organized and sold fraudulent college admission services.[19] Singer pleaded guilty and cooperated with the prosecution.[60]

[18]

Mark Riddell, a and former director of college entrance exams at IMG Academy.[84] Riddell was paid by Singer to fraudulently take admission tests, impersonating the clients' children; he also paid College Board (which develops and administers the SAT and related tests), Educational Testing Service, and ACT contractors to deliberately mis-administer the tests.[51][85][86] He was fired from IMG Academy and pleaded guilty.[53][84] Mark Riddell was sentenced to four months in prison and had to forfeit nearly $240,000.[87]

Harvard alumnus

Steven Masera, officer at Singer's companies.[86] Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering.

[85]

Mikaela Sanford, employee at Singer's companies.[86] Pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering.

[85]

Documentaries and adaptation[edit]

In 2019, Lifetime produced and broadcast a television film about this event called The College Admissions Scandal. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller as Caroline DeVere, Mia Kirshner as Bethany Slade, and Michael Shanks as Rick Singer.[279][280][281] In 2019, Lifetime also released a documentary called Beyond the Headlines: The College Admissions Scandal with Gretchen Carlson.[282]


On April 4, 2019, three weeks after Operation Varsity Blues' charges were made public, Granite Bay High School debuted Ranked, a new musical. The show, written from 2018 to 2019 by the school's drama teacher and musical director, focused on academic pressure in schools, specifically telling the story of a student whose parents were paying for his grades without his knowledge.[283] The timing of the musical's debut in relation to the scandal earned the high school national attention. Rick Singer worked in the Granite Bay community a decade prior as a college coach for local high school students.[284]


A fictionalized account of the events was in the book Admissions by Julie Buxbaum, released on December 1, 2020. It tells the story from the point of view of the child of a fictional actress who was charged.[285]


Netflix released a documentary on the subject, Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal, in 2021, mostly focusing on Singer, played by Matthew Modine.[286][287]


In 2021, Casey Lyons and Caroline Miller wrote and self-produced Bars of Ivy: The College Admissions Scandal Musical about the scandal from the perspective of a student affected by it.[288]

National Association for College Admission Counseling

University of Bristol admissions controversy

University of Illinois clout scandal

University of Texas at Austin admissions controversy

Legacy preferences

United States Department of Justice – contains charging documents and case status of all defendants criminally implicated in the scandal

Investigations of College Admissions and Testing Bribery Scheme

United States v. Abbott, et al., No. 1:19-mj-06087 (D. Mass.)

archived

The Key Worldwide Foundation website