Thoughts on Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal
Rick Singer marketed himself as a private college counselor to the children of the rich and famous. In reality he was a conman and criminal who got wealthy by bribing university administrators and abusing loopholes to get wealthy children unearned access into America's best university. Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal recounts and dramatizes Singer's scam, and the story of how it was exposed.
This isn't a review per se, but rather a reflection from the perspective of an educator in one of the more competitive public schools in my part of the country.
I went in expecting to hate Rick Singer. And I did. Still do, actually. The documentary portrays him at once as a keen, charismatic businessman and a weirdo with all the social awareness of a space alien. But what he did (what he's pleaded guilty to doing) was abuse an already broken system. He's definitive proof that human slime defies the laws of gravity (and also, you know, the law) by creeping ever upward if given an opportunity. He faked test scores, advised parents to be as deceitful as possible, and pretended to run a non-profit educational charity when he was lining his pockets. True scum.
I also expected to hate the parents in this documentary. And I did! I'm already two for two on successfully predicting where my disdain will fall on this one. The parents, were, of course, entitled and careless. They certainly didn't care that faking resumes for their kids might disadvantage children who could actually use a helping-hand getting into their dream school. They didn't even seem to care that their children, who couldn't get into the school on their own, weren't going to be able to pass the classes once they got there.
I've seen some intense parents in my day. Parents for whom a B on their child's assignment was somehow a negotiation with me and not, you know, a pretty solid grade on a difficult assignment. And I teach at a school where Ivy League schools aren't out of the question for a pretty sizeable proportion of each graduating class. This is an area with affluent, competitive students putting in serious work to get ahead. Which is all to say that I've seen firsthand how terrified parents have become of the idea of failure for their kids. I say "idea" here for a reason. Going to a state school instead of a bank-breaking private university isn't a failure, it's another option, and for many a much more reasonable one. For some, college may not be the best fit, and that's not a failure either. But the idea that it's acceptable to lie and bribe your way into a spot thousands of people are working hard for is new to me. That's the kind of attitude that obscene wealth buys. These people weren't buying an education for their kids. They could already afford that, given the hundreds of thousands of dollars they gave Rick Singer. They were buying a status symbol for themselves ("Haven't you heard? Little Billy's off to Yale...") and the illusion that success was just a part of their children's DNA… so yeah, of course my sympathy for these parents is at absolute zero.
I didn't expect to hate the college administrators who let this happen so much, but life's full of spiteful little surprises. As the documentary states definitively: college admissions are already unfair. The wealthy have an enormous leg up. They score higher on standardized tests (from access to better schools, test prep programs, private tutors, etc.), they're able to more confidently apply to expensive schools, they're more likely to have access to AP and IB programs, competitive extracurriculars, and time in which to study, or practice dressage, or whatever. The system is already broken. And to facilitate cheating by the rich in a game that was DESIGNED for them to succeed is not just wrong, it's tacky. It's rooting for Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
All in all, this was a sad look into Rick Singer's College Acceptance Factory, made worse by the slap-on-the-wrist punishments for most of the people involved, and the knowledge that these are just the people who got caught. My consolation is that the kids who worked hard enough to deserve the spots that were taken from them are the same kids who are going to make the most out of their education no matter where they go. Bad eggs get thrown out, if we're lucky. Good eggs stay gold.