AI Summary
5 min readVarsity Blues | Setting the Standard
In late 2016, self-help author Jane Buckingham stood on a soccer field at Brentwood School in Los Angeles, watching her son Jack play goalie. Another mother mentioned she'd already hired a private college counselor for her youngest child. Buckingham, who had built a career advising women on parenting and modern living, felt suddenly behind. She took the woman's recommendation and called Rick Singer. That decision, made on a sunny afternoon, would eventually land her in a federal investigation.
By 2016, Singer had been a college counselor for over a decade, with a client list that included NFL players, Hollywood actors, and top CEOs. For most families, he provided legitimate admissions advice. But for select clients, he offered what he called "the side door"—a system of bribes that guaranteed acceptance to elite schools. Singer had relationships with coaches and testing center officials who, in exchange for payments, would falsify athletic recruitment designations or manipulate standardized test scores.
The test cheating machine
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:36) **A Parent's First Worry** - Jane Buckingham, a self-help author, watches her son Jack play soccer at Brentwood School in 2016, where another mother mentions hiring a private college counselor.
- 2 (05:11) **Introducing the "Side Door"** - Rick Singer, a legitimate college counselor to the elite, offers some clients an illicit service he calls "the side door" — bribing coaches and officials to guarantee admission.
- 3 (06:13) **The SAT Fix is Proposed** - Felicity Huffman meets with Rick Singer in August 2017; he bluntly tells her that her daughter Sophia's test scores are not competitive and proposes a fraudulent solution.
- 4 (09:20) **Overcoming a Hurdle** - Sophia's school offers to administer the SAT on campus with extra time, which would ruin Singer's plan, forcing Huffman to actively intervene to keep the scheme alive.
- 5 (12:18) **The Cheat is Executed** - In December 2017, Sophia takes the SAT at a corrupt testing center, while a tutor secretly corrects her answers after she leaves, resulting in a score 400 points higher than her practice tests.
- 6 (14:17) **Jane Buckingham is Pitched** - By April 2018, Singer has been working with Jane Buckingham's son Jack for a year and tells her that Jack's good scores are still not enough to guarantee admission to his dream school.
- 7 (19:43) **An Irony and a Plan** - Jack is furious when a classmate cheats on a test, prompting his mother to post "DON'T CHEAT" on Instagram, even as she is actively planning to cheat on his ACT.
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Show Notes
Rick Singer expands his illicit college admissions scheme, using a network of corrupt insiders to manipulate his clients’ standardized test scores.
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