Do you know how many kids I've placed in elite colleges to rub shoulders with the upper crust? Well, a lot! And I've never done a day in the joint. And while I've been indicted several times I've never been found guilty of anything.
I've got my eye on the prize just like Rick, but I'm better adjusted and won't subject you to the scrutiny of your friends and neighbors.
Varsity Blues Mastermind Is Out of Prison—and Wants to Help Get Your Kid Into College
Rick Singer, ringleader of the nationwide college-admissions scandal, is ready to move on, says he’s done with ‘living in the gray’
By Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz, WSJ
Oct. 19, 2024 9:46 am ET
Rick Singer served 16 months in a federal prison camp. Photo: BRIAN SNYDER/REUTERS
William “Rick” Singer, the mastermind behind the Varsity Blues college admissions cheating scandal, is out of prison and ready for his next act. Which looks a lot like his old act: helping families navigate the high-stakes, stressful college admissions process.
Singer, who served 16 months in a federal prison camp for a sprawling scheme that sneaked children of business moguls and Hollywood celebrities into elite schools, has been finishing out his term since August at a halfway house in the Los Angeles area. There, he is laying the groundwork for a new college counseling company. This one, he says, will be entirely legitimate.
“I am not living in the gray anymore. The gray is over. I was the all-time Mr. Gray,” Singer, 64 years old, said in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Now, I’ve made a concerted effort to live in black and white.”
The Varsity Blues scandal erupted in spring 2019, exposing the ease with which America’s college-admissions process could be corrupted.
Singer pleaded guilty to four felonies. He infiltrated the ACT and SAT testing process. He paid college coaches or their programs to tag the teens as recruited athletes—even if they didn’t play the sport—virtually guaranteeing their admission to top schools. Additionally, parents often funneled payments through Singer’s sham charity, enabling them to take tax write-offs.
The conspiracy, which prosecutors said netted $25 million, led to guilty pleas or convictions of more than 50 people, including Division I college coaches, actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin and private-equity manager William McGlashan Jr.
Ex-‘Full House’ actress Lori Loughlin, in gray sweater, received a sentence of two months.
Singer, an intense personality often clad in tracksuits, coached college basketball in the 1980s before transitioning to admissions counseling. His traditional suite of service helped teens narrow down their target schools, advised on extracurriculars and classes, and polished essays.
Some early clients say he also recommended they embellish details on those essays or fudge aspects of their backgrounds. By 2007, his repertoire encompassed a range of illicit practices. He cultivated his client base through contacts at financial-service firms and referrals from former customers, eventually catering to well-heeled families worldwide.
‘If the referee ain’t calling it’
Singer attributed his trajectory in part to his own hypercompetitiveness. “I think everybody’s issues, and definitely mine, all come back to our egos. And as things start to roll and you start being more successful,” he said, “your ego grows—your desire grows.”
He thought he so dominated the field that he recalled being surprised to learn during the FBI sting that one of the coaches “had other Rick Singers that were in Europe or other places.”
Though he professes contrition, Singer contends he was, at least in part, merely working within a system that was already broken and full of willing partners.
He likened his past work to a sports analogy: “I might play against your team, and we’re gonna hold and we’re gonna grab jerseys, we’re gonna do all that, which is all illegal, but if the referee ain’t calling it, we’re doing it.”
Singer said he is most ashamed of the test-cheating component of his scheme, in which he paid administrators at two testing sites to turn a blind eye as his hired savant, a Harvard University graduate, would help students through the ACT or SAT, or just answer the questions himself and hit the exact score they needed.
“I mean, there is nobody like that man,” Singer said, still expressing awe at the unique skill set. Then he caught himself. “Ethically, that was a hundred percent wrong.”
‘The nature of the beast’
From his coaching days, Singer said, he knew college coaches faced tremendous pressure to fundraise for their programs. So he offered families access through what he called a “side door,” essentially purchasing walk-on spots on teams for six-figure sums. Coaches and an athletic department administrator from the University of Southern California, as well as coaches at Yale University, Georgetown University and Stanford University, pleaded guilty to colluding with Singer, taking money for their programs or themselves.
Singer said coaches pursued him to find families willing to play along. “I’m not calling them…. They’re calling me, saying, ‘Hey Rick, I got five spots this year. I’m willing to give up one. I need to raise $250,000 or $500,000 to redo my floor to take my team here to fund salaries here or there. I’ll give you one of my spots.’”
Singer and his staff would fabricate sports résumés for students, including staging one as a water-polo player in the family pool, and submit them to coaches who would then flag the kids as prospective players. “Some coaches wanted the kids to at least play the sport, but other coaches were like, ‘I don’t care if they play, I don’t care what they do,’” Singer said.
“It wasn’t like I made up the process. This goes on at every school in America,” Singer claimed. “It’s just the nature of the beast.”
Singer said he always viewed the money as donations, not bribes, and pointed to the cases of two parents who had their convictions overturned by a federal appeals court as justification for that outlook.
Still, he reflected, “I probably rationalized a hell of a lot…and made it like it was not that big a deal. But when you look at it in context, it was wrong. And I know it was wrong.”
Singer said that while he faked some athletic profiles, he drew the line at other whoppers: He refused to work with families whose teens played a particular sport and planned to apply as athletes, but never intended to compete once they got their acceptance letter. That, he said, was deceptive.
“If the coach doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, I don’t want to be involved,” he said.
Singer said he had many legitimate clients, as well as parents who heard about his shadier offerings but declined. He said those who did participate did so for the sake of their own egos. “We want to live our lives, the parents, through our kid and be able to go to the Saturday night party and say, ‘Oh, Jennifer, she’s gonna go to Harvard.’”
He said he had other high-profile clients who participated in the testing or side-door schemes and didn’t get caught. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “Oh, yeah.”
‘Having a great time’
Singer spent the first portion of his sentence in a federal prison camp in Pensacola, Fla., where he secured what he called “the greatest job” on site: He worked at the fitness center and helped coordinate recreational activities such as pickleball. He officiated league play and taught entrepreneurship classes. Nursing an injured hip, he kept his own exercise to daily multi-hour bike rides.
“Nobody wants to go to prison for 16 months,” he said. “But, listen, I took advantage of it and you make the best of where you are.”
His primary complaint about the halfway house is his roommates’ snoring. (He sleeps with headphones, with long playlists featuring Coldplay, Sting, OneRepublic and more.)
He spends most of his days working for a restaurant group run by a longtime family friend, where he said he is advising the management team on efficiency and profitability. It draws on skills honed decades ago while overhauling a large call center in India. “Having a great time,” he said of his current gig.
Singer said families never stopped demanding his college-counseling services, even though prosecutors made him shut down his actual business. “I’m like, that’s B.S. People are gonna still wanna work with me,” he said. He continued working—for free—while awaiting sentencing and even during incarceration.
“They care about their kids. They want, in my opinion, the best person possible to work with them,” Singer said. “They trusted me and knew that we knew things better than everybody else.”
Now he’s ready to monetize the business again. The company is called ID Future Stars, which incorporates the name of his early college-counseling business from Sacramento decades ago.
He promises “reasonable” fees, and expressed disbelief that at least one prominent counselor charges six figures. “For what? For what? Like, you gotta be kidding me,” he said. (Singer’s illicit services ran that high.)
Beyond college counseling, Singer also has a plan to help young adults who don’t want to go to school evaluate their skills and find jobs and apprenticeships.
“I’m not dwelling on what already happened. I already did that,” Singer said. “I’ve had four and a half, five years to eat my humble pie and move on. I’m all about moving forward.”
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