Guilty Admissions

October 26, 2020
Journalist LaPorte (The Men Who Would Be Kings) delivers a riveting rundown of Operation Varsity Blues, the 2019 FBI investigation that led to the arrests of Hollywood celebrities Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman, among dozens of other wealthy parents, in a scheme to manipulate the admissions process at some of America’s most elite universities. LaPorte details the übercompetitive “social and educational milieu” of affluent L.A. neighborhoods, where parents pay up to $25,000 a year for preschools that feed into prestigious primary and secondary schools and, from there, into top colleges. To improve their children’s chances, parents network, donate money, and hire independent college counselors like Rick Singer, the mastermind of the scheme uncovered by the FBI. A former basketball coach, Singer charged as much as $1.2 million to guarantee admission to Georgetown, Yale, and other name-brand schools. With test proctors, college coaches, and athletic directors on his payroll, Singer falsified exam results and created fake athletic profiles to get his clients accepted as student athletes. LaPorte provides plenty of juicy gossip about the rich and famous, but also probes systemic flaws and “inequities of class” in American higher education. Readers will be captivated by this entertaining look behind the headlines. Agent: Daniel Greenberg, Levine Greenberg Rostan

Starred review from January 1, 2021

In March 2019, the Varsity Blues scandal made headlines with accounts of wealthy Los Angeles residents, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, paying vast sums to ensure their children's acceptance at prestigious universities. In this gripping work, journalist LaPorte vividly evokes a high-stakes world where parents pick preschools for their toddlers with the hope that the right program will lead to Harvard or Yale. Enter Rick Singer, a college admissions coach who promised results with his "side door" method: bribing coaches to falsely claim that applicants were skilled in golf or tennis (admissions offices rarely vetted information about these relatively minor sports). Some parents fooled themselves into thinking Singer's actions were unorthodox but ethical; others played active roles in the subterfuge, purchasing sports equipment and staging photo shoots for images to submit in the applications. Though LaPorte never excuses the parents' behavior, she explains how such a toxic culture led to criminal behavior. Her research is superb; citing court cases and interviewing parents, coaches, and administrators. LaPorte vividly lays bare a world of privilege and entitlement. VERDICT Readers curious about the dark side of wealth will be enthralled by this expos� of corruption in education.--Melissa Stoeger, Deerfield P.L., IL

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 15, 2021
A Fast Company senior writer gives a lively, soap-operatic account of the Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal that led to charges against more than 50 celebrities and other high rollers. Fans of Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin who hope to see the stars vindicated will have to wait for another book. LaPorte suggests that the Hollywood power players were easy marks for the independent college counselor William "Rick" Singer, who used fake athletic profiles, bribery, and other tactics to get students into universities such as Yale, Georgetown, and USC. The actors and their ultrarich peers moved in private school circles that were "cesspools of insecurity about parenting": "These were families who had been hiring tutors and outsourcing instruction in so many subjects for so long--the personal lacrosse coach, the Spanish tutor--parents were often loath to trust themselves when it came to advising their children." Adding to parental anxieties were changing expectations at colleges, including that schools that once favored students with well-rounded portfolios have come to prefer a "pointy" applicant who "takes his or her singular passion and turbocharges it in creative ways." Singer exploited status-conscious parents' fears by claiming he could "guarantee" admission to high-prestige schools through a "side door," which involved crimes such as bribing coaches and laundering money through his private "charity." He also falsified applications after persuading students to give him their passwords to the Common App site and paid someone to take their SATs and ACTs at venues run by people he'd paid off. Though the narrative tone is largely gossipy, LaPorte ably covers all the aspects of the scandal, including the unique atmosphere of LA, where "extreme wealth and ambition collide, undercut by a shamelessly transactional at-titude toward business." Her fast-paced book has much to interest parents whose offspring are aiming for top-tier colleges. An engaging tale of the lifestyles of the rich-and-felonious parents of college-bound students.

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December 1, 2020
In 2019, the Operations Varsity Blues scandal dominated tabloids. Wealthy parents were accused of making bribes and faking test results to ensure their precious progeny received acceptance to Ivy League schools. Implicated celebrities Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin made the case a media sensation. In a world where monetary success meant everything, sending a child off to an elite school was as much of a status symbol as a fancy sports car. College admissions was a competitive game that parents were determined to win. Failed youth-sports coach turned independent college counselor Rick Springer capitalized on the anxiety of the status-obsessed parents. He guaranteed that he could get teens into the top-tier university of their choice. His methods were unscrupulous, to say the least: Springer encouraged kids to lie on applications, paid employees to take tests in their place, and arranged direct payments to coaches to secure acceptances. Ripped from the headlines, this book is sure to be a crowd-pleaser with nonfiction readers. It is a juicy and engrossing indictment of privilege gone awry.

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