Varsity Blues Was An End Run Around Admissions Offices

This week, Netflix will air a Hollywood take on Operation Varsity Blues. The documentary features the FBI investigation that led to the indictment of more than 50 people involved in a scheme to get students into college through what its ringleader, Rick Singer, called a “side door.”

College admissions officers remember exactly where they were on March 12, 2019, when the FBI announced its criminal indictments. Phones began incessantly ringing, texts ricocheted everywhere, and campus leaders across the country called emergency meetings. Most campuses conducted extensive admissions audits and found little evidence of fraud, but the perception had taken hold. The big question wasn’t about the indictments, but whether cheating to get into college was systemic. Was the admissions profession corrupt?

Lost in the melee was that Varsity Blues was not about college admissions officers. The scheme was about going around admissions standards, not through them. In fact, no admissions officer was ever charged with wrong-doing. The individuals indicted were parents, athletic coaches, and associates of Singer.

Each year, more than two million students make the transition from secondary education to more than 3,300 non-profit college and universities. Far from the narrative about side doors at elite schools, colleges’ front doors are typically wide open. Eighty percent of four-year college students attend institutions that accept more than half of all their applicants, and on average, four-year colleges in the United States accept 67% of applicants.  

The college admissions process in America is rife with imperfections and overdue for a fundamental redesign. But that is different than being unethical. Each year, colleges and universities enroll millions of students through the process they promise, one that adheres to publicized standards and is carried out with integrity. These standards are made clear in the Guide to Ethical Practice in College Admission of my organization, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, whose 22,000 members represent most colleges and universities nationwide. This guide articulates the obligation to professional practices guided by ethics, trust, access, equity, and fairness to students. Moreover, more than 900 colleges are part of the Common Application and thereby commit to guiding principles focused on “access, equality, and integrity in the college admissions process.”

Everyone in the college admissions profession knows the system needs improvement. Whether admissions officers or school counselors, those who do the work know that college admission is defined by uncertainty, competition, self-interest, and misperceptions. Perhaps the greatest challenges, though, are the realities confronting every institution in society, including schools at every level. These great challenges include the underfunding of K-12 and higher education, massive economic inequity, exorbitantly high student-to-counselor ratios, and systemic racism and inequality.  

The Varsity Blues scandal brings many of these societal realities painfully forward. It is a quintessential account of greed and bribery. The crimes of those involved betrayed the ethics of the process that they purposely sought to circumvent. In fact, it is because those ethics were violated that we now understand anew how important admissions officers are in ensuring fairness and guarding all the doors to admission offices, even as these offices navigate the complex cultural, social, and economic issues that America is striving to confront.