There’s a long list of jobs that convicted felons can’t have.
It doesn’t seem to include being a high-end college admissions consultant.
Proving that point is William “Rick” Singer – the silver-haired ringleader of the “Operation Varsity Blues” scheme who pleaded guilty to charges involving racketeering, money laundering, fraud and obstruction five years ago.
Singer was sentenced to federal prison in January 2023 after he cooperated with authorities, helping to expose wealthy parents who’d recruited him to exploit the college admissions system to get their kids – unfairly and often illegally – into prestigious colleges like the University of Southern California and Yale.
Nearly two years after his sentencing, Singer is out of prison and trying to get back into the college admissions game. This time, he has promised to play by the rules (and more importantly, the law).
In May, social media accounts appeared online for a new college consulting service called ID Future Stars. The website for his business offers “personalized coaching, expert guidance, and comprehensive support” to guide clients “through every stage of the college admissions process.” There’s even a webpage with a mea culpa from Singer himself.
“I am not afraid to tell people who I am and that I made a mistake, took full responsibility and want to share my expertise, passion, and desire to help shape our next generation’s leaders by helping each find a college and career that is the right choice for each individual,” his online testimonial says. He also promises on the webpage to “continue to utilize our deep relationships with the respected decision-makers at colleges and universities,” while remaining in “good standing.”
“The important values I learned in my journey,” he writes, were “to stay away from the gray areas in college admissions and institutional advancement.” He adds: “I will not be traveling down the uneven side of the road even when the coast looks clear, but will fiercely seek the proper guidance and support from expert counsel.”
Singer’s representative and lawyers did not make him available for an interview with USA TODAY and his representative did not provide answers to a list of questions he’d requested. But Singer told the Wall Street Journal, which first reported on his reemergence, that he was arranging to take new clients while at a California halfway house where he has been living after serving 16 months in federal prison.
His new venture has left many people in the college admissions world – and some who helped put him behind bars – rolling their eyes. It also underlines the lax oversight of the cottage industry of people in the U.S. who brand themselves to wealthy families as college admissions savants.
Much has changed about college admissions since Varsity Blues, a multimillion-dollar, celebrity-filled scandal, first grabbed headlines in 2019. Still, the same manic worrying by some parents over how to get their kids into certain schools continues. And the number of applications to the richest and most selective universities keeps rising.
“He has found, in some ways, the perfect industry for a person who wants a second chance,” said Jeff Selingo, a bestselling author of books on college admissions and a former editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education. “There are no regulations, there’s no licensing and the anxiety of parents is higher than it’s ever been.”
Singer prosecutor doesn’t ‘take anything he says seriously’
When Eric Rosen learned Singer was getting back into the college admissions game, two words came to mind: “Buyer beware.”
Rosen lived and breathed Varsity Blues for a long time as a federal prosecutor on the case. It ultimately led to dozens of guilty pleas, including from Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who separately hired Singer to help their children. Rosen, then an assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, estimated he spent hundreds of hours thinking about Singer.
“I know not to take anything he says seriously,” he said.
In March 2019, more than 50 people – including wealthy CEOs and high-profile celebrities – were indicted in Varsity Blues, the largest college admissions case ever brought by the Justice Department. Prominent parents and big-shot athletic coaches were charged with colluding in a nationwide conspiracy, organized by Singer, to cheat on college entrance exams and get colleges to recruit kids under the guise that they were student athletes.
Students pretended to have disabilities. A bookish con man typically earned $10,000 a pop to take college admissions exams like the SAT or ACT for students or correct their answers. Parents paid millions of dollars in bribes.
Beyond the sordid details, the case struck a chord culturally. It was a story about money, power, access and the unfairness of the American education system.
Working on the case was the most stressful time of his life, Rosen said. He now works as a defense attorney and supports an array of sentencing reforms. Still, he hopes any parent would be “very, very skeptical” of Singer.
“Do I think it’s proper for him to be starting up a new college admissions company after what happened? No,” he said.
How the admissions process has changed since Varsity Blues
A lot about college admissions has changed since Varsity Blues first captured the zeitgeist a year before the onset of COVID-19.
If reliance on standardized testing wasn’t already weakened by the scandal, the pandemic thrust universities in that direction. Artificial intelligence has since raised questions about the value of admissions essays. The Supreme Court has also banned race-conscious admissions at the types of selective schools involved in the case. And many of those same schools became bastions of tumult in the past year amid protests about the Israel-Hamas war.
Five years after the scandal broke, the Justice Department continues to tout Varsity Blues as a major win that will have a “lasting and far-reaching impact.”
“This case resulted in concrete changes to make the college admissions process more fair,” Joshua S. Levy, acting U.S. attorney in Massachusetts, said in a February statement honoring the prosecutors on the case.
If Varsity Blues accomplished anything, it affirmed the value of regular colleges, said Nick Hillman, an education professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Most students, he said, don’t attend universities with single-digit acceptance rates accused of taking bribes. Two-thirds of undergraduates attend college within 50 miles of home, according to the Institute for College Access & Success.
“There’s been this acknowledgment over the last few years that geography really matters,” Hillman said. “The majority of students don’t attend places like USC or the Ivy League.”
Despite that cultural shift, the competition to get into the most selective colleges has only gotten tougher. For that reason, people like Singer may always have a captive market, said Joseph Soares, a sociologist and college admissions expert at Wake Forest University, a school that was implicated in the Varsity Blues scandal. (Soares has no connection to the defendants in that case.)
“The people that are obsessing about the most prestigious institutions are still obsessing about them,” he said.
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
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