Blog #8: Case

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 OPERATION VARSTIY BLUES

    In March 2019, over 50 people were criminally charged with participating in a scheme to gain fraudulent student admissions to elite U.S. universities. At the heart of the scam was a college-counseling consultant named William Rick Singer, who devised corrupt workarounds for anxious, wealthy parents whose children lacked stellar academic credentials that top college required. Rick Singer provided fake athletic credentials, photoshopped applicants’ faces onto action photos of real athletes, payed proctors of standardized tests, and bribed coaches to designate applicants as recruited athletes even though the students did not play the sport. The scandal revealed the secret pathway to college admissions: The “Side Door”. The “side door” was open to Singer’s clients who were willing to pay him huge sums of money (yet less than that of donation) to fake test scores and bribe coaches to gain entry. This mechanism allowed money to override merit. 

    While this news reveals an extreme case where the rich were trying to influence admissions in a clearly illegal way, we know that many rich people have always enjoyed many legal advantages, such as ability to pay for test preparation, private counseling, tutoring etc. Moreover, the case of Operation Varsity Blues also sheds light on the commodification of higher education, in which higher education has become something that you purchase like a product. Prestige and status have become the most important factor when selecting colleges; gaining admission to elite universities became the goal itself rather than the goal being to experience and get an education. The fetishization of rankings, particularly publicized by the U.S. News & World Report, has also contributed to equating elite universities with success. 



Works Cited

David Hawkins. “OPERATION VARSITY BLUES: Where We Are Now.” Journal of College Admission, no. 244, National Association of College Admissions Counselors, 2019, p. 15.


Sandel, Michael J. Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?. Penguin Books, 2020.

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