‘Unacceptable’: Lying to get a prized college admission | Book review

Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal

By Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz

Portfolio. 368 pp. $28

Reviewed by Cara Fitzpatrick

For the wealthy and well-connected, the rat race for selective college admissions starts in preschool, if not earlier. Privileged parents, with an eye on their little one’s future admission to Harvard, Stanford, or Yale, pay for private schools, tutors, test prep, elite sports programs, even trips overseas to volunteer — anything that might make their children stand out among the thousands of students applying to top colleges each year. The richest among them might make a large donation to their college of choice.

But just how far are some parents willing to go? And who are they doing it for — their child or their own egos? Those are the questions answered by Wall Street Journal reporters Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz in their new book, Unacceptable: Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal.

A ticktock account of the explosive admissions scandal known as Operation Varsity Blues, the book shows how dozens of rich and famous parents — aided by an unscrupulous independent college admissions counselor — bribed coaches, falsified academic and sports profiles, inflated test scores, and even lied about their children’s race to gain admission to colleges like Yale, Georgetown, Stanford, and the University of Southern California. Among them were actresses Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman. The stories highlighted in Unacceptable are read-out-loud appalling. There’s the teenager who sits in his family’s mansion and works on a draft of his college essay with a professional writer. His topic: “the anguish of growing up poor.” Another, directed by his father, pretends to be a water polo player, posing awkwardly in the family pool with a ball and swim cap hastily purchased on Amazon. And then there’s the white son of college-educated parents whose college applications indicated that he was African American, Mexican, and the first in his family to attend college.

At the center of every story is Rick Singer, the for-hire college counselor, selected by families not only to demystify the admissions process but often to ensure the “right” outcome. Singer knew the college admissions system well enough to game it for parents willing to pay large sums for a sure thing. Over time, he built a criminal enterprise, with unethical coaches willing to take bribes, a testing whiz to inflate ACT and SAT scores, and employees who created fake academic and athletic profiles. The scheme went on for years.

Korn and Levitz go beyond the celebrities and show how each of the parents involved ultimately decided what level of fraud they were comfortable with — and what lines some wouldn’t cross — in the pursuit of securing a spot in a premier college for their child. Some, like Huffman, were uncomfortable with what they had done. Others were far too comfortable; their sense of entitlement was palpable.

Korn and Levitz deftly handle a complex cast of characters, with a gentle touch for the children involved, even those who probably knew about the deception.

Race is an important, though somewhat ignored, subtext. Some of the white, wealthy students lied about their race, under the mistaken impression that being white put them at a disadvantage. Yet the system is built for students like most of Singer’s clients, by prioritizing high SAT and ACT scores, participation in elite sports programs, and access to Advanced Placement courses. And the college essay, which could highlight the challenges faced by students from less-privileged backgrounds, can feel exploitative. In Singer’s hands, it turned into a farce.

The judge who sentenced Huffman made the point clearly, telling her that the outrage wasn’t that the rich and well-connected had greater access to premier universities, it was that even with all those benefits, “you took the step of obtaining one more advantage to put your child ahead of theirs.”

Fitzpatrick, who wrote this for the Washington Post, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who writes about education.