Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Hello, I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Master. Welcome to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week Extra. It's our weekly podcast, bring you an
Speaker 1: in depth interview you will not hear anywhere else. And
Speaker 1: this one we were so looking forward to because it's
Speaker 1: like a year year and a half ago that we
Speaker 1: were all talking about the Varsity Blue scandal, because that's
Speaker 1: when it broke in March of last year, and there's
Speaker 1: a new book out about it, and we were thrilled
Speaker 1: to have with us Melissa Corn she's a writer at
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal. She co wrote this book, Carol,
Speaker 1: with Jennifer Levitt's and it's called Unacceptable Privilege, Deceit and
Speaker 1: the Making of the College Admission Scandal. Check it out.
Speaker 1: This was just such a wild story took for the
Speaker 1: Journal and show the book and my colleague and co
Speaker 1: author Jennifer Levice and I we were really blown away
Speaker 1: by so many things. Honestly, the scope, the breath, the
Speaker 1: sophistication of this scheme that the mastermind Rick Singer put together,
Speaker 1: but also what it says about our society and parents
Speaker 1: obsession with prestige and brand name schools, and it was
Speaker 1: often really the parents more so than their teens who
Speaker 1: were striving for these particular institutions, and they were the
Speaker 1: ones driving driving the whole process. So Melissa take us back,
Speaker 1: because this was something as Carol just alluded to, that
Speaker 1: landed and all of us across the journalistic world, the
Speaker 1: parental world, especially Carol and I both have juniors in
Speaker 1: high school, so we pay very close attention to all
Speaker 1: of these things, as many do. Remind us what Operation
Speaker 1: Varsity Blues Laid bare. Yes, So in March of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: which does seem like forever ago harkens back to a
Speaker 1: simpler time, UH showed that there was this college admissions counselor,
Speaker 1: Rick Singer, who had managed to find and exploit a
Speaker 1: few real weaknesses in the selective college admissions process, both
Speaker 1: in terms of standardized tests where he had paid off
Speaker 1: test site administrators and a proctor UH to fudge and cheat,
Speaker 1: fudge scores and cheat and improve the results for a
Speaker 1: number of clients. UH. He also found weaknesses in athletic
Speaker 1: recruiting and these special slots that are given to recruited
Speaker 1: athletes in the admissions process, and he arranged to bribe
Speaker 1: a number of college coaches and uh others who flag
Speaker 1: individuals as recruited athletes even when they didn't play a sport,
Speaker 1: and there was nobody checked. That was one of the
Speaker 1: big things that was really made clear here was that
Speaker 1: nobody was checking them a half. Nobody was testing, you know,
Speaker 1: auditing these applications in any way, because nobody ever thought
Speaker 1: that a coach would choose somebody who wasn't going to
Speaker 1: actually help the team, but if the price tag was
Speaker 1: high enough, clearly they did. It's amazing, Melissa, because I
Speaker 1: think you know, we've all understood I think safe to
Speaker 1: say that there's understandings that there are legacies and families
Speaker 1: that have been at schools and you know, you donations,
Speaker 1: You know that things happened, But this was just on
Speaker 1: a whole other level, right. So we have a whole
Speaker 1: chapter in the book called the Gray Area, which gets
Speaker 1: at the legacies, donations, those v I P lists of applicants,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody knows that that goes on. This
Speaker 1: is kind of at the far end of the spectrum
Speaker 1: and obviously a little bit too far that in illegal territory,
Speaker 1: but it really does highlight some of the existing inequities
Speaker 1: in the system, and I think it is a good
Speaker 1: reminder that even those people who aren't doing things like that,
Speaker 1: or even people who aren't legacies or donating hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands or millions of dollars, many of them have an
Speaker 1: edge too. If you're hiring a private essay t tutor
Speaker 1: or essay coach, or sending your kid to a regional
Speaker 1: club soccer team that costs ten thousand dollars a year,
Speaker 1: those are not experiences that every student has. So, Melissa,
Speaker 1: one of the amazing things about this book, because this
Speaker 1: is of course the scandal that has been written about
Speaker 1: and talked about, is you and your co author got
Speaker 1: some amazing access. You've got to people that basically no
Speaker 1: one else has gotten to tell us about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we were really fortunate in being able to speak to
Speaker 1: a lot of the principal players in this whole story,
Speaker 1: and I think a part of it was we made
Speaker 1: clear that they were going to be in the book
Speaker 1: whether they wanted to or not, and they could help
Speaker 1: make sure that it was accurate or try to hide
Speaker 1: from it, and a lot decided it was better to engage. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we we can't say who exactly we spoke with,
Speaker 1: and we make really clear that don't assume that just
Speaker 1: because there's a scene from one person's point of view,
Speaker 1: that that was the person that we got the information from.
Speaker 1: Of course, as we protect our sources, but we really
Speaker 1: did try to get inside their heads and explain a
Speaker 1: little bit about why they engaged a singer, why singer
Speaker 1: was the way he was, why the prosecutors took the
Speaker 1: approach they did, because I think there's nobody is it's
Speaker 1: really hard for any individual to be painted, you know,
Speaker 1: black and white, good guy, bad guy here because even
Speaker 1: the parents who committed felonies ultimately worked in some twisted
Speaker 1: way trying to help their kids. And me, that's relatable.
Speaker 1: What I read a little excerpt, I think it was
Speaker 1: in people um online, and you talk about one Devin
Speaker 1: Sloan who asked his son to pose for photos in
Speaker 1: the family pool wearing full water polo gear and didn't
Speaker 1: really give him a reason why, and the sun did
Speaker 1: it even though he didn't play the sport like. It's
Speaker 1: just amazing kind of some of the steps that parents
Speaker 1: went to and kept their kids in the dark. It
Speaker 1: really was. And I think you know with that, uh,
Speaker 1: excerpt in that that the anecdote with the son Matteo.
Speaker 1: He was really thoughtful about the whole thing, and afterwards
Speaker 1: and said, you know, I was really mad at my dad,
Speaker 1: but then I kind of felt bad for him that
Speaker 1: he thought that he needed to do this to make
Speaker 1: me successful. Um. You know, this is a team who
Speaker 1: would have been just fine on his own, and he
Speaker 1: would have landed at a perfectly good school. Um without
Speaker 1: that extra all of the extra bells and whistles and
Speaker 1: costumes and poaching and things like that. And his dad
Speaker 1: was sentenced to four months in prison, but he got
Speaker 1: to stay at the school. Correct, Right, He's one of
Speaker 1: the students who was not kicked out. Every university, every
Speaker 1: college did it, did their reviews a little bit differently. Um,
Speaker 1: Some expelled or rescinded the admission offers for students, others
Speaker 1: allowed the student to continue. It really was case by
Speaker 1: case at a lot of these places. Well, let's tell
Speaker 1: us more about the parents in this case. And we're
Speaker 1: speaking with most of Corn reporter at the Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal and co author of the new book Unacceptable Privileged
Speaker 1: Deceit and the Making of the College Admissions Scandal, tell
Speaker 1: us about the parents, because what you just said, I
Speaker 1: think resonated throughout this story. Uh that in many cases
Speaker 1: at least, this is I think how I read it.
Speaker 1: For the parents, This was as much about them as
Speaker 1: it was about their kids. Absolutely, And we talked a
Speaker 1: lot about that culture that was really prevalent in some
Speaker 1: of these pockets of southern California and the Bay Area
Speaker 1: and New York and that your kids are a reflection
Speaker 1: of you. So if your kids are succeeding by certain
Speaker 1: kind of predetermined measures, you as a parent are therefore succeeding.
Speaker 1: And it's beyond you know, are they walking and talking
Speaker 1: when they're supposed to? Is are they getting into this
Speaker 1: particular school because this particular school is one that you
Speaker 1: can boast about at a cocktail party. Well, that school
Speaker 1: that's perfectly good, but perhaps not as well known. You know,
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear hear about that over orders. So
Speaker 1: these parents really did get very caught up in that
Speaker 1: and in this sense that my kid needs to succeed
Speaker 1: because of a way of showing that I am doing
Speaker 1: a good job as a parent. So what's happened as
Speaker 1: a result of this? And I wonder in terms of
Speaker 1: admissions I mean, I feel like I have to say,
Speaker 1: I do remember when it broke in our Jason and
Speaker 1: Ireneo New York studio, and we're just like, you know,
Speaker 1: and especially because there are a lot of names beyond
Speaker 1: the celebrity names that we knew UM, whether in the
Speaker 1: financial community. But I do wonder if, like all colleges
Speaker 1: kind of went and it was like, okay, you know,
Speaker 1: like let's do you know, a deep dive to find
Speaker 1: out our process and make sure we're doing it the
Speaker 1: right way. Like what's what's happened as a result of it,
Speaker 1: what's maybe gotten better at colleges and universities when it
Speaker 1: comes to the admissions process, if anything. Yea early on
Speaker 1: last spring and summer, there were these hints that there
Speaker 1: was going to be change and these moments of reflection
Speaker 1: and introspection and okay, yeah, maybe we should audit our
Speaker 1: application or if somebody gets in as a recruited athlete,
Speaker 1: let's make sure they actually joined the team. And you know,
Speaker 1: a number of schools came out and said they would
Speaker 1: do that. California UM actually passed some legislation at the
Speaker 1: state level that schools needed to be more transparent about
Speaker 1: things like legacy admissions. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: there wasn't dramatic change. It's not like schools are saying
Speaker 1: no to donations that happened to come from families that are, um,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years off from college, and
Speaker 1: I don't see that stopping. I also think that with
Speaker 1: the pandemic and a lot of schools really facing major
Speaker 1: budget crunches, it's really hard for them to look away
Speaker 1: from the dollar bills when when they're dangled right now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I need the financial pressures mhm, exactly, some of those
Speaker 1: reforms maybe kind of put on the back burner for
Speaker 1: a little while. So most I want to go back briefly,
Speaker 1: we can't to something that that Carol mentioned, which is
Speaker 1: the celebrity aspect of this. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: the elements I think that really pushed this into the
Speaker 1: public consciousness was that this wasn't just about rich bankers,
Speaker 1: a rich private with the executives who certainly were caught
Speaker 1: up in this. And as Carol alluded to, you know,
Speaker 1: folks well known to a Bluebird audience or a Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal audience, but you know, maybe less out in
Speaker 1: the public world. But we're talking about actresses, and most
Speaker 1: notably I think because she and her husband fought it
Speaker 1: for so long. Laurie Laughlin tell us about that part
Speaker 1: of the story because it's when you dig into in
Speaker 1: the book. We do, because it's the story of Larry
Speaker 1: Laughlin and her husband, Masam Giauli and their two daughters.
Speaker 1: Our hopes illustrate just kind of how the athletic recruiting
Speaker 1: scheme worked very well. Um the two girls at various
Speaker 1: points posed on an ERG in their home gym, and
Speaker 1: the photos were sent to Rick Singer's team, and they
Speaker 1: ended up not being used in the final application. The
Speaker 1: one of his um deputies used a different different pictures,
Speaker 1: but it just showed how easy it was and how
Speaker 1: kind of murky some of the discussions were about exactly
Speaker 1: what was happening here. So we get into it in
Speaker 1: the book of what their defense was. You know, what
Speaker 1: they say Singer told them was actually going on. And no,
Speaker 1: it's totally fine. You're giving financial support to the to
Speaker 1: the crew team. It's fine that they don't play that
Speaker 1: they're you know that they're not rollers or cox swins.
Speaker 1: This happens all the time, totally closer versus Yes, I
Speaker 1: am fully aware I am making a bribe so that
Speaker 1: my kids can get into school pretending to be an
Speaker 1: athlete and not being an athlete. Um, I mean yes.
Speaker 1: So they pleaded guilty right around the time the book
Speaker 1: was going to the printer, So we tweaked a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Feel pass in there, kept us on our
Speaker 1: toes for all the very last minute. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of touch and go. It felt like, um, what was
Speaker 1: the most surprising thing in this process and all the
Speaker 1: reporting that you guys did and then eventually putting it
Speaker 1: into this book. So I think, um, you guys alluded
Speaker 1: to this a little bit before, but that there is
Speaker 1: something a little bit relatable for somebody with some of
Speaker 1: these families. Some of these parents right on My parents
Speaker 1: two and my daughter's much younger. But you want what's
Speaker 1: best for your kid, and obviously their approach is here,
Speaker 1: we're quite misguided. But you can kind of see that,
Speaker 1: you can feel that, you can you can relate to
Speaker 1: that that they in some guests, a lot of this
Speaker 1: is about their own ego, but they also did try
Speaker 1: to help their kid, and you also would try to
Speaker 1: help your kids. Might not go this far, but I think,
Speaker 1: um that the fact that some of these parents I
Speaker 1: could see myself and some of them, but that surprised
Speaker 1: me personally. It is also very interesting dynamic to explore
Speaker 1: in the book. Well don't you feel, specially because you're
Speaker 1: based in New York right because you're here at the Journal,
Speaker 1: you know, New York Metro, Like it's just a whole
Speaker 1: other world and everybody is so aware of where people work,
Speaker 1: where they live, where they vacation, where their kids go
Speaker 1: to school, Like it's it's unfortunately, that's this world. It is,
Speaker 1: it is, and it's it's one that I'm kind of
Speaker 1: at the early stages of with my own kid. But
Speaker 1: you know, people were joking about greasing the palms of
Speaker 1: a parent coordinator to get your kids off the pre
Speaker 1: k waitlist. Um, and I don't know how much they
Speaker 1: were really joking or serious people have Yeah, well, and
Speaker 1: to that point, Melissa, it's it's interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: you talked about how well we'll sort of see and
Speaker 1: and maybe we're all a little bit cynical given what
Speaker 1: we've seen or not seen from the higher ed perspective.
Speaker 1: Do you think and do you sense that behavior has
Speaker 1: markedly changed on the part of parents. Are they just
Speaker 1: more careful about, you know, the parts of the gray
Speaker 1: area that they're operating in. Yeah, I don't see them
Speaker 1: completely turning away from the gray area. I remember talking
Speaker 1: to one person um when reporting the book, who said,
Speaker 1: you know, from Orange County, California, very very well, so
Speaker 1: you very well connected, and saying, you know, my kids
Speaker 1: heading down in the down down this task going through
Speaker 1: the process next year, and we were going to hire
Speaker 1: a private counselor, but now I'm afraid to just because
Speaker 1: of the uh, the connotations and these siations of oh,
Speaker 1: use someone private, you know, did you what kind of
Speaker 1: person did you use? I think there's some more skepticism
Speaker 1: or cynicism, and not always lawranted, because most do follow
Speaker 1: the rules and everything, but I think people are going
Speaker 1: to be a little more cautious who they let play
Speaker 1: around and tinker with the application. Right, And what a
Speaker 1: wacky year I'm thinking about just right now between the
Speaker 1: virus and I know we're looking at both Jason and
Speaker 1: I have rising seniors, and it's just you know, you're
Speaker 1: doing the process virtually, but then also the backdrop of
Speaker 1: you know, this scandal and just I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: the tone that it kind of puts on this whole process.
Speaker 1: I have to ask you remind us what happened to
Speaker 1: Rick Singer. He's in jail, right, he is not, He
Speaker 1: is awaiting sentencing. He out he is actually taking some
Speaker 1: class has been taking some classes to try to finish
Speaker 1: up his PhD that he started almost twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: or about twenty years ago. The story just gets more interesting,
Speaker 1: right I know. Um, yeah, he's out about and his
Speaker 1: sentencing won't come likely until after some of the trials
Speaker 1: which will go into next year. And what is the
Speaker 1: defense ultimately for those Because there there's fewer and fewer people, um.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned Laurie Laughlin pleading guilty and her husband. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are still some people out there, Bill mcglashin,
Speaker 1: I believe, notably former TPG partner at the Rise Fund
Speaker 1: and TPG growth. He is continuing to fight on what
Speaker 1: ultimately is their defense. Right. So, yeah, there are a
Speaker 1: number that are still um proceeding and have created guilty
Speaker 1: and are maintaining their innocence, and they're mostly saying, you know,
Speaker 1: Rick Singer misled them, that he was very selective and
Speaker 1: what information he shared and while he might have done
Speaker 1: these bad he didn't necessarily explain it to them that way. Uh,
Speaker 1: So that's a big, big part of it. They've already
Speaker 1: exhausted a number of efforts to get the charges dismissed
Speaker 1: because of venue, or trying to sever the cases, saying
Speaker 1: we shouldn't all be tried together. We weren't part of
Speaker 1: a single conspiracy. The judge has dismissed all of the
Speaker 1: or has kind of shot all those down and said no,
Speaker 1: this is going forward. So um, there is exhausted most
Speaker 1: of those options, and you know, maybe we'll see some
Speaker 1: more played. We don't know, uh, whether parents or coaches,
Speaker 1: but they're essentially saying, you know, this is Singer's thing.
Speaker 1: We were just parents here kind of going along for
Speaker 1: the ride, not realizing exactly what was happening around us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hard to write the book. It was chaotic, hectic fifteen months,
Speaker 1: last the nights and weekend because Jennifer and I were
Speaker 1: both doing our day job at the journal as well. Yeah. Right,
Speaker 1: as a story continued to evolve, right, because it's not over,
Speaker 1: as you said, right, I was just you know, there's
Speaker 1: another parent being sentenced next week, and the former CEO
Speaker 1: of a publicly traded company and Uh, Lara Laughlin and
Speaker 1: Massamuli are scheduled till later this summer. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is far from over. So Melissa, I do want to
Speaker 1: ask you, maybe you know one more question is that
Speaker 1: then hadn't been some high profile people involved, I wonder
Speaker 1: how we would have looked at it, Like if it
Speaker 1: was a lant of names, were like, I don't know
Speaker 1: who these people are, you know what you mean? Versus
Speaker 1: actresses and big name Wall Street folks. Um, would it
Speaker 1: would we be talking about it as much? Probably not? Um.
Speaker 1: I think people know that college admissions are not quite
Speaker 1: as pure and meritocratic as we'd all hope they are.
Speaker 1: But it really does take something quite so shocking, quite
Speaker 1: so big, quite so high profile, to really get people
Speaker 1: talking about what where the fault lines are and how
Speaker 1: they could perhaps be short up. You know, if it
Speaker 1: was I think Bloomberg in Wall Street Journal would have
Speaker 1: been talking about some of it, uh, with some of
Speaker 1: these names. Um. But yeah, I don't know that it
Speaker 1: would have captured the public, the international audience the way
Speaker 1: it has. You know, when he's got tabloid reporters sitting
Speaker 1: in the courtroom in Boston to cover this. If it
Speaker 1: hadn't been for a couple of those names. In particular,
Speaker 1: that was most of corn who allow with Jennifer Levitt's
Speaker 1: of the Wall Street Journal, they wrote the book that
Speaker 1: just came out this week. The book is entitled Unacceptable,
Speaker 1: Privileged to Sit and the Making of the College Admission Scandal.
Speaker 1: And Jason great to catch up with her. You know,
Speaker 1: she said, you know, right off the top, she was
Speaker 1: dumbfounded and blown away by the scope of this, the
Speaker 1: breath and sophistication of the scheme, but also about what
Speaker 1: some parents would go to to get their kids into school. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think it's a story that's much bigger than
Speaker 1: these families, in so far as it says a lot
Speaker 1: about our society, what we value, how we interact with
Speaker 1: our kids, how we interact with institutions, how institutions interact
Speaker 1: with us, the role that money plays. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: so much. There's a text, there's a subtext in all
Speaker 1: of this, And I really enjoyed that conversation. Wide ranging,
Speaker 1: to say the least. Well, she said it was as
Speaker 1: much about the parents as it was about the kids. Totally.
Speaker 1: I think more so, I would argue more so, all right,
Speaker 1: you've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra Stitude to
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Speaker 1: weekend at Tral Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. This is
Speaker 1: Bloodburn m