Netflix, Varsity Blues & Bad Haircuts
In January 2019 I started my fledgling college admissions consultancy. On March 12, I started getting “turn on the news” texts from consultant friends. Being easily influenced by peers, I turned on the news to be treated to shots of Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman, and assorted other richies (including, I’m not kidding, the Hot Pockets heiress), all of whom had been implicated in what has to be one of the oddest scandals (and examples of white collar crime) in an era of odd scandals. They had paid stupid money to dishonestly get their children admitted to prestigious colleges.
Two years later, Netflix brought forth a docu-drama-something of the whole situation, which is enlightening/creepy/dramatic/and just, well, odd. The yawningly titled “Operation Varsity Blues: the College Admissions Scandal,” combines interviews with figures from the scandal and various experts, along with dramatic recreations of FBI wiretaps starring Matthew Modine’s haircut.
Some of “Operation Varsity Blues” is sensationalistic silliness, while other parts drop your jaw with their display of utterly clueless privilege and amorality. What’s best about the film is how well it lays out the deep anxiety the admissions process provokes in students and parents alike. The movie opens on (genuine) videos of students opening college decision emails and erupting into joyful jumping screams. If you need a quick pick-me-up, you can find scads of these on YouTube, and they can even produce a tear or two.
But as the movie darkens, different videos are sprinkled in, this time of the rejection reactions. The flipside of that joy is frightening. Allowing a college decision to define one’s worth is wrong, but shockingly easy to do, especially if parents and peers reinforce it. There are over five thousand four-year colleges in the US, yet everyone wants to go to 1 of the top 50. In many cases, students feel like failures if they don’t get into one of these, ignoring the other 99% of colleges, many of whom would be happy to take them and are capable of delivering just as thoroughly on the education side.
“Let it be a reality check: that prestige admission is not worth your integrity, your self-image, or one night of your sleep.”
In the College Admissions Scandal, parents, not the children, were always the culprits- to the point where in most cases the kids didn’t even know there was manipulation going on. Some of the most dramatically affecting moments in the film involved parents asking mastermind Rick Singer to actively hide his activities from their children. Olivia Jade Giannulli, Lori Laughlin’s daughter, famously told a few hundred thousand of her closest friends on YouTube that she had no interest in college and would “rather be filming 24/7 than sitting in six hours of classes.” In other words, the girl whose parents committed fraud and spent a half million dollars to get her into college didn’t want to go to college at all.
Really, the facts of the case alone should be enough to unsettle, outrage, and befuddle you. Netflix’s presentation of it adds little to the drama of Rick Singer’s pathological decades-long crime spree disguised as entrepreneurship, and ongoing FBI investigation, but it’s well worth watching for any parents and students facing the US college admissions process. Let it be a reality check: that prestige admission is not worth your integrity, your self-image, or one night of your sleep. With careful and thoughtful work, you will find a list of colleges that suit YOU. With more work, you’ll craft an application that will get you in to those schools, because they fit you to begin with and you fit them.
As a College Coach, I will support you to “get in the front door” of your dream colleges. No back doors, no side doors… Just your best possible college application that is truly reflective of your individuality and our mutual integrity. See my SERVICES. I offer fully transparent pricing for my admissions coaching package because equality of access and clear, transparent service is important to me.
Call me if you’d like to know more, or for a brief intro to my Admissions Consulting services.