Rick Singer, the mastermind of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, seemed unapologetic as he spoke out for the first time since being sentenced to three-and-a-half years behind bars.
The 64-year-old is living in a halfway house in Los Angeles, where he is serving out the rest of his sentence after pleading guilty in 2019 to racketeering, money laundering and obstruction charges.
The court heard he accepted bribes totaling more than $25 million from desperate parents – including celebrities such as Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman – who wanted to get their kids into some of the country’s best schools.
He told Fox News on Thursday that he is now ‘hiding in plain sight,’ able to leave the halfway home most days for a job with a restaurant group.
‘Now, somebody may recognize me and I can hear people talking, but nobody cares,’ Singer claimed as he looked back at his crimes.
He went on to admit that he is guilty of ‘everything’ he was accused of, but claimed he is not the only one gaming the college admissions system.
Rick Singer, the mastermind of the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, seemed unapologetic as he spoke out for the first time since being sentenced to three-and-a-half years
Singer was accused of accepting bribes totaling more than $25 million from desperate parents who wanted to get their kids into some of the country’s best schools
Singer said there were three ways students can be admitted into college – through a ‘front door’ with legitimate merit and grades, through a ‘back door,’ when a family publicly donates massive amounts of money or through his ‘side door.’
‘This has been going on for hundreds of years, I am not that smart to make up this process,’ he said.
Singer argued that his ‘side-door’ deals were only targeted because they were done in private and questioned why ‘backdoor’ donations given in public are more acceptable.
When asked if he thinks the college admissions system could still be gamed – and is still being gamed today – he replied ‘every day.’
Singer defiantly insisted that he never took a spot from a deserving student, instead claiming his scheme just exposed a budget tactic that higher education institutions rely on.
He said colleges blocked certain ‘spots’ on sports teams and within departments from everyday applicants and set them aside for big donors willing to pay for student’s admittance.
‘In 90 percent of the cases, the coaches every year are calling me saying, “I got a spot open, I need to raise this amount of money… Find me a family,”‘ he claimed, arguing the college admissions officers have not faced the same scrutiny he has.
‘The media missed that the colleges – they’re my partners in this,’ Singer said. ‘It takes two parties to play.’
Singer even vouched for the fake athletes, like Loughlin’s two daughters
The Full House star who pleaded guilty and served nearly two months behind bars
As part of his scheme, Singer paid off entrance exam administrators or proctors to inflate students’ test scores and bribed coaches to designate applicants as recruits for sports they sometimes didn’t even play, seeking to boost their chances of getting into the school.
Singer even vouched for the fake athletes, like Loughlin’s two daughters.
But others weren’t even aware of their parents’ involvement in their college admission – they would sit their SAT exam in locations where the test administer or proctor was on Singer’s payroll.
Once they’d completed their answers, the proctor would change them to ensure they were correct.
‘He was the architect and mastermind of a criminal enterprise that massively corrupted the integrity of the college admissions process – which already favors those with wealth and privilege – to a degree never before seen in this country,’ prosecutors wrote in court documents.
At least 50 people have pleaded guilty or been convicted in the college admission scandal as of October 2023, including the Full House star who pleaded guilty and served nearly two months behind bars, and Huffman, who was sentenced to 14 days.
Singer spent 16 months at federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, saying he made friends with some of the other inmates – many of whom he said were locked up for fraudulent COVID-era PPE claims.
He said he has hardly ever eaten prison meals and instead tried to find healthy grocery items to create his own meals.
Actress Felicity Huffman was sentenced to two weeks behind bars for bribing Singer
Singer admitted: ‘Everything that the FBI and US attorney and everybody else in the world says I did? I did.’
He went on to ‘apologize profusely to all of the families that I’ve hurt, all the kids that I hurt, the administrators that I hurt, my own family,’ and said he did the most damage to people’s reputations.
Singer said he considers his efforts to cheat the tests his most brazen, describing how his scheme began with one student in Vancouver who was intelligent but was a poor test taker.
He said he then paid Mark Riddell – who would later become one of his major accomplices – $10,000 to fake the child’s final test score.
Singer would not go into details about how he forged the test results, but said it involved a fake ID and described it as a satisfying, cinematic-like heist that paved the way for his future misdeeds.
‘What I can absolutely tell you what I did do that was illegal was cheating on tests,’ he said.
Singer insisted he also ran a legitimate college-coaching business he claims helped get hundreds of teenagers into college.
Singer recounted how he paid Mark Riddell – who would later become one of his major accomplices – $10,000 to fake a Vancouver child’s final test score
Singer spent 16 months at federal prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, but is now serving time in a halfway house
He said business moguls and Hollywood A-listers used his legitimate college counseling for their children, claiming he has built such a revered name in the admissions world that parents are still reaching out to him for coaching, and were doing so even during his trial.
‘I walked out of the court – out of the court – and I show my attorney my phone. There’s 93 texts: “Are you still coming over next week?”‘
Looking to the future, Singer said he wants to disrupt college admissions and education with his new company called Future ID Stars – which he said will eliminate the need for college for high schoolers across the country by identifying their IQ, skills and competitive edge and placing them directly in the workforce.
‘We have a notion that everybody needs to go to college, and it’s the right place for everybody, and you have to go to certain schools to be successful. And that’s not the truth based on tens of thousands of kids I’ve worked with,’ he said.
But, he promised, everything he does moving forward will be done legally with the review of attorneys – something he said he wishes he had done all along.