Operation Varsity Blues: Director of college admissions scandal documentary says rich parents have ‘different set of rules’

Netflix documentary examines how wealthy parents were able to bribe college officials into getting their children a place at America’s elite universities

The director behind a new Netflix show that analyses the US college admissions scandal in 2019 has suggested that wealthy parents operate under a “different set of rules”.

Chris Smith, whose previous projects include the hit docu-series Tiger King and Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, has now released Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal.

The project examines how a number of wealthy American parents, including actors Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were jailed after an FBI investigation revealed they were paying huge sums of money to help get their children into elite universities.

Disgraced education expert Rick Singer led the scheme, which used some of the money to inflate students’ entrance exam results and bribe officials.

Smith told the BBC that he believes the parents viewed the scheme in the same way as they might a first-class plane ticket or amusement park fast pass, which would allow them to skip the queues.

“This may seem like a natural extension of the idea,” he said.

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Matthew Modine stars in the documentary as Singer, while other actors play dramatised versions of parents and college coaches.

“Felicity Huffman is a colleague and I know her husband. My daughter worked for a couple of seasons on ‘Shameless.’ I just felt bad for them,” Modine told The Associated Press.

“As a parent — I’ve got two children that went to college — we all want to do what’s best for our children to help them get a leg up. But not to this point, to the point of fraud.”

Other moments show YouTube videos of teenagers discussing their experiences of getting into their preferred colleges.

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Smith said he hoped the film would stress that students did not need to attend an elite college to succeed in life.

“But by going to a particularly great school, you're going to be put with a group of people who are already connected, already wealthy and already privileged. So, it perpetuates a system of disparity,” he said.

“We use the YouTube footage to show the torment and the pressure so many kids feel they're under, so some of these parents involved may even have felt they were doing their best for their children. There were probably a variety of motivations.”

Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal is streaming on Netflix now.