ENCORE: Making Up The Grade: The College Admissions Scandal

March 30, 2026·47 min·4 clips

Rick Singer, the mastermind of Operation Varsity Blues, is back working in college admissions after prison.

College acceptance season gets the Scamfluencers treatment. The episode starts with email openings and family panic, then turns back to Rick Singer, the admissions consultant behind Operation Varsity Blues. The nerve is still fresh. Singer, released from federal prison in March 2025, is described as back in college admissions as a master coach and lead advisor at ID Future Stars. That part barely needs a punchline. From there, the story follows a nationwide bribery scheme that steered wealthy students into elite universities through fake athletic profiles. Marcus is the clearest absurdity. USC tells Julie that a student has been offered a spot because he belongs on the water polo team. Julie has questions, obviously. Buckley does not even have a water polo team, which makes the lie brazen and somehow private-school-plausible. The paperwork gets worse. Marcus poses with a water polo cap and ball his father ordered from Amazon, then gets photoshopped into an action shot for the fake profile. Rick's price tag is blunt. Marcus' father paid him a quarter of a million dollars to lock up the USC spot. Julie raises the alarm. She tells USC admissions there must be a mistake, but the athletic director shuts down the concern because she is on Rick's payroll. Then comes the story meant to make it all sound official. Marcus supposedly plays water polo in Europe during the summer and met the USC coach there. Julie backs off, uneasily. Her job is getting students into prestigious colleges, not dragging them out when the story smells wrong. The collapse starts somewhere else. In March 2018, wealthy finance figure Maury Tobin is arrested after federal agents swarm his chateau-style mansion in a bougie part of LA. That arrest becomes the accidental assist. The episode treats the scandal as status panic with paperwork: forged credentials, institutional access, and adults who handled college admissions like a luxury problem with concierge service.

As heard by us

A brisk revisit to the admissions scam that finds Rick Singer back in the college game.

Rick Singer comes off as the sort of fraudster whose return makes the whole thing feel more sour than redemptive. Scamfluencers follows Operation Varsity Blues in a tight, clear arc, moving from the elite-university bribery scheme to Singer's March 2025 prison release and his…

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Why you'd press play

You want the Operation Varsity Blues scandal and Rick Singer's bizarre comeback.

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