Varsity Blues: how the SAT and ACT were rigged, and who went to prison

Was Varsity Blues real, and what did it have to do with the SAT?

Yes. Operation Varsity Blues was the FBI's name for the investigation. On 12 March 2019 the US Attorney's Office in Boston announced that dozens of people had been arrested and charged, including 33 parents and 13 coaches and associates of Singer's businesses, two of them SAT and ACT test administrators.

Prosecutors described two schemes running side by side from about 2011 to February 2019. The first was test cheating: bribing SAT and ACT administrators so that a hired test taker could sit the exam in a student's place or fix the answers afterwards. The second was what Singer called the "side door": bribing university coaches to designate applicants as athletic recruits, whatever their athletic ability. Payments for both were dressed up as gifts to the Key Worldwide Foundation, a charity Singer controlled.

This page follows the first scheme, because it is the one that still matters to anyone booking an SAT or ACT. The then US Attorney, Andrew Lelling, framed the case on the day of the arrests: "There can be no separate college admission for the wealthy, and I will add there will not be a separate criminal justice system either," as NBC News reported.

How the test-centre switch worked, step by step

The charging papers and sentencing releases describe one sequence, repeated family after family.

1. Get extra time. Singer told clients to seek extended time on the exam, which "often involved having the children purport to have learning disabilities in order to obtain the required medical documentation", according to the Justice Department's January 2023 release.
2. Move the test. Once extra time was granted, families changed the test location to one of two centres where Singer had contacts: a public high school in Houston, Texas, or a private college preparatory school in West Hollywood, California.
3. Cover the move. Felicity Huffman, for one, "agreed to lie to her daughter's high school guidance counselor" by saying the test would be taken elsewhere over a weekend so that the student would not miss school, according to her sentencing release.
4. Pay the administrator. At those centres, the test administrators Niki Williams and Igor Dvorskiy "admitted to accepting bribes of $5,000 to $10,000 per test", the Justice Department said.
5. Bring in the test taker. Mark Riddell then did one of three things. He sat the exam himself, using a fake ID with the student's name and his own photo. He posed as a proctor and corrected the answers after the student finished. Or he was allowed to give the students the correct answers during the exam.
6. Send it off for scoring. Dvorskiy "then returned the falsified exams to the ACT and College Board for scoring", according to the Justice Department's release of 10 August 2022.
7. Launder the fee. Parents paid Singer as a "donation" to the Key Worldwide Foundation or as consulting fees to his business, The Key. Thank-you letters from the foundation falsely stated that "no good or services were exchanged", and many clients then claimed the payment as a charitable deduction on their tax returns, the 2019 charging release said.

Count the people who had to be misled for one score to work: the school, the testing company, the colleges that read the result and, in many instances, the student sitting in the room.

Mark Riddell, the man paid to sit the tests

In the Justice Department's 2019 description, Riddell was "a counselor at a private school in Bradenton, Fla." NBC News described him as a 2004 Harvard graduate. From 2011 through February 2019, prosecutors said, he cheated on college entrance exams in the United States and Canada for Singer's clients.

His case left behind the clearest price list in the record. Singer typically paid Riddell $10,000 per test. In total, Riddell "received just under $240,000 for inflating scores for 24 students on 27 exams over the course of eight years", according to the Justice Department's release of 8 April 2022.

Riddell pleaded guilty in April 2019 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and to conspiracy to commit money laundering, and agreed to cooperate. A month earlier, in a statement released by his lawyer and quoted by NBC News on 12 April 2019, he said: "I want to communicate to everyone that I am profoundly sorry for the damage I have done and grief I have caused those as a result of my needless actions."

At the time of the plea, NBC News reported, citing NBC Boston, that prosecutors were likely to recommend 33 months in prison. By sentencing, the government's recommendation on the case page was four months. On 8 April 2022 Judge Nathaniel Gorton imposed four months in prison, two years of supervised release, a $1,000 fine and forfeiture of $239,449.

The money machine: what a rigged score cost

Singer's clients paid him between $15,000 and $75,000 per test, according to the Justice Department. His costs were small by comparison: about $10,000 to Riddell and $5,000 to $10,000 to the administrator. The rest stayed with Singer.

The parents' plea deals, summarised by the Justice Department on 8 April 2019, show the range:

• $15,000: Felicity Huffman (at least), Marjorie Klapper and Peter Jan Sartorio, each for one child's exam.
• $50,000: Jane Buckingham, for her son.
• $75,000: Gordon Caplan and Robert Flaxman, each for a daughter.
• $125,000: Gregory and Marcia Abbott together, for their daughter.
• $300,000: Agustin Huneeus Jr., who agreed to pay for both the exam scheme and the athletic recruitment scheme.
• $600,000 in total: Bruce and Davina Isackson, for the exam scheme for their younger daughter and the recruitment scheme for both daughters.

Across the whole operation, Singer took in more than $25 million from clients, paid more than $7 million in bribes and "transferred, spent, or otherwise used more than $15 million for his own benefit", the Justice Department said at his sentencing.

He sold certainty. In a call quoted in the 2019 charging release, Singer told one parent: "My families want a guarantee." The foundation receipts then made a bribe look like a gift. By January 2023 the government had collected $8,880,802 in forfeiture, $5,682,954 in fines and $96,960 in restitution across the case.

Who went to prison for the test cheating

Everyone below pleaded guilty. The sentences come from the Justice Department's case page, which lists what the government asked for next to what the judge imposed.

• William "Rick" Singer: 42 months in prison (the government asked for six years), three years of supervised release and $10,668,841 in restitution to the IRS, plus forfeiture of assets worth more than $5.3 million and a money judgment of about $3.4 million. Sentenced 4 January 2023.
• Mark Riddell, the test taker: four months in prison, a $1,000 fine and forfeiture of $239,449. Sentenced 8 April 2022.
• Igor Dvorskiy, the West Hollywood test administrator: one year of supervised release with three months of home detention, and forfeiture of $149,540. Sentenced 9 August 2022. He cooperated.
• Niki Williams, the Houston test administrator: one year of probation and forfeiture of $12,500. Sentenced 21 December 2020.

• Felicity Huffman: 14 days in prison, a $30,000 fine and 250 hours of community service. The government asked for one month. Sentenced 13 September 2019.
• Gordon Caplan: one month in prison and a $50,000 fine. The government asked for eight months.
• Gregory and Marcia Abbott: one month in prison and a $45,000 fine each. The government asked for eight months each.
• Robert Flaxman: one month in prison and a $50,000 fine.
• Jane Buckingham: three weeks in prison and a $40,000 fine.
• Marjorie Klapper: three weeks in prison and a $9,500 fine.
• Peter Jan Sartorio: one year of probation, 250 hours of community service and a $9,500 fine.
• Agustin Huneeus Jr., who was in both schemes: five months in prison and a $100,000 fine.

Judges gave most parents far less time than prosecutors asked for. Every parent on that list still left court with a federal fraud conviction, because each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. A two-week prison term ends. A federal conviction stays on the record.

Did the students know, and what happened to their scores?

No student was charged. NBC News reported on 12 March 2019 that "no students were charged, and authorities said in many cases they were kept in the dark". The Justice Department repeated in 2022 and 2023 that "in many instances, the students taking the exams were unaware that their parents had arranged for the cheating". Huffman's own statement of 8 April 2019, carried by the Associated Press, said her daughter "knew absolutely nothing about my actions".

Not knowing does not protect a score. The College Board's current rules say that allowing someone to impersonate you, or impersonating someone else, "is strictly prohibited", that scores "may be withheld or canceled", and that it may share the names of banned test takers with "their attending high schools, interested higher education institutions, parents, and guardians" (Test Security and Fairness, read 29 October 2026).

We found no public statement from the College Board or ACT setting out what happened to each score in the case, and we do not name any of the students here. They were high school students when the adults around them made the arrangements.

For you, the uncomfortable part is this: if someone rigs your result without telling you, the score can still be cancelled, and you are the one who has to explain the gap to a college.

Who was behind it, in their own words

Singer ran it. He owned The Key, a for-profit college counselling business, and was chief executive of the Key Worldwide Foundation. He pleaded guilty on 12 March 2019 to racketeering conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of justice. In court that afternoon he told Judge Rya Zobel: "I am absolutely responsible for it. I put everything in place. I put all the people in place and made the payments directly," NBC News reported.

Huffman, the first parent sentenced in the case, issued a statement when she agreed to plead guilty, published by the Associated Press via ABC7 on 8 April 2019: "I am in full acceptance of my guilt, and with deep regret and shame over what I have done, I accept full responsibility for my actions and will accept the consequences that stem from those actions." She apologised "to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly."

The testing companies answered on the day the case broke. ACT said it contracts with thousands of people to give its exam and criticised "the few bad actors who have attempted to undermine a fair testing environment", the Associated Press reported on 12 March 2019. The College Board said the arrests sent "a clear message" that people who facilitate cheating on the SAT will be held accountable "regardless of their income or status".

Neither company was charged. The organisers charged on the testing side were Singer, Riddell and the two administrators, who gave the tests for the College Board and ACT.

How the loophole was closed

On 27 March 2019 the College Board explained what the two indicted proctors had used: "a process we have in place to ensure that students with disabilities can receive the accommodations they need". Some accommodations are delivered at a school, apart from the main sitting. Singer told clients to travel to Dvorskiy's and Williams' schools for them, instead of their own.

The College Board's fix went straight at step 2 of the scheme. Students with school-based accommodations now test at their home schools "whenever possible". In "the very rare cases" where a student asks to test at another school, the College Board said it would "require verifiable justification and implement additional enhanced security processes".

Its security page now adds that it will bar people from the SAT, AP and CLEP exams when it concludes they "deliberately gained or attempted to gain or share an unfair advantage on any College Board test", and that the length of a ban is at its discretion.

So if anyone tells you to take a school-based accommodation at a school you do not attend, ask for the written reason the College Board will want to see. If there isn't one, you have your answer.

Were any Varsity Blues convictions overturned?

Yes, for two parents who went to trial instead of pleading guilty. The best-known names came from the athletic recruitment side, where parents paid Singer to have coaches designate their children as recruits, backed by falsified athletic profiles and, in some cases, staged or photoshopped photos. Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, who agreed to pay bribes totalling $500,000 to help their two daughters get into the University of Southern California, according to NBC News, pleaded guilty in May 2020. Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison and Giannulli to five.

By January 2023 the Justice Department counted 55 defendants in Singer's scheme. Fifty-three had been convicted by plea or at trial, one had received a presidential pardon and one had entered a deferred prosecution agreement. The case page shows what happened next:

• 19 January 2021. Robert Zangrillo was pardoned by President Trump.
• 10 May 2023. The First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Gamal Abdelaziz's jury conviction. On 29 June 2023 the government moved to dismiss all criminal charges against him.
• 10 May 2023. The same court vacated all but one of John Wilson's convictions, affirming only his conviction for filing a false tax return, as the law firm Dechert summarised the ruling on 18 May 2023. On 29 September 2023 he was resentenced to a year of probation with six months of home detention, a $75,000 fine and $88,546 in restitution to the IRS.

The court held, in Dechert's summary, that payments made to the universities themselves could not be honest services bribery of those universities, that the jury had been wrongly told admission slots are property as a matter of law, and that charging one sprawling conspiracy had exposed the two men to evidence about other parents.

Neither appeal involved a parent from the exam-scheme list above. Those parents all pleaded guilty, and the case page shows no change to their convictions.

Red flags: seven tests for any tutor, consultant or test offer

One of these is enough to walk away.

1. Someone else touches your answer sheet. At the West Hollywood centre, Riddell posed as the proctor and corrected students' answers after the exam, according to the Justice Department. If an adult offers to check or tidy your answers after time is called, that is the scheme.
2. A test centre chosen for you. Singer sent clients to two centres where he had paid contacts. Book your own centre through your College Board or ACT account, and ask hard questions if someone insists on a particular one.
3. A diagnosis shopped for a score. Extra time obtained through a purported disability was step one. Real accommodations come from real documentation, usually your school's IEP or 504 plan, which the College Board says usually carries over automatically.
4. A lie to your school. If the plan needs your counsellor to be told something untrue about when or where you test, stop there.
5. Payment as a "donation". Singer's foundation letters said "no good or services were exchanged". A real tutor or prep course sends an invoice for a service.
6. A score promised without you. Singer told a parent: "My families want a guarantee." A promise that a set number will appear whatever you do on the day can only be kept by changing the answers or the person sitting the test.
7. Your name and photo on someone else's work. Riddell tested on fake IDs with the student's name and his face. Any request for your ID, photo or login so another person can test is impersonation, which the College Board calls "strictly prohibited".

The same hired-sitter model turns up far beyond US admissions. Read how it played out in the TOEIC scandal in the UK, in PTE proxy rings and in the US prosecutions of TOEFL and GRE proxy test takers.

The honest route to a strong SAT or ACT score

The parents in this case paid up to $75,000 per test for a number someone else produced. Most of what moves a real score is cheaper: practice on the exact format, timed, until the question types stop surprising you.

Start by choosing the test. The SAT guide and the ACT guide cover format, timing and scoring, and SAT vs ACT helps if your colleges accept both. Then use the official material. The College Board said on its 2019 information page that students who practised for 20 hours on Official SAT Practice gained an average of 115 points, nearly double the gain of students who did not use it. The figure is the College Board's own, and the practice is free.

Test at your own school or a centre you picked. If you have a genuine disability, ask your school to request accommodations through your IEP or 504 plan, the route the College Board describes.

Put your test date into the free study plan tool on this page. It works back from the date and the hours you have each week and tells you whether you will be ready, or how far to push the date. If you want more structure, SAT Pro adds a week by week plan, the topics that carry the most marks and practice questions, for a one-time fee. You still sit the test yourself, and every point on the score report is yours to keep.

Fake credentials follow the same logic as fake scores. If you are weighing any qualification, diploma mills and fake certification bodies shows how to check that an issuer is real.