The Origins of an Admissions-Bribery Mastermind Are Buried in a Confidential Report

Rick Singer was several years into developing a vast criminal enterprise by the spring of 2014, when a university compliance officer interviewed him on the phone.

William H. Cormier, then director of the University of California at Los Angeles’s compliance office, had questions about Singer’s connection to a family that believed a $100,000 donation to the athletics program would help to secure their daughter’s admission to UCLA. He was interested, too, in Singer’s connections to walk-on tennis players, whose families had made generous donations to the program after their children were admitted.

UCLA’s investigation, which is outlined in Cormier’s 43-page report, provides a glimpse into one university’s early misgivings about Singer, a college consultant whom federal prosecutors say bribed coaches and facilitated cheating on admissions exams to help the children of wealthy families buy their way into selective universities.

The inquiry came years before most people had ever heard of Singer, much less the federal investigation known as “Operation Varsity Blues,” which exposed his scheming.

The UCLA investigation was first reported in April by the Los Angeles Times, which reviewed the confidential findings but did not publish the report. In response to a public-records request, the university provided The Chronicle with the report. A number of details, particularly about how Singer got a foothold in UCLA athletics, are reported here for the first time.

University of California policy forbids the admission of students on the basis of potential financial or political benefits. The investigation identified two separate cases, in 2013 and 2014, in which that policy was violated. Some employees were disciplined as a result of those findings, the university said, without specifying who they were or how they were punished.

UCLA did not find evidence that employees had reaped any personal financial rewards or engaged in anything criminal, making the case different in kind and severity from those involving charges this year against coaches at UCLA and several other universities.

At the same time, the UCLA report details actions and statements by Singer that are now familiar, presaging elements of what would become higher education’s signature admissions scandal:

• The suggestion that money influences admissions.
• The use of athletics as a gateway for special treatment in the admissions process, even for students with limited athletic ability or no experience in the sport.
• The cozy relationships with coaches.
• The prospect of faking an athletics profile to beef up a student’s application.

All of it was right there in front of UCLA, nearly five years before the admissions scandal broke.

In March, Singer pleaded guilty to money laundering, obstruction of justice, racketeering, and tax evasion in connection with the scheme.

The review predates the indictment of Jorge Salcedo, who resigned in March as UCLA’s head men’s soccer coach after he was indicted in the bribery scandal.

When Cormier interviewed Singer about the UCLA case, the consultant said the student’s family had paid him a flat fee of $6,000 to provide biweekly counseling sessions and editing of application essays, among other services.

Singer denied that he had ever told the family that it could buy the daughter’s way into the university with a specific dollar amount. He did say, however, that “if someone helps you, it would be good if you help them back.” A donation was an appropriate “show of appreciation,” he said.

Singer said he had resisted telling the prospective student’s mother how much she should give. When she persisted, however, he suggested $100,000. Later he told her, according to the report, “$150,000 — what do you think?”

None of those machinations worked out, though. The student’s admission was halted when the athletics department’s compliance staff realized that she had been provisionally accepted as a walk-on water-polo player even though she had not played the sport in high school.

When confronted about the case, Brandon Brooks, who was then the women’s water-polo coach, said he had intended to admit the student as a manager, which would have violated athletics-department policy.

The case triggered Cormier’s broader review of athletics admissions at UCLA, leading the compliance director to identify a singular troubling variable that kept showing up: a college consultant named Rick Singer.

Singer’s Connection

In many of Singer’s schemes, as outlined by prosecutors, he tapped into a network of college coaches for help getting his high-paying clients admitted. The coaches tended to work in lower-profile Olympic sports, which have a few coveted walk-on slots for special admissions and less public scrutiny than revenue-generating sports like football and basketball.

Singer, who had coached high-school and college basketball, was comfortable and well connected in the athletics crowd. In 2013, after the prospective UCLA student’s family had hired him, he called up Billy Martin, the men’s tennis coach, whom he had known for about 10 years. (The student had played tennis in high school but wasn’t a top prospect.)

UCLA redacted Martin’s name and those of several other university employees from the report, citing an exemption in California law related to an “unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” But a person familiar with the investigation provided The Chronicle with unredacted excerpts of the report, which identify Martin as Singer’s initial contact.

The report identifies Singer only by his initials, but the university has said in a public statement that he was the consultant involved. The students are also identified only by their initials, and the university redacted portions of their personal information, citing federal student-privacy law.

Admission Through the ‘Side Door’

Dozens of people, including famous actors, college coaches, and a university administrator, have been charged by federal prosecutors for their alleged roles in an admissions-bribery scheme involving Yale, Stanford, and other elite institutions.

• One Year After College-Admissions Scandal, 3 Questions About What (if Anything) Has Changed
• 5 Questions to Consider in the Wake of the Admissions Scandal
• The Bribery Scandal Revealed Holes in Admissions Oversight. Now Some Professors Want to Take Back That Role.

Martin told Cormier that Singer had called him about the student in the fall of 2013, suggesting she could be “a good candidate for the women’s tennis team.” Singer told him that the family “could be expected to support the program,” Martin said, but “did not discuss any commitment amount.”

Martin and Grant Chen, then an assistant coach of the men’s tennis team, met with the student and her mother in October 2013, according to the report. Martin told them that “he knew RS well” and that the consultant “had found him many great scholar-athletes,” according to the report.

By this time, according to federal prosecutors, Singer had begun his transformation from college counselor to crook. As the student and her mother met with UCLA coaches, Singer was in the midst of a scheme to bribe a water-polo coach at the University of Southern California to admit the son of a wealthy financier, prosecutors say. Singer provided the coach with a fabricated athletics profile, which falsely claimed that the student was an all-star swimmer. (The student, once admitted, withdrew from the team after a semester.)

Since there were no slots available for the student on UCLA’s tennis team, Chen facilitated the student’s introduction to Brooks, the water-polo coach, who agreed to consider her as a walk-on or a manager. Chen told Brooks, according to the report, that the student’s “parents had the wherewithal to support the program.”

The catch was that the student had no requisite experience playing water polo. Singer offered to help with that, saying in an email to the student that he had “a friend” who could “create a profile if needed for polo,” according to the report.

The student asked for Singer’s feedback on an email she had drafted to Brooks, who had been identified as her best potential ally in securing admission. She touted her organizational skills and said she had “always loved the excitement and athleticism of water-polo matches.”

As the admissions process moved forward, Chen paved the way for a significant family donation. He procured a commitment letter that would require the student’s family to contribute $80,000 over four years to the water-polo program, according to the report.

“I don’t know if it’s going to happen,” Chen wrote to a university official, whose name is redacted, “but would like to have paperwork ready in case.”

Chen, who is now the head men’s tennis coach at Southern Methodist University, did not respond to emails or a message on LinkedIn requesting comment. But he told the compliance office that he thought it was his job to “help the program” and that he did not stand to gain personally from his efforts. Chen said he knew the student’s high-school tennis coach and “just wanted to help out.”

As for Singer, Chen said, he hardly knew the consultant and never discussed the applicant with him.

When Martin, the men’s tennis coach, saw that Chen had a commitment agreement prepared, he was so upset that he “ripped up the letter,” according to the report.

“He said what Chen was about to do was ‘so egregiously wrong,’” the report says.

Chen, in an interview with the compliance office, acknowledged that he had made a mistake and said, “Billy slapped my hand” for mixing fund raising with the admissions process.

Martin did not respond to emails requesting comment.

After the investigation, UCLA put into effect a policy that forbids soliciting donations from a prospective athlete’s family until after the student has enrolled. The university also requires an “athletic qualification check for walk-ons,” according to a statement from the media-relations office.

In his phone interview with Singer, Cormier asked what he had stood to gain if the gift had gone through. Singer responded emphatically: “Not one dime.”

‘Still Willing to Pay’

When the student’s mother learned that UCLA had rejected her daughter, she contacted university officials in protest. Singer, she explained, had told her that she was expected to pay $100,000 to the athletics department to secure her daughter’s admission.

“She was told that this was a common practice,” according to the report.

University officials told the mother that policy forbade the admission of a student as a manager, and that her daughter did not have the athletic qualifications to be admitted as a player. The mother, at some point, responded that she was “still willing to pay.”

The mother’s pleadings prompted Cormier’s investigation, which uncovered yet another problematic case from 2013. UCLA had admitted a track runner of limited ability, whose parents subsequently made a $100,000 pledge to the athletics program. She worked as a team manager but never competed.

The university concluded that the student and her family had done nothing wrong, and the student remained enrolled. UCLA kept the money.

The 2013 case did not involve Singer, but it had other notable similarities to the 2014 case. Chen, who was a friend of the applicant’s family, was again involved in referring the student to a coach and laying the groundwork for a donation, the report says.

Cormier concluded that the student’s admission constituted a clear-cut “quid pro quo.”

Chen’s involvement in both cases invited deeper scrutiny of the men’s tennis team, and the report gives particular attention to walk-on players of limited ability who were represented by Singer and whose families later made significant donations. There appeared to be a “pattern” of admissions actions in which the prospect of family contributions influenced decisions, the report says.

“The involvement of RS in these admission instances,” Cormier wrote, “adds to this concern.”

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.