Remember Operation Varsity Blues? Several high-profile/celebrity parents in the LA area got caught in an FBI sting. The crimes included changing SAT answers, bribing college admissions officials, faking athletic backgrounds to get college admittance and scholarships and a lot more. Felicity Huffman was one of the moms who hired for Rick Singer to “arrange” for an SAT monitor to change her daughters’ SAT answers so the daughter would get a higher score. Felicity pleaded guilty to the federal charges and she got a two-week prison sentence, and she ended up getting released after one week. She also got sentenced to community service, and she’s still working with the same charity, which is why she’s given a big interview. While these are not her first comments on the whole ordeal (circa 2019-2020), this is the first sit-down interview I’ve seen with Felicity since all of it went down.
“People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys, but that was not the case,” Felicity Huffman said. “I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer. I worked with him for a year and trusted him implicitly; he recommended programs and tutors and he was the expert. And after a year, he started to say, ‘Your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to.’ And so, I believed him. When he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — that that was my only option to give my daughter a future. I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So, I did it.”
“It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future,” she said. “And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”
The actress — who says she did not tell her daughter Sophia about her plans — recalled having second thoughts about what she had done as she drove her to the exam. “She was going, ‘Can we get ice cream afterwards? I’m scared about the test. What can we do that’s fun?’ And I kept thinking, ‘Turn around, just turn around,’ ” Huffman told the news outlet. “To my undying shame, I didn’t.”
She served 11 days of her 14-day prison sentence in October 2019. The star was also sentenced to 250 hours of community service and was on supervised release for one year. Huffman completed her full sentence by October 2020. Her husband, Shameless star William H. Macy, was not charged in relation to the event. Her daughter Sophia later retook the SAT and was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s theatre program, where she is currently studying.
Yeah… it was such a sleazy thing to do, but at this point, I do believe that she was just one of those obsessive helicopter moms who thought she could throw money at “the problem,” the problem being that she didn’t have faith that her daughters could get into college on their own merit. I hope this whole thing was a wake-up call for Felicity with her parenting style too, that she was actually being a sh-tty mother who treated her daughters like they were too stupid to do anything for themselves. Beyond that… she served her sentence, apologized, admitted guilt and she’s spent the past three years doing a lot of charity work. The best way to handle it.
Update from Kaiser: I honestly didn’t see Felicity’s other quotes before I wrote & published this. We will have more coverage coming out on Sunday or Monday.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- The 17th Annual LOreal Paris Women of Worth Celebration at The Ebell of Los Angeles Featuring: Felicity Huffman Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 01 Dec 2022 Credit: MICHAEL SIMON/startraksphoto.com/Cover Images
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- A New Way Of Life 2022 Gala Dec 03 2022 – Skirball Cultural Center – Los Angeles United States Featuring: Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy Where: Los Angeles, California, United States When: 03 Dec 2022 Credit: FAYES VISION/startraksphoto.com/Cover Images
No you did not have to break the law for her future. Hire her tutors to get her grades up and help her that way. If she can’t make it in how is she gonna get through school.
Exactly! Listening to her “explain” herself at this point in time, this phrase comes to mind … “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt – It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid”. She had garnered such good will by quickly accepting responsibility, doing her time (without fanfare or complaint), doing the work (community service), continuing the work (charitable service). Bringing up her “reasoning” at this point strikes me as still being out of touch. Either way who does she think she and/or her kids are that they should be entitled to a pass, an easy pass over qualified students. I think less of her after this interview. She still doesn’t seem to understand that her kids already had a leg up on everyone else based on who their parents are and what their connections and wealth provide.
I have conflicting thought about this. Hear me out.
On the one hand, every parent instinctively wants to protect their child/children at any cost. And Felicity has a lot of money to get whatever she wants.
On the other hand, she knew deep down this was immorale. And maybe she was only sorry, BECAUSE SHE GOT CAUGHT!
Amen to everything you said
Hmm, is Huffman having trouble getting hired behind this? This sounds like an “apology tour,” not genuine contrition.
“it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So, I did it.” Hmmm……her character, Lynette on Desperate Housewives was always yelling or crying about being a bad mom or bad wife, or not good enough and constantly ‘fed up’, as if only her character on the show best-represented moms everywhere. For years her character was perpetually offended, always sanctimonious, ‘always right’. I wonder if this routine went to her head.
I saw excerpts on the evening news and had a different reaction. I thought of all the men over the years who have bought their sons into Ivies and gotten away with it and how the majority of people sentenced in this sting are actually men, the mastermind was a man, but the only people we ever hear about are Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin … and I thought, yeah, I’m mad they broke the law but it’s gross that women are the poster children for this entitled rich people scam mentality. Also… this Peter Singer dude was a master manipulator. He knew exactly what string to pluck to get FH dancing to his tune, and it was the “good mother-bad mother” string—which someone else hilariously pointed out was the obsession of the character she played on TV. Sometimes it seems like you can get a woman to do almost anything if you can convince them it’s necessary to protect their kid. Even if it’s unethical. Even if it’s immoral. Even if it’s illegal.And that’s scary.
No. What Felicity Huffman wanted more than anything was a SURE THING. See, when a wealthy person gives $3million to a school like Harvard, to get their son Jared Kushner in, it is likely that they will be accepted but it isn’t a sure thing. Also, you are never getting the money back. However, in the case of Felicity, she wanted to give the appearance that she was making a charitable donation (one that she could write off on her taxes) while ensuring that her daughter would get into Felicity’s school of choice (USC), by ensuring that her daughter get a sports scholarship she wasn’t qualified for nor entitled to, simply because Felicity was less concerned about what was in the best interest of her daughter and more concerned about how she [Feiicity] would be perceived as a white mother of privilege who may have a daughter with a learning disability not being able to get into a prestigious university all on her own. There was a deserving, hard working kid out there who didn’t get into USC because of Felicity and her actions and she want’s us to feel sorry for her ? She never had to do this but for her the prestige of having a daughter at USC and the ability to write off the money she provided to make it happen as a “charitable” donation was just too tempting.
These rich @ssholes have everything money can buy including the best prep school, private tutors, social contacts who can do letters of recommendation, etc. Yet they STILL think they have a right to cheat and take slots away from harder working students. They probably complain about affirmative action taking away “their” slots too. All so they can keep their economic advantage for the next generation too, maintaining economic segregation. F- them, I hope she goes to jail for years.
@Mrs.Krabapple amen. That’s what I think gets lost: the media tends to treat this as though the real injury here were the cheating (in a country where affirmative action in college admissions is now gone or about to be gone, no less – WITHOUT even a glance at legacy admissions!). The real injury here is cheating WHILE RICH! It’s that not only do these people have every advantage, they’re purchasing even MORE!
Your child is going to benefit from your wealth and your connections. Your struggle as a parent is going to lie in cultivating a work ethic and perspective, because your child will not have much incentive to work hard and they will unquestionably struggle to understand their own privilege. Your child already has so many advantages so don’t even start with “her future was at stake.” GTFO of here.
She already served her time and wanting her to go to jail for years is extreme. She didn’t kill anyone. Also, why are moms given harsher treatment than dads?
But Lori McLoughlin’s husband was included in the news media coverage from the very beginning. If any male TV personalities were charged they would have received similar news media coverage. Felicity Huffman and Lori McLoughlin happened to be female TV personalities who got caught in an FBI sting, they were not moms that the public singled out from their male peers. But most of us parents have quietly observed the hyper-sensitive, hyper-insecure mom and dad types feigning ‘societal pressure’ as an excuse to be hyper-competitive against our kids. And men stick together, and people judge women more harshly than men, so YES, there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women….or who also knowingly elbow out other women’s children.
If I recall correctly, she was trying to get her daughter into USC.
You can LITERALLY buy your way into that school directly via donations. There was no reason to go through this whole thing.
^^THIS^^
Why not do it the legal way and just pay for a building? (Surely that’s as much as years of tutors and celebrity counselors and actual cheating cost her).
Why not? Because then their kids would *know* their parents paid for their college entrance, and it might bruise their precious egos.
And FH’s kid in particular is studying *theater*?! With two famous actors for parents, she’s already a nepo-baby who is going to have connections and access to whatever Hollywood opportunities she chooses.
But instead of helping her develop awareness of the privilege these advantages provide, they tried to raise her to be one of those nepo-babies who thinks they did it all on their own (I mean, that spectacularly backfired, but that was their goal).
And they knowingly **took away opportunities from other students** who had actually earned them, through hard work, good grades, actually being athletes, etc. to do so.
There is no way to spin this that isn’t utterly shameful.
FH comes across as one of those women who engage in performative self-criticism in the presence of other women. Someone here mentioned a key fact about Huffman: “Felicity Huffman also comes from a wealthy background, her father was a partner at Morgan Stanley, and she went to expensive boarding schools, so clearly this attitude was ingrained in her from childhood, not just from being famous.”
@DK. I don’t think she looked forward to all that since the very beginning. I think this is a ‘package product’ aimed at people without FH money. She just took advantage of the perks, and probably paid twice than others. The fact she’s still not acknowledging the real issue besides the cheating here which SHE HAS THE MEANS TO PROVIDE A COLLEGE EDUCATION AND A PROMPT WALTZ INTO THE JOB MARKET for her daughter means she was presented this scheme as something ‘everybody is doing’. Singer had a sketch: Name-dropping, ‘casual’ bumps into other clients, mountains of ‘other cases’ paperwork, reference to ‘lists’ or ‘groups’ ge was steering. That’s how this people predate. He presented his business as sailing through technicalities or any other metaphor for breaking the law.
And clearly part of her act is the nerd glasses/no makeup/wrung-out look so as to appear as a regular person that has been through a crisis as opposed to someone who is very well-off and famous. Her reps or stylists clearly told her to keep the glam down so that she could garner some sympathy. Didn’t work (at least for me).
” ‘Your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to.’ ”
^^ With all the discourse around affirmative action and Asian American’s this line in particular caught my eye. What other context did he pad this statement with ? Also what sorts of schools was she applying to.
The sad thing about this is that her daughter has now been marked for life by this incident.
And perhaps it’s a good lesson in life that you don’t get what you want in life if you don’t put the work in.
AND even though you put the work in you might not get what you want. I have had lots of talented hardworking friends in law school struggle to find articling positions, which is a requirement in Canada in order to practice as a lawyer. Well-connected students did not have that problem because their parents were networked and had the right friends.
Those who struggled were nonetheless extremely privileged to be a law student in the first place.
There are so many people who work so very hard and still struggle to provide the basic human needs for their kids. FH can’t see the insular bubble she’s living in.
Exactly. Not everyone gets to win 100% of the time, whether they work at it or not. And going to a different school, or not going to college at all, would not be the end of the world – especially for the child of TWO very successful actors. They have money and connections, their kid is ALWAYS going to be ok.
This was clearly how he scammed her into breaking the law. The irony is that her daughter Sophia took the SATs without cheating and is now going to Carnegie Mellon.
Wow–Carnegie-Mellon ain’t a cakewalk, to say the least. And it’s a serious buckle-down place, not a cachet school. Which kinda confirms my suspicion that the parents were angling for social standing, not what was best for their kids.
Deering24,
On what planet can you not get into USC but get into Carnegie-Mellon? Very strange.
Reborn Rich–beats the heck outta me. 😉
Her daughter is at Carnegie Mellon. I think she’ll do fine.
A future? You are RICH!
Don’t tell me that she wasn’t upset that her daughter wouldn’t go to a “good” (high status) school. Both of her kids have generational wealth. Their futures are secure.
THIS!!!! Immigrants and refugees risk it all to give their children a future. The notion that her child (born with a world of privileges money brings) wouldn’t have options is infuriating.
It has to have been devastating for the kid to have thought she made a good score on her own and been proud of getting into a good college, only to learn that mom manipulated it all from behind the scenes.
That’s the part of the story that I find devastating – to find out that not only does your parent believe that a certain college or university program is the only way to be successful, but that you don’t have what it takes to succeed, so they broke the law. It’s horrible.
Based on the mother’s attitude, I doubt the kids were raised to work for what they want, and instead believe anything they want can be bought, and that’s how the world should be. So I doubt they would care, except for how the revelation affects them (if at all).
Oh my god maybe her kid couldn’t get into the college of her choice!!!!!! Lord help her whatever will she do!!!!
I mean, this is just kinda the normal life lesson that MANY regular plebs like us deal with: the disappointment of not getting into our top college(s). But rich people always think they’re different; that their spawn are somehow entitled to the best education; entry into the Ivy League college of their choice. God f*cking forbid her kid learn anything from not getting accepted into her top schools.
I don’t even hate Felicity and I do have sympathy for how competitive college has become but I still find the whole thing really gross. The absolute f*cking exceptionalism of rich people..this (not incorrect) idea that money, fame and connections should guarantee access to anything they want. Ugh. I’m just so sick of it.
Amen.
I’ve guided two straight-A kids through the college admissions process, and neither of them got into their top choice schools. Even if they had, we could not have afforded to send them. The entire process is a ridiculous joke, and much of that is down to rich people gaming the system for their precious offspring.
The gall…
salmonpuff, same. One wants to attend medical school so her top choice (at 80K/year) was absolutely out of the question. The truth is that Ivy (or Ivy adjacent) schools are not realistic financially for most people, my two attending state universities for 4 years will cost around $100K each (room and board) after scholarships. And believe me, I do recognize my privilege in being able to provide them with 4-year college degrees debt free, which is more than so many other parents are able to do. FH kids would have been just fine and this reads as a rehab/apology tour.
@Kitten. Exactly. I was listening to the Pos Save America interview with Dean Phillips yesterday, and his critique of the “fixed” nomination process just sounded like a rich guy wanting to bypass years of doing the work to buy his way to the top. I had no opinion of him going into the interview, but strongly dislike him now. A bit off topic, but just another example of the same attitude.
I have a mixture of sympathy and resentment for Felicity. I went through the hellscape of college admissions with 3 sons and it is stressful beyond belief. The pressure was awful for them. One of them even vomited from stress before taking his SAT’s. I wanted to give them the best chance possible, but for me that took the form of budgeting for SAT prep courses. I cried from relief and joy when each of them got their acceptances.
Okaaay. I’d have more respect if she talks about real inequalities within the college system. The fact that affirmative action was just struck down. If she works with nonprofits that help students of different backgrounds than her daughter who are trying to get into college. Has she done any of that yet?
Exactly! I have less respect for her now after reading this interview. She’s learned nothing other than the fact that she was stupid. She says nothing about a rigged system that allows those with wealth and privilege to game it or the fact that she – and oh so progressive woman – was perfectly willing to exploit that system when it benefitted her. Puke.
I’m sure many will consider this no big deal; she just loves her kid and would do anything for them. Besides, the whole system is a money racket anyway. I don’t disagree.
Meanwhile parents who cross the border to literally save their kids’’ lives are demonized among a huge swath of America and used as pawns by politicians with no desire to help fix the problem.
I’m just here to put out the disparity.
This. Allllllll of this. Exactly this.
Not only that, mothers have been imprisoned for a lot longer than 1 week for forging a mailing address to get their kid into a better school district than the underfunded one they actually reside in. (Tanya McDowell was sentenced to 5 years, though it wasn’t her only crime she was convicted of, lying about her address to get her son into a better school district got her charged with felony larceny!)
The immigrants crossing over are not white and privileged so they aren’t valuable and do not get a pass or a tiny slap on the wrist. Nor do they get a puff piece for sympathy and get commended for just trying to make sure their kids have a “future” in which they are fed and alive and not yknow facing violence, poverty and threats to their existence….
Which is a totally fair one IMO. I live in a border state. I’ve also visited parts of Mexico that are not popular with tourists, seeing towns that had one phone to share (a call coming would be announced on a loudspeaker), unreliable power grids, little employment. Granted, that was a good decade ago, but I don’t know how much has changed. And people are coming from many places with far worse problems.
I am with the parents trying to save their kids. Have people forgotten what drove them and their ancestors to come to this country? People don’t make a long and dangerous journey to an uncertain future because they feel like a change of scenery.
I partially agree
But also don’t have kids if you cant afford to provide for them? If you pop out 5 in Mexico then illegality try to sneak them across the border across drug cartels, immigration agents, drugs violence, slum conditions….yeah.
Wow, Allison. Are you really trying to moralize having kids? Especially when the violence and poverty is systemic to your country and has nothing to do with you? Or how about those families whose situations have changed?
They are families facing dangerous situations and trying to give their kids better lives. That’s all we need to know. The whole “pops out 5 kids” smacks of racism and bigotry not unlike pro-lifers who think women just shouldn’t have sex if they don’t want a kid.
Allison, turn off Fox news and slowly step away from the TV…
I could say the same about all the parents here who have kids who rely on my tax dollars to pay for public schools. I don’t have any kids but I pay for your choices and I don’t even get to take deductions for them. All parents want the best for their children as they should.
Saying it loudly and clearly for those in the back: women living amid poverty and violence and authoritarian cultural constraints including a patriarchal system and the church are not always in control of how often they get pregnant.
“Pop out 5” is fairly repulsive language to describe women who may have no access at all to birth control; husband may refuse to use it; church may forbid its use along with abortion; culture may frown on her for not having kids; she may be subject to marital rape; and so on. If conditions where she lives are violent and dangerous for her children of course she will make an effort to give them a better future. The dangers along the way are not her fault either.
I think it’s hilarious that Allison blew up her own “argument”. Whew girl. Why don’t you read what you wrote and just give it a minute. I’ll wait…
Isn’t it the case in the US that there are limited spots of how many people can get into a specific university?
So, if he daughter had gone in, that would have robbed a more deserving person?
Yes
She’s white, rich celebrity, her daughter’s future was secure.
Felicity Huffman also comes from a wealthy background, her father was a partner at Morgan Stanley, and she went to expensive boarding schools, so clearly this attitude was ingrained in her from childhood, not just from being famous.
So gaming the system is in her DNA, pretty much? What a shame. I liked her performances, but as a person, she sucks…
“she was just one of those obsessive helicopter moms who thought she could throw money at “the problem,” . Maybe, but so what?
As for her comments, I see the image rehab campaign has begun. She KNEW she was breaking the law, period. She willingly went along with the entire scheme, she just didn’t think she’d get caught.
“It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future,” she said. “And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”
I am embarrassed for the daughter. Shame on Felicity & Will Macy. You had to break the law to give your daughter a future? Really? Both Felicity & Will are guilty.imo Children are not extensions of their parents. Their successes are not the parents successes. Their failures are not the failures, unless, of course, you are a d-gshit parent. I’m inclined to say.
Bye. Felicity with your explanation.
Wow-way to throw her daughter under the bus. What her mother was worried about was not that she couldn’t get into a school-but she couldn’t get into the RIGHT schools.
And then to go through all of that mess to just be pursuing a theater degree. The Huffman-Macys should have used the money on tutors and tuition to support their daughter while she took acting classes and went on auditions.
Let’s face it, Huffman went to prison so her daughter could have a “college experience” with the right white people.
Felicity and William H. Macy’s rolodexes (I know I sound old) alone could have guaranteed their daughter get what she need to pursue a theater career…. it’s not like they were worried about getting her into some ultra selective and competitive engineering program that only accepts THE most perfect of test scores.
They wanted bragging rights, and she’ll still end up a nepo baby, which is whatever. But that’s wild that she’s justifying it on the basis of worrying about her daughter’s future as if it was USC or a gutter somewhere. This is so she can get back to work and try not to distract from her projects. It’s checking a box for the studios.
I look at the kids who go to tutoring programs that their parents sacrifice to pay for. Those kids spend four to six hours a week just to get ahead all while juggling other responsibilities. Sounds like she didn’t think her daughters should have to work hard. Her interview reeks of privilege and tone deafness.
She’s being really careful to not mention her husband, William Macy. He was just as involved in this. But he was never caught on tape or email, so the Feds couldn’t charge him.
I’m glad she continues to work with a charity that helps previously incarcerated women get back on their feet. It’s nice to be rich and white and be forgiven and be able to recover from mistakes. Not everyone gets that same grace.
Give me a break! Rich and entitled. She thinks the laws don’t apply to her? Poor kid it makes her seem to stupid to tie her shoes without her mommy! I am no longer a fan of either her or her husband. Go stand in a corner! I hope she never works again! She should have stayed quiet! We had almost forgotten about this. I would change my name if I was her kid!
So without her committing more crimes and meddling, her daughter was accepted into Carnegie-Mellon, which is a very prestigious university. She basically decided her daughter was a dummy and her daughter proved her wrong. That is some toxic parenting.
CMU alum here. Admission to the drama program relies heavily on the applicants audition. When I attended, the average drama student had a 3.0 gpa for high school.
Between her parents wealth (being able to pay full tuition without financial aid helps a lot) and if she had a good audition, her academics must have been pretty terrible.
I’m sure who her parents are as actors didn’t hurt! This episode infuriates me so much. These celebrities/rich folks already have so much going for them. To try and game the system on top of that?! Smdh.
Carnegie Mellon’s drama program is VERY competitive and highly selective, but more so for acting talent and less for grades and test scores. Especially not for someone who has successful actor parents. Non-artistic majors at Carnegie Mellon are much more academically selective.
her husband is literally affiliated with Atlantic acting school at nyu. she could have just gone there the old fashioned nepotism way. she still doesnt get it.
I have to think almost every acting school in the country would gladly accept the child of 2 famous actors , for clout and donations.
I’m so glad her daughter did everything over again & got into a program & school she hopefully loves. I thought at the time & still do that the greatest punishment all those families will have is the years of knowing your parents didn’t have faith in you. BTW these are now called snowplow parents bc they’re worse/more damaging than helicopter, bc they move any and all obstacles out of their kids’ way, thus the child not developing a sense of resilience and then an outsized fear of minor ‘failures’ and regular life stuff. Seeing it in college kids but what’s cool is they seem ok with coaching & experiences.
Unreal! I was already horrified by her actions and this only makes it worse. She and her family have access to nearly unlimited resources – resources that so many families would do anything to be able to provide to their children. What an insufferable assh*le.
I have conflicting thought about this. Hear me out.
On the one hand, every parent instinctively wants to protect their child/children at any cost. And Felicity has a lot of money to get whatever she wants.
On the other hand, she knew deep down this was immorale. And maybe she was only sorry, BECAUSE SHE GOT CAUGHT!
In the documentary I watched it said it was a lot about reflected glory for Mum & Dad, and missed opportunities in the parents’ younger lives. I can understand wanting the best for your kids could be an excuse. But I don’t see this as protection of their kids at any cost. I actually see it as not protecting your kids from the realities of the world, and from your undermining of them and their abilities. Some of these parents were implying their children were not good enough and that must really sting. But yes your last line is gold: they were sorry only at the point they had to be. The recorded phone calls when they got caught were mind blowing!
@sparrow that makes sense Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli never went to college and Lori was obsessed with her daughters going to college. To fufull her dream. Not theirs.
Olivia was pretty upfront about not wanting to go since she had a budding and very lucrative career as an influencer. Lori trashed her daughters career for it. Lori should just do the work and go get a college degree herself. But really prison was just a hiccup for all of them. They are still rich and using the experience for interviews. They always spin it to their advantage and control the narrative.
What threat was she protecting her kid from? Disappointment?!?
Reality
I don’t think what Felicity and Full House lady will prevent others from doing it. They will be more careful and underhanded. We just had affirmative action taken out by a group of folks who were entitled and mad at black people because they weren’t getting into Harvard. White women benefited most from affirmative action, and they will only get more desperate.
Whatever, b-word. Also, I don’t believe her claim for a SECOND that her daughter had no idea what was going on. Because her OTHER daughter apparently wanted no part of it, suggesting that the daughters were given the choice.
Yeah if you’re not good enough to get through the admissions process you’re highly unlikely to thrive at the course.
Kids also need to know what their limits are and learn to deal with failure, that’s how you support them in becoming healthy adults.
I think this is something that gets lost in the college admissions craziness. Even with the athletes who are accepted based on their sport and not grades. You have to survive these schools for 4 years. It can be a huge shock to high school students when they get into any school because the course load is so intense, imagine being at a school with legitimate geniuses but you got in for some reason other than intelligence. How will you get through those classes and graduate?
This is very true. I know someone who had helicopter parents like this who did everything for him, like literally did his homework and everything for him every evening. Spoiler Alert: He didn’t make it past the first weekend at college.
pure colonizer vibes. she is a typical white person who has everything & thats still not enough.
They have all the money in the world to hire the best tutors to prep the kids. But no, they want to take shortcuts. Since they see their kids as a reflection of themselves. The better school they get into the better parents they think they are. But it’s all built on a house of lies.
Not completely related, but a former classmate of mine had a brother whose mother desperately wanted her son to go to some other school (maybe it was Harvard or something) instead of whatever his choice was. She applied to the school she wanted her son to go to and accepted their admission without him knowing. He ended up going to Stanford which is an amazing school. I only found out because my good friend’s dad was high up in the administration at our small private school so she knew all the behind the scenes student/parent/teacher gossip. Some parents will do absolutely insane things if they think it’s in their children’s best interest.
It doesn’t excuse what Felicity Huffman did. I have to wonder how her relationship with her daughter is like now, it would be so hard for me to trust my mom had she pulled something like that.
I love this kind of info, thank you; not being American, it’s really interesting to me. I watched the documentary with my partner, and we just couldn’t believe it. How stupid are you saying your kids are?!
This is WILD. And completely believable. It starts early. The shit I’ve seen as early as kindergarten in a middle class suburban neighborhood public elementary school. People are insane. They put way too much pressure on their kids because they want them to “win”. They have a very zero sun outlook on life. If you or your kid show any sort of exceptional quality, they will shut you out so fast because they don’t want any competition. Everyone is mediocre trying to prove they’re all gifted and it’s infuriating to witness. Let kids be kids and find what they enjoy. They have all their lives to do that. Guidance is necessary of course but don’t force them to do things just because it’s what you want for them.
Sorry, autocorrect got me. Zero SUM not sun
WTF did I just read? I have a few points of rebuttal, your honors:
1. Your daughter has wealthy, well connected parents. She was going to have some kind of future no matter what.
2. It’s disappointing to not get into your top college choices, but there are plenty of other solid options (I worked in the CSU system for years and taught several celebrity children by virtue of being in SoCal. It’s not the ivy league, but as with anything it’s as good as you make it.)
3. California has THIRTEEN residential community college campuses that feed into the 4 year systems. One has a very good chance of entry to Berkeley or UCLA if they’re successful at a community college. (There are dozens more non-residential CC campuses).
4. Stealing opportunities from other young people does not make you a good parent.
5. If all the options above are considered and the child is still not suited to a competitive academic environment, take that as a sign. College is heralded as a guaranteed entree into the middle class. I’m not even sure that’s true any more, but if your only interest in a top college is to surround your children with other rich kids, STFU!
The state of higher education in the US is a mess. Anyone with a high school/ college bound kid will likely agree with me. Most state flagships are extremely competitive now. Ours has an annual in state cost of attendance (tuition/books/room and board) of $30k. That’s $120k for a teaching degree, a physical therapy degree, a basic business degree. Our state auto admits with above a 3.0 in several of the smaller state schools which is great but they still cost $20-$25k a year. These are in state public universities. Out of state and private and the cost soars.
The federal government allows dependent undergraduate students to borrow a maximum of $27,000 in federal student loans. That’s the entire amount for 4 years.
Where is the rest of the money coming from? Parents, grandparents, part-time jobs and predatory private lenders.
Some majors like engineering, computer science or nursing are direct admit so if you don’t declare or even get in as a freshman, it’s much tougher to choose this later on.
College is a different, very expensive path these days.
People with her privilege already have such a leg up just by being able to afford the cost.
@Twin Falls – That’s sobering. I used to believe in college for all, but more and more I am leaning towards it’s not for everyone. But in California, two years of community college for state residents is essentially free if you commute. The 23 campus CSU system is “tuition free” for state residents, although the costs of fees and housing will still run upwards of $10k term. It’s comparatively a huge bargain. Though off campus rent and cost of living almost anywhere in CA can be prohibitive to some students. What’s really offensively obnoxious is a rich celebrity whining about prestige when their kid obviously isn’t academically qualified for a top school, while literally everyone else is struggling just to get a degree.
11 days in prison. What a joke.
Jeez. What does it say about American capitalism that even people with every-damn-thing are terrified their kids won’t “succeed?” 🙄 And exactly why did daughter want to go to those colleges–or did she really? (Given the other Singer parents’ excuses for why they went criminal, it really sounds like the parents wanted certain schools as a status thing.) Seriously, I am _so_ tired of these uber-wealthy connected folks whining about _anything_. They and their kids have chances the rest of us would have to kill ourselves to get–but they still game the system like crazy.
It isn’t one tiny little bit about “success.” It’s about keeping up with the Joneses. I went to a college prep high school in California, but USC wasn’t a big name for anyone other than film majors back then, and even then it was the safety school to UCLA. It’s increased in prestige more recently, but it’s hardly the only option in town. For the high cost of living in California, we have more than 30 publicly funded universities, all of which will give you a chance to enter California’s middle class. I’m not giving American capitalism a pass, but one thing California does exceptionally well is higher education. There’s never just one school to make your dreams come true. I will die on this hill.
bettyrose–thanks! It’s depressing that a lot of parents don’t really seem to care what school is best for their child’s needs. All this for bragging rights…😡
B.S. A heroic mom saves her child from a burning building, not bribe a college official to accept her underachieving kid into a fancy college. I will never accept this shit as “a mother’s love.” Vanity, cheating and stupidity. That’s what it was.
What kind of delusional behavior is this?
FH and her husband WHM are both multi-millionaires.
And yet, FH felt she had to bribe a college to get her daughter in?
#1. She is basically declaring her daughter to be too stupid to get into the college Mommy wanted her in. Thanks, Mom, that is not hurtful at all, hey.
#2. FH is a control freak. I want my kid attending this college, no matter what it takes I will make this happen.
#3. Rich Mommy bribes her kids way into college, thereby taking an opening away from a kid qualified to attend but who doesn’t have the $$ to bribe.
#4. WTF is FH bringing all this back into the public eye?
#5. Rich Mom wants her kids going into a prestige college, to make HER ego feel better.
I agree 100%. I feel sorry for her daughter and any other kids she might have because of her attitudes toward her child and her attempt to control things for her own ego. Give the poor kid a chance to succeed or fail on her own.
I can definitely imagine that the predatory “admissions coach” took advantage of Huffman’s insularity by assuring her that “everyone does it.” And admissions *are* cutthroat; a lot of wealthy students hire writers to ghostwrite their admissions essays, for example. It’s ALL cheating. Most people aren’t caught.
Hold on – Felicity is comparing the rightful raid my the FBI to the ordeals POC are faced with daily. This is totally absolutely disgusting and stupid claim. It id a false equivalency. It shows what an entitled, self-absorbed, clueless twit she is. I will never watch anything that she is involved with forever.
Carnegie Mellon’s theater programs is really hard to get into. Like a crazy number of kids audition and they take 30, it’s like Juilliard. And it has nothing to do with academic standing or your SAT scores. They take the most talented actors (or, right, the children of famous ones) based entirely on an audition. Of her daughter wanted to be an actor I don’t know why she bothered with the charade of an SAT tutor at all, you spend that money if youve got it on an audition coach. Except she doesn’t need a coach because her parents are famous actors.
I studied with both of them 25 years ago and they were both wonderful teachers and actors — and also totally rule-bound, strict, incisive. It is tremendously ironic to me that felicity thought she and own kid were not bound by the same rules as everyone else, given what I experienced from her.
She worked with a highly recommended college counselor? Who recommended him to her? Where did she hear about him? Sorry but I doubt any of the colleges recommended him to her. She would have had to seek him out. Probably by asking “who can get my daughter into college.” Sorry but from listening to her. She had to have known she was willing to do illegal things before ever speaking to this man.
More like she thought she was above the law but got caught, no she thinks this ridiculousness is going to work in her favor? No it isn’t. Send her back to prison for spewing this drivel
I really feel sorry for this woman’s daughter and any other children she might have. She clearly did not believe that her daughter met her expectations, and the so-called “expert” she hired did not help the matter either. How did he really know whether or not this child was capable of having a “future,” whether she got into her preferred university or not.
Instead of spending money on the issue, perhaps she should have worked with her child to help her achieve her (the daughter’s, not the mother’s) goals through study, hard work, and realistic expectations before, during, and after a university education.
I know someone who is a very catty, socially competitive person trying to break into the college advising/coaching field and it really bothers me. She is targeting parents of high schoolers trying to use scare tactics to convince them their kids will never make it into any college without HER “expertise”. She is ableist and has shamed me for not “prioritizing” my health re: my chronic illness that she knows nothing about, and unlucky her I have 2 high schoolers. We don’t have the money to even consider hiring a coach and if we did we wouldn’t because it is absurd, just another scam to take the money of desperate people.
It is another socially hyper competitive suburban parenting fad and I’m not interested.
— What has she had done to her face?
— So interesting that getting into the “right” college has become synonymous with having a future, in this country.
— She’s a rich White woman. Imagine if she’d been a poor Black woman. What would the “justice“ system have done to her?