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Varsity Gray: A Times investigation into what really happened in the college admissions scandal

Lori Loughlin departs federal court in Boston, after a hearing in a nationwide college admissions bribery scandal in 2019.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
By Matt Hamilton
 and Harriet Ryan
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When the Varsity Blues scandal hit in 2019, it rocked American academia in unprecedented ways.

The federal case alleged that wealthy parents cheated to get their kids into elite universities. The prosecution pulled in business titans as well as celebrities like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman.

No university drew in more defendants than USC.

Five years later, a Times investigation revisited the scandal with a trove of new documents that offer a more complex view of Varsity Blues and deeper questions about universities like USC that claimed to be victims of fraud.

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The secret door at USC

photo illustration of USC logo with two hands holding money and a diploma
(Jim Cooke/Los Angeles Times; photos via Getty Images)

Well before Rick Singer’s scheme was underway, USC quietly offered wealthy and well-connected families an alternative route to admission with much lower academic expectations and an acceptance rate of 85% to 90%. Internal records show USC fundraisers anticipated significant donations from families of those admitted and, in some cases, became enraged when money failed to materialize.

photo illustration of USC logo with two hands holding money and a diploma

USC Sports

Beyond Varsity Blues: In pursuit of donations, USC admitted affluent kids as walk-on athletes

Internal records show how USC admitted children of the wealthy and well-connected through an alternate path with an acceptance rate of up to 90%.

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The Mater Dei connection

Mater Dei high school logo
(Mater Dei High School)

Athletic powerhouse high school Mater Dei routinely sends athletes to fill the ranks of USC sports teams, but it also delivered at least half a dozen affluent students who were admitted through the athletic department but never appeared on team rosters.

An exterior view of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021.

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At Mater Dei, a unique link to USC’s secret admission system for donors’ kids

The former president of this Orange County school helped affluent students enter USC as walk-on athletes — a route that the university now acknowledges as fraud.

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Reconsidering a central player in the scandal

USC logo at the Coliseum in 2018.
(Aaron M. Sprecher / Associated Press)

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In her first-ever interview, Donna Heinel recounted her time at the epicenter of the Varsity Blues scandal, four months in prison and her devotion to USC. Heinel told The Times she was scapegoated and detailed how she was schooled in the ways of admitting the children of donors and potential donors as walk-on athletes.

Long Beach, CA - November 22: Former USC athletic administrator Donna Heinel, looks out over the bay in Long Beach, a place she went to a lot to process what was happening to her at the height of the "Varsity Blues" investigation Friday, Nov. 22, 2024. For two decades, USC was Donna Heinel's life. She rose from a lowly volunteer in the athletic department to the senior associate athletic director. She met her wife at USC, earned a doctorate in education there and virtually raised her kids on campus. Pat Haden was her mentor and close friend. Then came "Varsity Blues". Heinel was accused of conspiring with corrupt college counselor rick Singer in his fraud to get rich kids through the "side door." Heinel was arrested and ultimately spent four months in prison. But in her first interview ever, she tells The Times that she was scapegoated by the university for conduct USC not only condoned but trained her to carry out. She talks about the heartbreak of being betrayed by the institution she loved. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

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For Subscribers

She went to prison in Varsity Blues admissions scandal. Now she says she was a scapegoat

In her first-ever interview, Donna Heinel recounts her time at the epicenter of the Varsity Blues scandal, four months in prison and her continued devotion to USC.

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Matt Hamilton

Matt Hamilton is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting with colleagues Harriet Ryan and Paul Pringle and was part of the team of reporters that won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the San Bernardino terrorist attack. A graduate of Boston College and the University of Southern California, he joined The Times in 2013.

Harriet Ryan

Harriet Ryan is an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Since joining the paper in 2008, she has written about high-profile people, including Phil Spector, Michael Jackson and Tom Girardi, and institutions, including USC, the State Bar of California, the Catholic Church, the Kabbalah Centre and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin. Ryan won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting with colleagues Matt Hamilton and Paul Pringle in 2019. She and Hamilton won the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability in 2023. She previously worked at Court TV and the Asbury Park Press. She is a graduate of Columbia University.

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