Felicity Huffman Talks College Admissions Scandal for the First Time: 'I Had to Break the Law'

[FakeNoose]

Rolling Stone link: https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/felicity-huffman-talks-college-admissions-scandal-1234907138/

FOUR YEARS AFTER Felicity Huffman found herself embroiled in a college admissions scandal, the actress talked about the ordeal for the first time in a new interview.

Huffman ultimately spent 11 days in jail and was sentenced to community service for her role in Operation Varsity Blues, in which she paid $15,000 to “college admissions consultant” Rick Singer to falsify her daughter’s SAT test results.

“It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future,” Huffman told Los Angeles’ KABC in an exclusive interview. “And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”

The actress admitted that she reached out to Singer without the intention of breaking the law. However, “After a year, he started to say your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to,” Huffman said. “And I believed him. And so when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — but that was my only option to give my daughter a future. And 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.”

- more at link -

What a great Mom! She paid someone $15,000 to take her daughter's SAT for her. Don't all Moms do that for their kids?

Maybe her daughter might have been better off if she went to community college for a year. Then her Mom wouldn't be a jailbird.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Narcissists don't take responsibility for their crimes.

It isn't their fault, they had no other choice, they were victims of the system, they did it for their children,
someone else made them do it, etc. etc.

Her daughter came from a white, rich, entitled and privileged family.
Her future was bright without her mother committing crimes.

She could get into college and study whatever she wanted depending upon her interests,
ambition and intellect.

Most mothers do not think they are bad mothers if they don't break the law for their kids.

[NCIndie]

2. How adorable. She did it totally for her daughter.

Definitely not some vicarious adrenaline rush or bragging rights to her circle of friends.

She should have done it the old fashioned way and directly bribed the director of admissions or vice president.

[3catwoman3]

3. What a load of BS.

Taking prep classes would have cost a whole lot less and given the daughter a sense of achievement if she got a good score all by her little self.

[madaboutharry]

4. This is a person without a moral center and who does not know the difference between right and wrong.

She also is a poor role model and not a good mother. If she wanted to be a good mother she would have encouraged her daughter to go to community college or a lesser ranked school, work very hard, and then try to transfer to the "school she wanted to go to."
Engaging in a criminal scheme not only was breaking the law, it was also teaching her daughter that she didn't need to actually earn her way into the "school she wanted to go to." and it also sent the message to her daughter that she would never be able to achieve it on her own.

[brush]

5. Not even community college. California has all the UC branches, not to mention the CSU system and...

the many private colleges. She could've just accepted that her daughter, apparently not one of the brighter buibs, needed to get her grades up or just go to a CSU school and forget about Stanford or Cal, and the Ivies, no way.

And actually Hoffman got off easy with just a 15k fine and 11 days in jail. Others paid the grades broker 6 figure fees and got much longer sentences.

[FakeNoose]

10. $15K is what Felicity paid the "consultant" for the fake SAT scores

The story doesn't say what the judge charged her for a fine. She had 11 days in jail and a lot of community service days. Plus she lost her day job on the Housewives series.

Not every American kid gets accepted to the college of their "choice." In fact a lot of them don't. Sometimes a gap year is the best idea, get some work experience, then start thinking about what they love most for their life's calling. Parents can't do this for their kids, they need to figure it out for themselves.

[onecaliberal]

6. So you broke the law because your kid wasn't going to get in the college she wanted?

Boo fucking hoo. Welcome to the real world. These people are just wow.

[SergeStorms]

7. Their darling daughter....

would no doubt drop out of her chosen college anyway.
If she didn't have the grades to get in there, she most probably couldn't get the grades to remain there. Unless of course Mommy and Daddy were going to pay someone to take all of her exams for her.
White privilege? What white privilege?

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Translation: "my kid was too dumb to get into college on their own merits" nt

[brush]

9. Check. Not one of the brighter bulbs.

[3catwoman3]

11. Huffman's older daughter, Sophia, is the one for whom...

...Huffman broke the law. I did a little Googling to see what happened after all that.

I find it interesting that, after the scandal was revealed, Sophia was accepted to Carnegie Mellon's theater program. If her SAT scores were low enough that her mother saw no alternative but to cheat, how did Sophia then get into a school where "Half the applicants admitted to Carnegie Mellon University who submitted test scores have an SAT score between 1490 and 1570(max 1600) or an ACT score of 34 and 35 (max 36)." (from US News and World Report).

Did her parents endow a building? Neither of them attended there.