Unacceptable
Privilege, Deceit & the Making of the College Admissions Scandal
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Narrated by:
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Brittany Pressley
About this listen
Forbes Top 10 Higher Education Books of 2020
The riveting true story behind the Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, a cautionary tale of parenting gone wrong, the system that enabled families to veer so far off course, and the mastermind who made it all happen.
When federal prosecutors dropped the bombshell of Operation Varsity Blues, it broke open the crimes of exclusive universities and wealthy families all over the country, shattering the myth of American meritocracy. In Unacceptable, veteran Wall Street Journal reporters Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz dig deep into how otherwise smart, loving parents became caught up in scandal, led through the side door by one man: college whisperer Rick Singer.
Unacceptable traces how, over decades, the charismatic Singer easily reeled in parents hoping to guarantee top educations for their children and exploited a system rigged against regular people. Exploring the status obsession that seduced entitled parents in search of an edge, Korn and Levitz unfurl a scheme that entangled more than 50 conspirators, from wealthy CEOs to famous actresses, leading to imprisonments, ruined careers, and terminated enrollments.
An eye-opening account of corruption in America’s most exclusive institutions, Unacceptable tells the story of helicopter parenting, coddled teens, and the man who thought he couldn’t be caught. Detailing Singer’s steady rise and dramatic fall, Korn and Levitz expose the ugly underbelly of elite college admissions and the devastating consequences of buying success.
©2020 Melissa Korn and Jennifer Levitz (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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“A fast-paced account of the massive college admissions scam devised by Rick Singer...This indictment of contemporary American culture offers an in-depth look at the families who were willing to break the law and ignore ethical principles to provide higher education for their children...A well-researched and detailed picture of a crime emerging in an American culture corrupted by wealth and celebrity.” (Library Journal)
Featured Article: Catch Our Grift with These Tales of Female Frauds, Scammers, and Cons
When it comes to cons of the criminal variety, women often fly under the radar. And when it comes to pulling off high-level, multifaceted schemes, women continue to be underestimated. But with enough confidence to remain undetected, female con artists, fraudsters, and grifters have scammed their way to infamy, racking up dollars, favors, and fame along the way. The stories they leave behind make for some of the most intriguing cases of all time.
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- By: Gilbert M. Gaul
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 2013, a study showed that despite huge economic problems, 27 states were awarding their highest salaries to college football coaches. College football has doubled in size in the last decade thanks to generous tax breaks, lavish TV deals, and corporate sponsors eager to slap their logos on everything from scoreboards to footballs and uniforms. In one recent year, the 10 biggest programs took in $800 million from football, with profit margins far surpassing those of Fortune 500 companies.
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Much Better Books Out There On This Subject
- By Andrew N Dobson on 01-19-16
By: Gilbert M. Gaul
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Game Over
- Jerry Sandusky, Penn State, and the Culture of Silence
- By: Bill Moushey, Robert Dvorchak
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a scandal that began in a place called Happy Valley. But it's not as happy as it once was, as the child-sex-abuse charges against a longtime coach and the conspiracy of silence surrounding the allegations have rocked America and Division 1 college sports. In Game Over, journalists Bill Moushey and Bob Dvorchak investigate claims of a startling cover-up within the Penn State hierarchy that attempted to protect its football legacy, quite possibly at the expense of disenfranchised children.
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Heartbreaking
- By Claire on 04-24-12
By: Bill Moushey, and others
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Why Meadow Died
- The People and Policies That Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America's Students
- By: Andrew Pollack, Max Eden, Hunter Pollack - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The Parkland school shooting was the most avoidable mass murder in American history. And the policies that made it inevitable have spread to your school....
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Stick to the facts
- By Annie B. on 01-16-20
By: Andrew Pollack, and others
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None of the Above
- The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators
- By: Shani Robinson, Anna Simonton
- Narrated by: Lisa Renee Pitts
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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An insider’s account of the infamous Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal that scapegoated black employees for problems caused by an education reform movement that is increasingly a proxy for corporate greed.
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A well constructed story
- By Sumo Steve on 03-21-19
By: Shani Robinson, and others
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Judgment Ridge
- The True Story Behind the Dartmouth Murders
- By: Dick Lehr, Mitchell Zuckoff
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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On a cold night in January 2001, the idyllic community of Dartmouth College was shattered by the discovery that two of its most beloved professors had been hacked to death in their own home. Investigators searched helplessly for clues linking the victims to their murderer or murderers. A few weeks later, across the river, in the town of Chelsea, Vermont, police cars were spotted in front of the house of a high school senior. Soon, the town discovered the incomprehensible reality that two of Chelsea's brightest and most popular sons, were now fugitives, wanted for the murders.
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Terrible
- By Maria on 04-26-20
By: Dick Lehr, and others
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Tanking to the Top
- The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Process in the History of Professional Sports
- By: Yaron Weitzman
- Narrated by: Yaron Weitzman
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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When a group of private equity bigwigs purchased the Philadelphia 76ers in 2011, the team was both bad and boring. Attendance was down. So were ratings. The Sixers had an aging coach, an antiquated front office, and a group of players that could best be described as mediocre. Enter Sam Hinkie - a man with a plan straight out of the PE playbook, one that violated professional sports' Golden Rule: You play to win the game.
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Great history of tanking by Sixers
- By Alan Bernstein on 03-11-23
By: Yaron Weitzman
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It's Not About the Truth
- The Duke Lacrosse Case and the Lives It Shattered
- By: Don Yaeger, Mike Pressler
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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What began as an off-campus team party with two hired strippers accelerated into a rape investigation - one that exposed prosecutorial misconduct, shoddy police work, an administration's rush to judgment, and the media's disregard for the facts. In It's Not About the Truth, Mike Pressler, the former Duke University lacrosse team's coach, and best-selling author Don Yaeger expose vivid details, including the day Pressler was fired.
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Highly Recommended
- By Dave on 08-08-07
By: Don Yaeger, and others
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Dabo's World
- The Life and Career of Coach Swinney and the Rise of Clemson Football
- By: Lars Anderson
- Narrated by: Jamie Renell
- Length: 6 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Dabo's World and learn about how Dabo Swinney used his energy, faith, and determination to turn the Clemson Tigers into a football powerhouse.
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Very Basic Retelling
- By Colonel on 12-31-22
By: Lars Anderson
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Radical
- Fighting to Put Students First
- By: Michelle Rhee
- Narrated by: Shannon McManus
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Part memoir, part manifesto, Radical is this fearless advocate's incisive, intensely personal call-to-arms. Rhee combines the story of her own extraordinary experience with dozens of compelling examples from schools she's worked in and studied-from students from unspeakable home lives who have thrived in the classroom to teachers whose radical methods have produced unprecedented leaps in achievement. Radical chronicles Rhee's awakening to the potential of every child, her rage at the special interests blocking badly-needed change, and her recognition that it will take a grassroots movement to create outstanding public schools.
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Good read after seeing Waiting for Superman
- By Marie on 04-10-13
By: Michelle Rhee
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The King of Content
- Sumner Redstone’s Battle for Viacom, CBS, and Everlasting Control of His Media Empire
- By: Keach Hagey
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 10 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Sumner Murray Redstone, once feared as the “mad genius” of media who would dump his CEOs for mere wobbles in his companies’ stock price, had built one of the world’s greatest media empires through a series of audacious takeovers constructed to ensure that he always maintained control. Today he controls 80 percent of the voting shares of both Viacom and CBS, meaning that on a whim he could replace the entire boards of two public companies with a combined value of $40 billion.
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Feels biased. Well researched, but not engaging.
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-19
By: Keach Hagey
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How Money Became Dangerous
- The Inside Story of Our Turbulent Relationship with Modern Finance
- By: Christopher Varelas, Dan Stone
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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From a veteran of the trade, a provocative and entertaining voyage into the turbulent heart of modern money that sheds new light on the rise of our threatening and complicated financial system, how money became our adversary, and why finding a new course is crucial to a healthy society.
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Must read
- By Craig M. Stratton on 02-08-20
By: Christopher Varelas, and others
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The Prize
- Who's in Charge of America's Schools?
- By: Dale Russakoff
- Narrated by: Pete Cross
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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When Mark Zuckerberg announced in front of a cheering Oprah audience his $100 million pledge to transform the Newark Schools - and to solve the education crisis in every city in America - it looked like a huge win for then-mayor Cory Booker and governor Chris Christie. But their plans soon ran into a constituency not so easily moved - Newark's key education players, fiercely protective of their billion-dollar-per-annum system.
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Well-researched - Provides Good Answers
- By Denyse on 01-11-16
By: Dale Russakoff
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Straight Shooter
- A Memoir of Second Chances and First Takes
- By: Stephen A. Smith
- Narrated by: Stephen A. Smith
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Stephen A. Smith has never been handed anything, nor was he an overnight success. Growing up poor in Queens, the son of Caribbean immigrants and the youngest of six children, he was a sports-obsessed kid who faced struggles, from undiagnosed dyslexia to getting enough cereal to fill his bowl. As a basketball player at Winston-Salem State University, he got a glimmer of his true calling when he wrote a newspaper column arguing for the retirement of his own Hall of Fame coach, Clarence Gaines.
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Trash🗑
- By Maurice Davis on 01-25-23
By: Stephen A. Smith
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Red Roulette
- An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
- By: Desmond Shum
- Narrated by: Tim Chiou
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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As Desmond Shum was growing up impoverished in China, he vowed his life would be different. Through hard work and sheer tenacity he earned an American college degree and returned to his native country to establish himself in business. There, he met his future wife, the highly intelligent and equally ambitious Whitney Duan who was determined to make her mark within China’s male-dominated society. Whitney and Desmond formed an effective team and, aided by relationships they formed with top members of China’s Communist Party, the so-called red aristocracy.
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Desmond Shum is not a rube! He knows about wine, ok?
- By Peter L Hansen on 10-06-21
By: Desmond Shum
What listeners say about Unacceptable
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- EF
- 11-03-20
LOVED IT
The narration was fantastic and the story was well told. The more high profile people were mixed in with others. The story was not told chronologically the whole way through but streamed together stories of different families to help the reader really understand and appreciate the enormity of the scandal.
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- TL
- 08-28-20
Riveting, insightful story and a great listen
Unacceptable goes far beyond the headlines to present a riveting and thoughtful account of the motivations, machinations and incentives bubbling beneath the college admissions scandal...and arguably the entire college admissions system.
Unconstrained by newspaper word count, and exhibiting both empathy and scorn, the two journalist-authors present a remarkable array of character portraits detailing the anxieties and social pressures that pulled parents across very fine lines, the toll their efforts took on their children, the economic pressures in academia that encouraged complicity by coaches and administrators, and the nearly diabolical competitiveness that drove the mastermind to exploit these conditions.
Unacceptable is a sprawling, insightful and entertaining window into human nature and the search for certainty. The road to Harvard...or prison...is sometimes paved with the best intentions.
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- Misterorange
- 04-11-21
Okay Book, Okay Narration
The underlying story itself is interesting. But I felt that the authors lost control of the narrative. Maybe this is understandable, given the scope of the scandal they document here. Regardless, the middle 50% of the book--after the Rick Singer background and before the courtroom phase--was less like a coherent story and more like a series of loosely structured anecdotes. "Here's this person. His job was X. He looked like Y. He did Z." Rinse and repeat. I didn't count, but it felt like there were upwards of 100 characters in this relatively short book--and the only one I really got to know in any depth was Rick Singer. I understand the scandal had a broad scope, but maybe a better approach would have been to focus on just a few bad actors and tell their stories in full.
The narration was fine, but the narrator used the same pattern of intonation over and over again. Eventually it became rhythmic and disengaging--sometimes even irritating. She would say one thing, then she would raise her pitch when she hit a coordinating conjunction or started a new sentence, then lower the pitch again. The overall impression was: "So you might think X... Buuuuuuut really the truth was Y." After a while, I started to feel like I was being talked down to, like a well-intentioned but foolish child. ("So you might think X... Buuuuuuut really the truth was Y [and you're dumb for having thought X to begin with].") This could be attributable more to the writing style than to the narrator, however.
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