You spend four years of your life dedicated to getting into the perfect school. Studying for SATs and ACTs, writing essays until your hand falls off and dedicating yourself to any extracurricular that will help you land that admissions letter. However, all of this work cannot compete with those who take advantage of the system and bribe their child’s way into a school.
On March 12, 2019, a college admissions scandal involving over 50 people, including Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman broke. Reports allege that the parents were paying to get their children to be placed on athletic teams for school, and helping them cheat on standardized tests. Others charged in the scandal include standardized test proctors and college athletic coaches.
This news story sparked outrage across the world. Many were upset and felt they had been cheated out of a spot in a top college or placement on an athletic team. While I neither intended to be a college athlete nor attend one of the schools involved, I am still outraged.
As a high school student, I may not have had the best grades but a lot of effort and time went into much of my schooling. I involved myself in several extracurriculars and even some athletics throughout my four years. After a day of school and after-school activities, I then went on to put in six or so hours at work.
I spread myself thin and worked so I could even get accepted into the colleges I applied to. However, despite all of this work I still had to limit myself based on financial reasons, as many colleges charge outrageous tuition that I would never be able to afford. However, these tuitions are just pocket change to the celebrities involved in this scandal.
This topic particularly upsets me as there are thousands -if not millions- out there just like me. There are kids all across America who worked twice or even three times as hard as I did in and out of school. Yet, despite all of this, there is a possibility they may have been denied admission to their dream school that they deserved to be attend at simply because someone else’s parents paid the school off for their spot. For many people across America, college is not even an option due to a lack of resources and funds. This scandal has created a catastrophic situation for many people across America, making an already stressful situation even more difficult.
These children did not earn their positions, they did not spend their entire lives training to be put on a college athletic team. They simply benefited from the luck of having rich parents. Some of the people involved went on public record to state they did not even appreciate being able to go to college.
This entire scandal has gone on to prove that those who do not earn what they are given; will appreciate it even less than those who do earn it. As this scandal breaks, we can hope that more is done to fix this broken admissions system. As many are outraged by this, we will all wait to see what the results of the trials are and hope that some justice is served for those who lost a chance at an even brighter future.