Let’s Get Political

In high school, I told myself I was “too stupid” to get into Georgetown and USC. Four years later the knife has finally been twisted with news that parents were bribing their kids’ way into the very same universities I told myself were above me.

There came a point in the high school careers of me and my peers, as is tradition, when we all got a little tense. There was a hint of excitement, but we were all on edge during our junior year. It was the year that “our grades counted most for college,” and we all had to stay on top of our social lives and extracurriculars.

We were all 16.

I went to an elite high school and all, not a few, of my friends were and are creative, smart and interesting. I am still proud to call many of them my friends today.

As someone who still barely knows how to adult as a 22-year-old, it baffles me that at that year we were supposed to be grounded enough to make decisions that would influence, if not entirely dictate, the rest of our lives.

My classmates and I were pushed to apply around the U.S. at high-level state and private universities. My list included Vanderbilt, the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, the University of Miami, and many more.

My friends applied to elite schools all over the map–Stanford, NYU, USC, Georgetown, Yale, U.Va and Harvard–to name a few.

It was an intensely stressful time. I remember sitting with a few of my friends discuss their admissions process with a tinge of shame. I knew I wouldn’t be applying to Georgetown, USC, UCLA, or any of the Ivy League schools because I “knew I wasn’t going to get in.”

I wasn’t ready to face that much rejection.

I didn’t even believe in myself enough to give it a shot.

This isn’t to say that the schools I did apply to aren’t competitive or academically challenging. The fact is, I had a handful of schools at the top of my list that were long shots. The truth is, I didn’t want to add to that list of potential failures.

I worked hard in high school. A lot was demanded of me and my peers. I played two varsity sports, played a club sport outside of school, enjoyed my high school social life, and maintained a near-4.0 GPA. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my future but knew that I wanted to be at a university that could equip me with a bright one.

The college I ended up selecting has been the best decision I ever made. But it wasn’t my first choice. I was rejected by a few schools during the college admissions process, but I handled it.

However, as much as the perfectionist in me wants to say my academic life has “all been according to plan,” there was always hint of regret that I didn’t apply to USC and Georgetown. They were schools I knew would have been ideal for me but after hours of rifling through the internet I dug myself into an ugly hole: “I’m too stupid to get into these schools.” I swallowed that and moved on. I already had two or three schools that were long shots, so I pretended like I wasn’t even interested in going to USC or Georgetown in the first place.

A few of my friends did take the leap. They applied to Stanford, USC and Georgetown, among many others. These three schools are involved in the latest massive college admissions scandal. Unlike the children of the many millionaires involved in this scandal, my friends were applying on merit and ability alone.

I don’t want to undersell my peers here: they were (and still are) brilliant, personable, and incredibly hardworking. They would have excelled at the schools they were rejected from. However, upon rejection, they accepted their fate, held their heads high, and thrived elsewhere.

This is the story for thousands of bright teens around the country. But for so many of them, they realize it’s just the way life is, and that they can become the best versions of themselves at a different university.

However, we live in a system that pressures high schoolers into focusing intensely on getting into the best schools in the U.S. Each top-level school comes not only at an emotional price but a very high fiscal price as well.

In America, tens of thousands of worthy high schoolers can’t even go to college because the prices are astronomical. That alone is a flaw that needs fixing.

While my brilliant friends (and thousands of other worthy students around the U.S.) were getting those heartbreaking small envelopes and brief e-mails, the children of millionaires were getting big hugs, opulent “congratulations!” dinners, and emotional “I’m so proud of you” toasts from their parents.

These parents, as they hugged their kids and told them they earned their spot, were fully aware they paid millions to fake applications and “guarantee entrance” into schools like Stanford, Yale, Georgetown, USC and more. This went on from 2011-2018. I applied to colleges in 2015.

I played highly competitive high school and club soccer that I thought, for a while, might be my ticket to an elite university. Despite all the blood, sweat and emotional breakdowns (of which there were many) I never caught the eye of any coaches at those schools.

These wealthy parents bribed elite coaches to call their kids “special recruits” in order to facilitate entry into the school. These kids didn’t even play the sports they were “recruited” for. And they strolled right onto campus, some with “elite athlete” stamped on their application.

Are you fucking kidding me?

This disgusting act of cheating exposes problems both immediate and overarching. Immediately, this scandal feels like a Hollywood production.

The irony is the list of those charged in the scandal includes actresses Lori Loughlin of “Full House” game and Emmy-winner Felicity Huffman. Loughlin’s daughter, Olivia Jade Giannuli, is a highly popular YouTube personality. She’s currently a freshman at USC.

Giannuli once said in a video “I don’t know how much school I’m going to attend… But I do want the experience of, like, game days, partying. I don’t really care about school.” These words were bad enough when it seemed that she got in legitimately.

Giannulli also made some cash as a student at USC, benefitting from paid promotions on Instagram with Amazon Prime Student and Smile Direct Club.

The party’s over.

There are systematic issues with the way higher education works in America. Top level schools have always had issues being fair, and even more issues being affordable.

Some wealthy Americans actually think they can buy their way into anything. Despite the dozens (or even hundreds) of advantages these wealthy high schoolers had, their parents thought: let’s just seal the deal with a crime!

Those advantages include: AP courses, SAT and PSAT tutors, elite preparatory schooling, connections all over the map, and more. All of this adds up, and only a small fraction of American teens benefit from these bonuses.

This investigation leads me to wonder, however, if this is just the tip of the iceberg. Who’s to say similar scandals aren’t happening at different schools with different varsity coaches and different millionaire parents?

How many students are going to sleep tonight unsure of–or knowing that–their place at their university was undeserved?

This scandal, however, is part of a bigger system of injustice. I was able to attend an elite high school (and then an elite college) because of more than just my abilities and talents. My parents could afford to send me through both. I am aware of my privilege and grateful for everything I have been provided. Millions of kids aren’t so lucky.

However, what I have hasn’t stopped me from working hard. My parents never paid anyone or any institution off. Instead, they instilled values in my brother and me that propelled us to academic success. They provided the platform but it was up to us to jump.

The kids tied up in this scandal were not only given a turbo-boosted springboard but a private jumping coach. And when their parents didn’t trust that they had it in them, they were altogether replaced by a stronger jumper for a half-million dollar price tag.

This is the environment that led me to say “I’m too stupid to get in” without even giving a few elite schools a shot. I can’t have been the only bright kid lost in the fray of the top-20 university battlefield while the wealthiest Americans watched and jeered from the sidelines, secure in their children’s futures.