When the Varsity Blues scandal broke in the spring of 2019, my initial reaction was not one of fury but instead a strange form of amusement. The idea of wealthy families paying their way into top universities was a serious and not entirely shocking matter. However, the irony of the situation did not escape me: How laughable it was that the group of individuals most able to work within the confines of the current system had instead decided to cheat it entirely. The class of elites most capable of paying for the tutoring sessions that would produce top SAT scores, the coaches and training needed to get their children recruited for niche sports, the best essay coaches, and the best advisors were the ones ones shelling out thousands just for the idea of a guaranteed yes instead of an implied one. When I imagine audacity, I envision watching that case play out in its entirety. That was when the real frustration came.
I find myself in a privileged and yet tricky situation. Being stuck straight in the middle of what’s considered middle class has allowed me certain invaluable opportunities; however, it still makes the question of how to fill the gap that FAFSA aid and scholarships won’t cover a common dinner time discussion. While community college is an exceptional and unfairly stigmatized option for higher education, I find myself increasingly gravitating towards state and private universities that have been heavily advertised to our generation for decades with the “It’s not if but where” sentiment. My first understanding of how my average childhood income compared to the sorts of students I was up against in the admissions system came during a summer pre-college program in Manhattan. I certainly remember the stress and uncertainty leading up to that month, exhausting every resource to cover the ungodly tuition. Still, it was the shock I felt when my roommate told me a group of students had gotten expelled three days into the program for buying alcohol with a fake ID and getting wasted in their dorm that is still completely fresh in my memory. I couldn’t fathom it. “I don’t think I could ever go home after that,” I joked. In truth, the idea of wasting four thousand dollars in tuition left me speechless. I was expected to, and positively did, suck the marrow out of the courses I was taking. I couldn’t comprehend or afford the idea of approaching the experience as purely a summer vacation.
I grew up in Texas, a state with a consequential government that has done everything in its power to tear down public education. My school has over a dozen classes over legal capacity, fitting seven grades in what was intended to be an elementary school building. Yet, several officials have continued to back the idea of directly funding private schools at the expense of the crumbling public system. Even then, I consider myself one of the lucky ones, attending a public magnet school that receives support from an outside organization that offers my peers and me vouchers for college and AP exams, free tutoring, and a myriad of pathways for bolstering our resumes. Even in such a situation, there is a cost. In elite private schools and those attempting to replicate their environment, there is a motivating yet infinitely overwhelming expectation to perform. To do more, be more, sell your soul for a handful of extra points and your sanity for a higher class ranking. There’s a frightening voice in the back of all our heads as senior year approaches: the idea that none of it will ever be enough.
I have watched friends and classmates break down on countless occasions. First and second generation students alike who have spent years of their lives breaking their backs for the promise of a payoff are left distraught, frustrated, and exhausted by a lack of assurance that their efforts are not in vain. While the standard for a top ten school decades ago might have been a hell of an SAT score, a 4.0 GPA, and a leadership position, it seems these days interning for the president, being a nationally ranked debater or scientist barely appears to put a student up for consideration. I don’t say this to discredit the talented individuals who have been admitted, only to highlight the exponentially growing competition for the same prestigious state universities and coveted ivies in recent years.
We are told that rankings and prestige aren’t the only things we should be looking at while on the hunt for a university that fits our needs, and yet it’s the same handful of schools that media pushes us towards. Students have been trained to tie their worth as individuals to the validation received by a particularly weighty acceptance letter and their academic accomplishments. In lieu of a healthy balance between self-identity and academia, a glorification of burnout has put in place a barrier to healthy conversations surrounding mental health and personal well-being. There is an unsaid and yet universally shared belief that telling peers of the stress and helplessness we feel makes us weak.
The adults in our lives tell us not to compare, not to set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. Yet, I remember on not one particular occasion rolling my eyes at a student who complained of a low A grade and yet feeling the same unwavering irritation when being handed my own report card moments later. I felt the frustration and helplessness when I was told that the book I had spent years of my life writing wasn’t enough to be a passion project by a college coach online. That starting a school club involved too much “hand-holding” and volunteer work and research couldn’t possibly fit the bill either. We are being taught through direct or indirect means that the feeling of drowning and perpetual inadequacy means we must be doing something right, and that if we aren’t suffering, then we must not be trying hard enough. That we inherently aren’t enough.
It doesn’t take the expertise of an administrator or school official to know something is fundamentally broken. So what can be done in a world where equalizing tools such as affirmative action and test optionality are falling away? The discovery of a nuanced solution that is able to recalibrate the relationship between merit, reasonability, opportunity, circumstance, and diversity. As someone navigating the system for the first time, however, I remain apprehensive that such an answer will present itself quickly. What I am sure of is that refusing to speak up about our fear, financial, systematic, and academic struggles in the college admissions process only normalizes the idea that getting a valuable education is supposed to be painful.
Georgia Hope writes queer fantasy with a southern gothic twist and essays that break down the turbulent relationship between adolescence and academia. Currently a high school senior in the state of Texas, her idea of a good time is exploring haunted small towns with a notebook, camera, and a large cup of iced coffee. When she’s not making her readers cry you can find her gathering more bizarre lore for her next story or having an existential crisis on her instagram page @georgiainabook.
Featured image by Unseen Studio on Unsplash.
