I have a dream that one day, students will not be emotionally slaughtered by a college rejection letter (allude to King). The most selective US universities are extremely valued, and getting into one is treated like a ticket to life-long happiness, but the biased admissions are very skewed, putting down millions of people just to accept a select few. The process has a cutthroat culture, favoring legacies and donors, and it perpetuates socioeconomic inequality. That is why I implore you, please, to stand up against this arbitrary system that determines children’s futures left and right. I have been looking into this for three whole years, verifying and corroborating my sources, and I can assure you that it needs some fixing.
For example, the culture surrounding college admissions is toxic and competitive. From a very young age, people are told that to be successful, they need to get into a good college. At this point, the only reason people chase after the unattainable Ivies is for validation. Spartan Shield states, “While some of the desire to attend elite universities stems from wanting future professional success, a substantial amount of this existential angst is due to students assigning value and self-worth to their stats” (Hofmann). There is such an emphasis put on SAT scores, GPA, and whatever crazy extracurriculars there are, but these are just numbers and accomplishments that don’t define a person. To demonstrate, the value of these is so inflated by the dog-eat-dog culture that in 2019, parents illegally paid thousands of dollars each to boost SAT and ACT scores and even to get their students to be recruited as athletes (Staff Writers for Best Colleges), but it’s a bit futile. You can get a 1600 SAT score, a 4.33 GPA, run five non-profits, and have done substantial, ground-breaking research into cancer, and still, you can get rejected from all eight Ivy Leagues, MIT, Stanford, Vanderbilt, UC Berkeley, and whatever other college you can name (Command Education). The truth is that colleges do not want amazing students, they want money-making students.
Top US universities prioritize money and prestige over providing education. Especially in the infamous Ivy League, universities look to boast to other universities. They have the money to expand and offer a place to more students, but they do not. It’s not that they don’t have the resources. These colleges want to keep their admission rates low to appear more prestigious and selective. The most prestigious of US universities accumulate enormous endowments. For example, if Yale was a country, it would be wealthier than over half of the countries on Earth (World Population Review). MIT brings in five billion dollars in revenue per year (MIT). Harvard has a massive wealth of 53.2 billion (Harvard). Moreover, according to its financial report, Harvard brought in a surplus of 186 million dollars in 2023, money that could be spent on giving extra financial aid, and this happens every year (Office for Sponsored Programs at Harvard 5). Where does this enormous sum of money go? It is put into an ever-growing endowment only there for bragging rights. It is possible to use this money for more useful things. For example, Berea College, with a somewhat modest 1.6 billion dollars in endowment as of 2020 (Kozlowski), has worked hard to actually make tuition completely free (Berea College)! The only thing that is holding these institutions back is greed, and it affects other people just trying to live a good life.
Students should be able to apply to college knowing they will not be judged by the money in their pockets but by the content of their character (allude to King). A person who has a family member in a school is called a legacy. One that has donated to the school is called a donor. Harvard has a ridiculously low acceptance rate of 3.2% as of 2022, but according to AdmissionSight, legacies have a 34% acceptance rate. For donors? It’s 42% (Eng). That means that almost half of the people who have donated to the school get in! This is such a terrible system that only benefits the rich. With this in mind, legacies are born privileged because a parent of theirs went to a really good school and therefore made more money. Donors are born privileged because they have the money to donate to the school, and I’m not talking about fifty dollars or even two thousand dollars. I’m talking about millions upon millions of dollars. In 2024 alone, Harvard got 2.9 billion dollars just from donations (Office for Sponsored Programs at Harvard 5–6)! The process also benefits the rich in other, subtler ways. People who are born privileged are given incredible opportunities like they are stickers in a kindergarten classroom. Their parents have a lot of connections that can get students very far into the industry. If low-income students have to go against this, no wonder that Ivy League schools have a stereotype of being for the well-off. To illustrate, imagine this. Someone has a determination for learning, an analytical mindset that embraces critical thinking, and a passion for environmental protection, but they cannot get a proper education because of their lack of money. They do not have the resources to pursue projects or contact professionals that they would have thrived with. As a result, they cannot get into a good university. They end up with a low-paying job, trying to hold on for dear life to the precipice of a cliff above an ocean of didn’t-go-to-college failures. This is why the issue is so important. It will influence the rest of your working life. These universities run like profit-driven companies, under the guise of non-profit organizations. It’s time we wake up to a blatant reality.
This is a reality that criticizes us for not wanting to go to a highly-selective college. This is a reality that puts too much emphasis on useless numbers. This is a reality where you can be rejected from a university because you are not rich enough. This is a reality that lives for the purpose of draining students’ bank accounts. If all the money spent on materialism was spent on providing a good education to people all across the world, what a wonderful place this earth would be (allude to Suzuki). That is what we need to strive for because we hold the future. We hold the power to end a spiral of circular emotions resulting from applying to college. We hold the values and beliefs that will shape the world and fight against inequality. We are the bright minds that will find a solution for equitable education so that we can have a positive impact on our children’s future, and their children’s futures. If we can do that, we hold the entire world, with all of its traditions, morals, emotions, and stories. Thank you.
May 9, 2025
Works Cited
Cullis-Suzuki, Severn. The Girl Who Silenced the World for Five Minutes. 1992.
“Cutthroat Competition: The Desire and Impact of Elite Universities.” Spartan Shield, https://spartanshield.org/26307/student-life/cutthroat-competition-the-desire-and-impact-of-elite-universities/.
“Endowment.” Harvard University, https://www.harvard.edu/about/endowment/.
“Facts and Figures.” MIT Facts, https://facts.mit.edu/operating-financials/.
“FY24 Financial Report.” Harvard University Finance, https://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/fy24_harvard_financial_report.pdf.
“Here’s Why Your Valedictorian Got Rejected from the New Ivies.” Command Education, https://www.commandeducation.com/heres-why-your-valedictorian-got-rejected-from-the-new-ivies/.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have a Dream. 1963.
“Legacy Admission Rates.” AdmissionSight, https://admissionsight.com/harvard-legacy-acceptance-rate/#:~:text=In%202022%2C%20Harvard’s%20overall%20acceptance,for%20legacy%20applicants%20was%2034%25.
“No Tuition.” Berea College, https://www.berea.edu/no-tuition.
“Operation Varsity Blues: College Admissions Scandal.” BestColleges, https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/operation-varsity-blues-college-admissions-scandal/.
“Post-Endowment Return 29.8%.” Pensions & Investments, https://www.pionline.com/endowments-and-foundations/berea-college-posts-endowment-return-298-fiscal-year.
“World GDP by Country.” World Population Review, https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/by-gdp.
