Students throughout the country have become more and more stressed due to the increase of phenomenal applications per year. Not only are high school seniors applying to college, but juniors have begun applying as well, making the playing field for high school seniors more rigorous and competitive. In addition to the pool of applicants increasing, navigating the college process has become increasingly challenging, and many students do not have access to information that effectively informs them about college applications and the steps after. In an article written by Melissa Roderick, she conducted research that proves high school seniors have become less motivated due to the fact that the application process has become so complicated to which students are opting out of applying rather than going through the process. Whilst not only that, if they do apply, the process of enrolling to a school became too complicated so they decided to diverge from doing so as well. With that being said, the college application process has lost its original purpose of highlighting the uniqueness of students. In a study conducted by Eileen R. Matthay, her research showed that Connecticut college-freshman reported that there was not much financial, educational, and future education about what college would be like. These results ended up forcing prospective students to choose rather to not apply to any university or college. This process, in even high school, has corrupted students’ futures to lack the excellence they could achieve. It has rather become a competition for the students that can pay the most money towards their tuition or have a legacy, and not about students’ grades, extracurricular activities, college essay, etc.
Admissions teams favor wealthy families, making the process inherently unfair. But it is not incoherently the students fault they were born into the wealth they were, they still are very fortunate to be in that situation. With that being said, after colleges evaluate their incoming students and see their financial situations, they factor in students who would be able to pay for their millions of dollars they would have to pay to afford their tuition. At elite colleges like University of Southern California, Boston University, and Northeastern University, the total cost of attendance—including tuition, housing, and fees—can further past $95,000 annually. These schools are known for their great education, but also their insane price of room and board.
A majority of Ivy league schools and “baby Ivies” like so are also habitats for legacy students. “Legacies” are students who had relatives that attended the institution that they are applying to. According to Michael Hurwitz, about 19.7 percent of legacies receive an advantage in comparison to regular applicants applying to these elite institutions. These rates are significantly higher when being compared to another student who may have the same demographics and statistics as them, except for the minor difference of having a family member who also attended the institution and less financial help. Legacies are often accepted due to the knowledge that the family will be financially able to pay for the price of the institution. Many underprivileged families also cannot afford the advantages these wealthy families have, such as private tutoring lessons and SAT prep sessions. Many of these sessions cost around $199 per hour to a flat $700 for the entire SAT prep, which is money that many families cannot afford in the economy we live in presently. With that, they also cannot afford private tutoring like these other students can. Private tutoring costs about the same as SAT preparation sessions, so these kids’ parents are spending over $1000 for tutoring prep with one child, for example the Princeton Review charges around $2000. Not only does this reinforce the stigma about applying to high-end and elite colleges, but reinforces the privilege that many students have due to their generational wealth. This also undermines the values that high school faculty are trying to instill in their students. The lessons being taught are continuously being undermined due to exploitation of their wealth and lack of disciplined lessons about using money wisely. With that, these schools took away mandatory SAT and ACT scores in college applications, but now because of that students are not submitting any scores at all. The role of test-optional policies has yet to show that these new policies are leveling the playing field, and have shown they add more ambiguity.
Continuing on, colleges treat admissions like marketing campaigns to maximize rankings and profits. Colleges operate like academic gatekeepers and more marketing departments. Rather than seeking only qualified students, many institutions deliberately encourage massive numbers of applications to artificially drive down their acceptance rates, boosting their positions in national rankings like U.S. News & World Report. This “selectivity” is then paraded as a mark of prestige, even though it often has little to do with actual educational quality. Moreover, the surge of applications brings in tens of millions of dollars through non refundable application fees which costs many students around $950-$1000, turning hopeful students into a revenue stream. Beyond that, admissions officers often prioritize “full-pay” applicants—students whose families can not afford to pay full tuition without financial aid— over equally talented students with greater financial need. Schools encourage students to apply to 15+ schools, which drives up the fees and stress for prospective students. In this way, colleges are not simply evaluating merit; they are strategically curating classes to maximize profit and public image. The admissions process thus reveals itself as less a fair competition and more a meticulously crafter business model.
Additionally, the admissions process manipulates students into equating self-worth with acceptance letters. Furthering financial manipulation, the college admissions process preys on students’ emotions, turning the pursuit of education into a psychological battlefield. Through glossy brochures, emotional marketing campaigns, and slogans about “dream schools,” colleges carefully craft an image that convinces students their entire future depends on one acceptance letter. As a result, students pour countless hours, dollars, and mental energy into perfecting applications, only to be met with staggering rejection rates that have little to do with their worth or potential. Studies link the admissions process to rising levels of anxiety, depression, and burnout amount teenagers, with many students internalizing rejections as personal failures, and recently a student committing suicide due to these stressors. There is so much emotional and psychological pressure to perform well to even be considered in the college admissions process with the additional stress of financial pressure. By promoting unrealistic standards and dangling the idea of a “perfect student” which is just out of reach, colleges manipulate students into believing that their self-worth hinges on approval. Schools use “holistic” review but offer little transparency in how decisions are made. So, students frequently internalize the process as a measure of who they really are, especially after college as well. Regardless of how they truly are academically, the admissions decision they finally get can feel like the bain of their existence and may throw some students into a spiral. While in reality, the process is defined not to find the most deserving candidates, but to sustain a carefully maintained illusion of exclusivity and superiority that benefits the colleges, not the applicants.
These two topics completely intertwine with each other—they are the two sides of the same system. By marketing education as a golden ticket to success, colleges and universities make an overwhelming demand which justifies their ridiculous selectivity and growing applicant pools. The emotional weight placed on “getting in” fuels the endless cycle where students become willing customers, paying steep application fees, enrolling in expensive prep courses, and sacrificing their well-being in the hope of being deemed worthy. Meanwhile, colleges exploit financial benefits and shine their reputations, all while presenting themselves as benevolent to their communities. What appears to be a rigorous selection process is often a carefully crafted performance, designed to serve institutional interests first and foremost. In the end, students are left battling each other for an artificially scarce prize, believing that acceptance is a true reflection of their value—when in reality, the deck was against them from the beginning.
When students are accepted into these programs they struggle an enormous amount just from the jump. They are tempted to attend these universities with the qualities of life, but it is while living off certain requirements due to their scholarships they may receive. For the students who do manage to earn scholarships, the journey is far from over for them. Many scholarships, especially those with direct ties to the admissions teams, come with ridiculous requirements that can place a burden on the prospective students. These students are often met with the qualities of needing a GPA of about 3.5 or above, enroll in a full course load rather than a balanced one, and in some cases the requirements of certain extracurriculars. Robert S. Bencheley explores this topic and discusses it in his article about Adelphi University, and how the department is facing backlash to the first-year requirement. In one case I have seen was that prospective college students had to enroll in classes equivalent to high school PE classes. While some of these expectations seem reasonable, they fail to account for the mental and emotional toll that such pressure can create. With the addition of part-time jobs, co-ops, and internships that college students are achieving amidst their colleges courses. Unlike their wealthier counterparts who have the sole freedom to focus on their studies, rather than gym class… And while they are attending these classes they are fearing of losing their financial aid status due to the fact that they weren’t fond of doing an equivalent to a high school PE class. In even some cases, a semester filled with family emergencies, an illness, or struggling with your mental health can result in scholarship loss and the ability to remain enrolled. The system that has been like this for years was meant to help students, but it has ended up pushing students to limits they did not know they could exceed.
The college admissions process as it currently is does not adequately represent the range of backgrounds, skills, and abilities that students bring their institutions. In reality, it complicates and worsens students mental health, maintains economic inequalities, and transforms a process that should be about personal and academic development. The students who would thrive and benefit these institutions are being left to Despite highlighting this negligence, there are alternatives to these contingencies. Eliminating legacy admissions entirely is one possible way to reform that would guarantee that each applicant is evaluated only on the basis of their academic and personal qualifications. Furthermore, a deeper understanding that will emphasize the student’s journey throughout high school and potential rather than strict metrics like standardized test scores or their GPA could be added to the change towards test-optional admissions. Overall, there should be more transparency regarding the requirements used by universities to determine admissions, especially with the concept of a “fit” student.
Concluding my points, students are under more stress as a result of the growing number in college applications, and with that many students do not have the access regarding college information as well as the entire application process. After concluding my research, the most that students could do would be to reach out to as many adults as you can to understand the process, as well as professors or teachers, try your best in school as early as you can, and stay in school. If you veer off the path of being educated, then allow yourself to make a plan and do not just leave yourself undecided. With that, the primary goal of these college applications should be to highlight the uniqueness of each applicant.
