The Edit: What was your college admissions process like?

Plus: Can I pick your brain? View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Thursday, March 21, 2019 [NYTimes.com »]( [George Wylesol] George Wylesol What Was Your College Admissions Process Like? [Lindsey Underwood] Lindsey Underwood Editor of The Edit It was hard to get away from the news about the [college admissions scandal]( last week, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. It had it all: Cheating! Water polo! Aunt Becky! The story (thankfully) felt really foreign to me. I applied to college more than a decade ago, and I remember the process being pretty anticlimactic. I had solid grades, a ton of extracurriculars, good test scores and, honestly, a modest level of ambition. I knew what I wanted to study (journalism), hastily applied to a few big Midwestern state schools and got in. That was that! But, of course, everyone’s path is different. I was curious what applying for college was like for our Edit contributors and how they were reacting to the news. Here’s what they said: Amanda Gorman: I’m a twin, which means my sister and I were going through — and paying for — the admissions process at the same exact time. It costs money each time you take the SAT, get test prep and send applications to colleges. I was raised by a single mother, who was providing for us on a teacher’s salary. She never wanted us to worry about the cost, but I couldn’t help thinking: If I take the SAT again, or apply to another school, that’s less money for my sister to do the same. Or if I go to a school with mediocre financial aid, that’s more student loans my twin could be paying for the rest of her life. The families involved in the scandal didn’t have to worry about these dilemmas. But it wasn’t enough to be able to afford the private school, the test prep, the tutors, the pre-collegiate programs that some students can only dream about. Instead, they chose to manipulate the admissions system with their wealth. In [one scheme]( students would claim that they had a learning deficit to earn extra time on standardized tests. Because I had a speech impediment growing up, I qualified for additional support and services at school. When it came time to take the SAT, my family considered carefully whether I should try to get extra time on the test. We decided against it, mostly because I felt that I didn’t need it, and partly because we didn’t want anyone to question the validity of my ISP or, later, my college acceptance. “Do you see why?” my mom said over the phone after the scandal broke last week. “I didn’t want anyone to doubt how you got into Harvard. People will already try to claim it was all Affirmative Action. The last thing we needed was people judging your acceptance because of your ISP.” Tim Hatton: What struck me most about the admissions scandal was how starkly it illustrated how badly parents wanted their children to go to big-name schools. Some paid [as much as $75,000]( for inflated test scores. I was surprised because I didn’t feel that kind of pressure to get into a prestigious university when choosing or applying for college. If anything, it was the opposite. Fort Dodge, Iowa, the rural town where I went to high school, has a community college named Iowa Central. Representatives from the college often visited my high school in an effort to recruit students for one of their two-year programs instead of attending a four-year school. Iowa Central’s pitch included a few key selling points -- being close to home and the ease of transferring to a larger university -- but I recall its biggest point of emphasis, time and again, was price. I got the sense they were telling me a four-year college was a foolish investment, when a two-year school here in town cost so much less. If I remember correctly, close to half of my graduating class went to Iowa Central, and fewer than a dozen went to a four-year school out of state. I was one of those dozen or so. My parents both went to four-year schools, so it seemed natural that I would do the same, especially because we had the resources to make that happen. Looking back, though, the community college’s pitch makes more and more sense. Any chance to save money on higher education is a chance worth considering, even if that means sacrificing some prestige. The parents involved in this scandal, of course, did the exact opposite. They wanted the prestige, and they paid exorbitant prices for it. Their criminal fraud and the huge amount they paid made this story noteworthy, but It’s also worth noting that the social pressure to attend a high-profile university doesn’t exist in every community or every rung of the social ladder. It goes without saying that a degree from a big-name school is a privilege, but even the desire to achieve one is a luxury in itself. Claire Haug: When the admissions scandal broke last week, the overwhelming response among my peers was a complete lack of surprise. It’s no secret to us that academia exists primarily to serve the interests of rich people, and the only surprising element of the whole scandal is that those involved managed to screw up badly enough that they got caught. As someone who goes to a so-called “elite” college, the multitude of legal ways in which wealthy families have an infinitely easier admissions process has long been apparent to me. Coming from a middle class family and having been raised by a mom with a professional degree, I had advantages in getting into college — we were able to afford SAT prep tutors, admission fees, and I attended one of the more well resourced public high schools in my area. Higher education is inherently elitist in so many ways, and I find it almost funny that people would need to cheat to get in, when there are so many perfectly legal ways to increase your chances of getting into a big name college. While I obviously hope that this scandal will provoke some kind of actions toward reform of the college admissions process, my expectations are low. When elitism is built into the very structure, it takes a lot more than affirmative action to make any sort of concrete change happen. Hallie Reed: I was alarmed and disappointed to find out that parents, university officials and SAT proctors, people from each side and level of the college admissions process had conspired through bribes and deceitful schemes to give certain students an advantage in that process. I couldn’t believe how vast the web of corruption went, or how well-known the conspirators were. However, amid these varying emotions, I was mostly thrown back into memories of my own college preparation and application process. I remember being told at my high school freshman orientation that if I slacked off that first year in any way, if I didn’t get the highest grades I could from the very beginning, I would be throwing away my chances of getting into the college I wanted to go to. If I didn’t take all the honors and AP classes I possibly could, I would be willingly handing over my spot at the college of my dreams to someone else, because another student undoubtedly would take them all. So I took those honors and AP classes, and stayed up until 2 a.m. every night doing homework, and became better friends with the teachers than I was with my classmates. I was constantly either in ballet classes or studying. After all, we were told our good grades would be practically meaningless without distinguished extracurriculars and activities to round out your résumé. Through I eventually changed schools and prioritized a balanced life above a balanced résumé, there was never a time I wasn’t stressed about grades or making sacrifices for my academic future. And I wasn’t the only one. I remember a girl in my class who took six AP classes during junior year alone. The students who, like me, internalized the pressure were constantly in a state of striving: to score higher, perform better or sometimes just make it through the day. So when I heard about students bypassing that level of stress, it was hard to not be angry that they got shortcuts when I made sacrifices, when so many friends made so many sacrifices. HOW ARE WE DOING? We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [the edit@nytimes.com](mailto:theedit@nytimes.com?subject=The%20Edit%20Newsletter%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. ADVERTISEMENT What We’re Reading [The view from the Southwest Chief’s Sightseer Lounge.]( Holly Andres for The New York Times [There Is No Reason to Cross the U.S. by Train. But I Did It Anyway.]( By CAITY WEAVER The particular sheen of America by Amtrak. [Tremont Waters and L.S.U. cut through Yale in the first half. ]( Matt Stamey/USA Today Sports, via Reuters [N.C.A.A. 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[Prospective college students, clockwise from top left: Jackson Lamb, Surbhi Sharma, Angus Gosman and Karen Ge.]( Clockwise from top left: Melissa Golden for The New York Times; Justin Merriman for The New York Times; Jason Henry for The New York Times; Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times [‘I Put My Work In’: Honest Applicants Await College Admissions Results]( By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON, ALAN BLINDER, AMY HARMON AND JENNIFER MEDINA Unlike the parents indicted by federal prosecutors last week in the college admissions scandal, these students have followed the rules. ADVERTISEMENT NEED HELP? Review our [newsletter help page]( or [contact us]( for assistance. Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's The Edit newsletter. 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