Seeing people who apply to college is pretty humbling. You see kids who’ve gone abroad and helped the poor, been interns for Microsoft, created philosophical pieces, the list goes on and on. It’s no wonder the college application process is so competitive when you have applicants like that. But when you don’t have access to a surplus of funds all your life, it’s a bit hard to find a spot competing with those other elite applicants. 

Where I live, if you aren’t into academics and overall just being a good student, who knows if you’ll even get into college? Students here don’t have the option to work at their parents’ company, or to get a 250k loan to start up their company like *cough* Jeff Bezos. At a school assembly, it was kinda worrying to see how the alumni they brought in never left the city. The only ones here who get a chance out are the ones who are good at school. But for some people here that’s not even an option. They juggle work, helping out at home, mental health, and financial struggles. I’ve heard of parents who put their kids to work at 13 just to ease the burden at home. 

And even if people are academically gifted, they only achieve things like the rich kids if they’ve got some money as well. All my life I’ve only known books and the academic route, so I kinda wasted my freshman year without doing extracurriculars (because that’s what the colleges look for). I’ve crammed my junior year to the max trying to catch up to others, so we’ll see how that goes.

But all this makes me wonder, why do we have to grow up so fast? All of us teens, rich or poor, face many things that force us into adulthood straight out of childhood. The prospect of being successful and making money forces us to start worrying early. Colleges buy into this, and without saying explicitly, colleges control the commodity that is our time. You could argue that it’s worse in some countries, but that doesn’t excuse the way it’s done here. And of course, we can’t stay kids forever, but we shouldn’t be stressed out of our minds about that 80 we got on a test. 

The transition out of high school should be one with support for everyone. Now that affirmative action has been struck, looking at income would be a viable alternative. So many of us have passions; it’s unfair how it can be struck down by those who had the connections and money to do more.