Why are we as a society obsessed with prestige?
University is the place we’ve all been convinced is necessary — necessary for success, necessary for life. And while to some extent that may be true, our obsession with it or rather a few individuals’ obsession with withholding power and staying relevant allowed a broken system to be further manipulated. This story — this scandal — is the 2019 College admission scandal and I along with the rest of the world was left in shock.
For years, the mastermind William Singer served as the CEO of Edge College and Career Network helping dozens of students gain access to elite universities through the side door.“The side door”, “The back door”, “The front door” — these were all terms I became aware of. There was only the front door and in a fair world where you would either be admitted or rejected. The side door refers to a process that guarantees admissions and requires less money to be paid as a “donation” to the institutions as opposed to the back door that requires a larger sum to be donated to the institutions, yet does not guarantee admission. The side door required Singer to work with parents to be able to photoshop pictures of their kids participating in various different sports and fabricate their test scores, all to get them access through the athletic department. Every sports team has a limited number of spots and by cheating the system these students took away an opportunity from dozens of other kids who worked hard for the same spot.
As a society, we are conditioned to try and “keep up with the Joneses”. We want a nicer car because our neighbor has one, we want the nicer bag because they have it and we want the degrees from the top 10 schools because of the “prestige” it holds. We are told that College is meant to further our education, to help the future generation and by its very purpose, all colleges should and do offer the same knowledge to their students, therefore the question of why it was necessary to cheat a system remains.
The problem isn’t and never has been wanting to attend a prestigious university; considering that there are thousands of applicants every year who take part in this March Madness, with perfect or near-perfect resumes, it’s only fair that they get a chance at what they work for.
In this situation, there are so many questions left unanswered, the most important being, why? Why cheat a system that was made to likely benefit you. Was it greed or simply their version of unconditional love for their children?
The fact of the matter is prestige is gained by one’s admiration for something on the basis of the perception of their achievements or quality, meaning that prestige is created by us — society.
So, at the end of the day, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Written by Kate Payen.
