In the wake of the college admissions cheating scandal, people are questioning the integrity of the college admissions process more than ever. The buzz surrounding the controversial subject only seems to increase as the scandal evolves.

We all know somebody, who knows somebody, who knows somebody whose family member or family friend donated a considerable amount to a university in exchange for an unspoken agreement to be more “lenient” when it comes to screening that student’s application.

Generous donations, critical connections and privileged treatment of legacies are accepted components of a process that often goes beyond the basic measuring of a student’s academic merit — a fault in the higher education system that has long existed.  

But how far is too far to the point where it actually becomes illegal? Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman and more than 10 other parents are pleading guilty to having tested these limits — going so far as to bribe a college consultant to cheat on their child’s entrance exams and scheming with college coaches to onboard their child without proof of any athletic capability in that sport.

In total, 50 people have been charged for participating in the elaborate scheme to bypass traditional modes of college acceptance in order to ensure that their children attend top-tier universities. Among them are a college consultant, coaches and parents.

It is definitely concerning such practices have been going on, but an epidemic of inequity is at stake if parents would go to such lengths to secure their children a place in a “top” college. Many of these kids would have had a successful trajectory without having attended college, let alone the specific institutions on which their parents were set.

These kids had either a celebrity name, an immeasurable amount of wealth or both — plenty to thrive off of in their post-high school careers without an extra boost from the University of Southern California or Georgetown University.

This is incredibly unfair to the students who were denied a place at an elite college simply because people — who were likely better off and better connected than they were — cheated.

Those are the students who often work the hardest to get where they are, piling up student loans in the hopes of gaining a fair shot at the American Dream. Contrast this with Loughlin’s daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, who has said a college education wasn’t even something she wanted.

The pressure for high schoolers to succeed above and beyond only seems to get worse with each year, and the looming idea of college is something even young children are forced to grapple with while struggling to find their own identities.

When did it get this bad? Why does our generation obsessively correlate where we go to college with how successful we will be later in life?

More people than ever are pursuing higher education, but for what purpose? Perhaps because it’s a way we can distinguish ourselves from our peers, a notion that is rooted in how competitive of a university we attend. This causes people to truly lose sight of their individual worth.

If this scandal teaches us anything, it’s that we are so much more than our college acceptances. Everyone progresses along their own path at their own rate — and what is meant to be, will be.