Something I don’t see many people talking about is how that scene in the school’s councilor’s office with Miles and his parents like. Fully demonstrates how shallow and infuriating the college admissions process in America is. Like yes you need to start preparing at 15 to even have a shot at top colleges, yes you need to have a ‘story’ as a teenager, yes if you come from a certain background you’re assumed to have struggled. Yes, use your trauma and issues and rebrand it all nice and neat but make sure it doesn’t seem like it actually affected you badly or you’ll be seen as a liability. Package yourself and whittle yourself into nothing but a shiny statue who’s never failed at all in one of the most confusing periods of your life. Market yourself. Sell yourself. You are a product, not a person.
"Market yourself. Sell yourself. You are a product, not a person."
This is so jarring, but it's such a real representation of the college process. My physics teacher tried to give us advice for the college admissions process, but he ended up going into a little rant that I'd like to summarize here:
In the time of Ancient Greece, when the first university-like institution was established, it was the Academy of Athens by Plato. This school was made for education, and attended by people who were learning for the love of learning. The "student culture" there (if you can call it that) was "wait, I can learn about this all the time??" Students would research outside of class for the fun of it. They would come to class assuming everyone had read the literature on their own already, simply because they loved it. The professors taught to educate, and that was the sole purpose of the school. The curriculum at the Academy focused on intellectual inquiry, dialectical discussions, and the pursuit of knowledge.
Now, students are seen as financial assets for colleges, either now (through tuition) or later (through donations). Because of this profit-centered lens, colleges are trying to see how you are going to make them money in the future. They want packaged stories that show you will have a path in life that will give them power. You're a future asset for them, not a person who just wants to learn for the passion of it. So, essentially, capitalism ruined college.
It's disgusting, and awful, and (just for the record), makes me hate the entire college admissions process I'm going through rn.




















