Ivy League colleges are considered to be the most prestigious institutions for scholars all over the world; the best of talents known today are Ivy League alumni. Despite some prominent figures advocating that college education is not any sort of a guarantee for success, millions of high schoolers aspire to study in the top schools of the world, convinced that the names of these schools would propel their careers. In a way, this dream transformed a simple microeconomic demand into the birth of an entirely new industry.

Ivy League admission assistance is a major service targeting "rich parents" of potential clients still in school, employing ex-admission officers, enrolled college students, and alumni as mentors and tutors. The service is known to be very expensive and, although provides little guarantee, generally achieves good results as the clients are happy to be admitted to at least one of the top colleges altogether.

This assistance is almost necessary for admission to the Ivy League schools since acceptance rates are relatively small compared to the total number of applicants every year. The process is extremely quick with admission officers scanning through thousands of applications and making split-second decisions that decide the fate of students. Thus, strategic approaches to filling out the admission application while keeping the values and biases of schools in mind are a must for competitive students.

The market, however, is becoming saturated and very susceptible to potential changes in the admission criteria and procedures. The current admission process usually requires the school curricula, standardized testing scores, motivational or personal essays, resumes, and most importantly, a curriculum vitae of extracurricular activities. The applicants are expected to showcase their best qualities demonstrating consistency throughout their lives in terms of their academic goals, and at the same time leadership and curiosity that will enable them to become active students on campus and resourceful alumni. And this strategy is the secret sauce of admissions.

The competitive advantage of each company in the college admissions industry essentially depends on how well they are able to "crack" this strategy and offer it to the maximum number of clients they can tangibly serve. However, as much as it benefits potential applicants and assists them in the pursuit of their dreams, there are some ethical downsides to treating education as a business.

If we ignore the possibility of truly talented students coming from a well-off background actually needing this assistance to pass the subjective school screenings, we are left with the same old controversy — wealth discrimination. Of course, talented students from less advantaged backgrounds can still get into top schools with only their efforts. But if the majority of the pool of applicants is filled with pay-to-win students with their carefully crafted profiles, competition becomes fiercer while relieving schools from the responsibility of choosing students regardless of their family's income.

We do not live in an ideal world where top institutions can magically identify future world changers and admit them, but if the factor of financial resources leaks into the process uncontrollably (not even mentioning racial discrimination and the likes of it), aren't we hindering the progress of humanity with our ignorance?

For now, the admission process is more or less resistant to outside interference overall, with questions and input fields that ask for descriptions of how an applicant spends their time at school and out of the classroom. This separation, when combined, actually paints a good picture of who the student really is. Experienced advisors can carefully edit these profiles and present a student as a perfect fit for any institution. On the contrary, some can argue to "not hate the player but hate the game" and point out that even paying applicants still need to put in the effort to stand a chance. And that's true! Applicants, regardless of what tools and resources they use, still need to dedicate their high school years to developing themselves into prospective students, and we have no right to discredit those efforts with the argument of money. After all, "fake it till you make it" is a strong argument.

Perhaps student applicant evaluations can be changed for the better with something that reveals a person's nature more concretely with fewer ways to "hack" our way through it. Eventually, we might find out that all such attempts are futile and that society really does run on social hierarchy, but it doesn't hurt to question the world order once in a while anyway.