Could Your College Application Be Scandalous??? | Real College Talk Season 2, Ep. 3

Real College Talk

Welcome to Real College Talk! RCT is your destination for honest and relevant college and postsecondary conversation. We bring the best of the best to our podcast to share both their personal and professional experiences and advice regarding all things school, college, career paths, and life in general.

This episode just might be our most #RealTalk yet! We’re diving deep into the college admissions scandal with a focus on what it means for those of us still applying to and attending colleges and universities across the US. We start off with a brief overview of the scandal – "Operation Varsity Blues” – and the ways in which parents, applicants, college officials and athletic recruiters, standardized test administrators, and many more were able to conspire to guarantee certain students a spot at the elite university of their choice.

Beyond the headlines, but we’re more interested in the underlying issues and disfunction that the scandal reveals in our society's approach to higher education (7:15): that we've become so obsessed with college lists, acceptance rates, and test scores that students, families, and institutions alike are compromising integrity in subtle ways, most of which don’t reach the news (7:45). For example, Nikhil gives us an in-depth analysis of college ranking lists and the ways in which these seemingly objective algorithms can be manipulated to inflate a school’s prestige and ranking (9:30).

But despite the subjectivity and unfairness of the system itself, we as students and applicants must stand firm and hold ourselves accountable (18:02). If we want the system to be fair, we have to say "no" to cutting corners and instead choose to play fair by demonstrating high integrity in high school, in our applications, in college, and in the real world (26:50).

In spirit of this important cause, we encourage you to share your college application experience, acceptances, and rejections alike on social media where the RCT Podcast began. Be sure to tag @RealCollegeTalk and use #KeepItReal on Instagram (28:41). THANK YOU! Together, we can encourage a more fair and sound college application system with less focus on “getting in” and more excitement for making the most of your unique post-grad decision.

Real College Talk is a podcast that you won't want to miss! To catch every episode, make sure to hit the subscribe button and turn on our notifications. You can follow us on Instagram @realcollegetalk and follow our co-hosts @morgs__anne and @nikhil.vn. We are always working on new content, so be on the lookout for our latest episodes. In the meantime, Keep It Real!