In March the FBI unveiled that trusted coaches and staff at top Ivy League universities were entrenched in criminal plots. They had helped admit the children of prominent figures from the world of finance, trade and Hollywood alike into prestigious schools on the basis of falsified test scores, aptitude and disabilities.

After federal authorities made 50 arrests, the Department of Justice characterized it as the “largest college cheating scam” ever prosecuted in U.S. history.

The conspiracy was orchestrated by William “Rick” Singer, a college counselor, through a series of briberies. Parents paid up to $6.5 million for his services, the payments received by what Singer shrouded on government forms as a charitable organization. These illegal activities were largely carried out without the knowledge of the students, and schools are currently reviewing and re-assessing their admission statuses.

Now, in court, the parents have begun to take the stand. As they either prepare to fight or secure plea deals that will allow them to save face, the scandal continues to spur conversations at both the high school and collegiate levels of how issues of class, race and privilege reflect a flawed and broken college admissions system.

“Colleges are increasingly seen for what they are: another system that the wealthy can game,” Vox’s  Libby Nelson writes.

For many students, the news was less than surprising. Instead, they saw it as another iteration of what has become the disheartening norm in the U.S.: the tangible difference between equity and equality.

“We can put in work from fifth grade to 12th grade, every single day, come in early, leave late, and it’s still not enough,” said 17-year-old senior Khiana Jackson to the New York Times.

It is this disparity that creates a shadow that lingers over the scandal in the form of a question: Whose spots did these students, admitted through dirty money and dubious morals, take?

Because in many places, the unfortunate truth is that college admissions letters are seen as a powerful force that can make or break the trajectory of one’s future. Where I grew up, students were expected as early as the age of 10 to sketch out their plans for high school, college and beyond. We were all smart, all competitive and all driven by a fear of our parents and teachers and what failing them meant. You were a workaholic, or you were no one.

For me, the shadow takes the form of a meek girl in the seventh grade that was the smartest of us all. She would raise her arms up over her head, as if ready to hit something, whenever she explained to us how her parents chased her around the house with wooden spoons and frying pans when she came home with scores that were anything less than perfect. Twice, she had been locked out.

For me, the shadow takes the form of a classroom filled with scared-straight students because the SHSAT prep teacher liked to make noise, scream at us and slam doors. When we wouldn’t or couldn’t answer his questions, he thought he could shame us out of our silence. Once, he came back from his coffee break and found that we had been brave enough to lock him out.

For me, it is difficult to talk of the students that had their spots bought for them without thinking of the people I grew up with—students that lived with those same expectations and pressures but didn’t have the shortcuts to get there. Instead, they were berated with the idea that their worth could be equated to their academic success until they believed it themselves. For some, their efforts were for naught. They still lost out to people who knew how to cheat the system.

The true horror of this scandal lies in how it testifies to what our youth is being reduced to, whether it is by themselves, their parents or their school system: numbers, resumes and prestigious college names.

“[The college admissions process] comes down almost to marketing one’s soul, which gets to undermining the meaning of one’s entire life,” said one admissions counselor to the New York Times.

When giving his testimony, Singer made use of a metaphor to explain his actions.

“There is a front door to get in [to college] where a student just does it on their own, and then there’s a back door where people go to institutional advancement and make large donations,” he stated, continuing, “I created a side door that guaranteed families to get in. That was what made it very attractive to so many families— I created a guarantee.”

Part of the sentiment he speaks of—that the path to opportunity is paved smoother for some than it is for others—is true. What he fails to see, though, is that with each back door and side door that is opened for one student, a front door is closed for another. They are left to fumble for the key, wondering who they are and where they went wrong—and eventually, they stop looking.