The US college admissions scandal didn't surprise me — I saw it from the inside

The families willing to pay the most were usually those whose kids were least qualified. And, with children’s futures on the line, the pressure to produce acceptance letters was immense

Lisa was on a rampage. In the weeks since she’d hired me to help her son with his college applications, the New York City mother had micromanaged every step of the process. Now, minutes after I’d emailed the student an edited essay, she was shouting at me over the phone.

“I couldn’t believe Tyler’s draft! What do you mean, ‘it’s the best he could come up with’?

Just make something up, then — isn’t that what I’m paying you for? And don’t start with any of this high-and-mighty morals talk, you know everyone does it.”

The tirade continued for nearly an hour, with Lisa remaining impervious to my attempts to explain the pitfalls of writing students’ essays for them. Finally, she informed me that I was fired and hung up.

I stared at my phone in disbelief. I was 30 years old, with three Ivy League degrees and several prestigious jobs on my resume — and yet I’d just received a tongue-lashing reminiscent of a master castigating a disobedient servant. How the hell had I come to this?

No one grows up dreaming of becoming a college admissions consultant. Like many others, I fell into the industry by accident, after a family friend asked me to help her son with his college essays. At the time, the role seemed almost honorable, helping a hard-working immigrant kid take the next step toward his American dream. That spring, the student was admitted to his top-choice school, and my reputation as a miracle worker was born.

In the subsequent years, I worked with countless applicants in the US and China, from top performers to C students; from perfectionists to procrastinators; from the very rich to the only moderately rich. I crafted college lists and revised resumes. I took emergency late-night Skype consultations. I polished students’ essays and parents’ egos.

Initially, I harbored hopes of helping only deserving students. But it soon became obvious that the deserving students weren’t the ones hiring consultants. The families willing to pay the most were usually those whose kids were least qualified. And, with children’s futures on the line, the pressure to produce acceptance letters was immense. Every job turned into a battle between my ethical standards and the industry’s perverse incentive structure.

Over time, a shift in parent attitudes created an ever-more-slippery ethical slope. Families once respected me as an independent professional. Today, parents are just as likely to view college consultants as glorified assistants. Whether it’s a near-perfect essay (regardless of the student’s writing abilities) or guaranteed admission to this or that exclusive university (regardless of whether the student is qualified), the customer is always right.

In theory, any single consultant can take a stand against these attitudes, refusing to write students’ essays for them or facilitate other dishonesty. But a frustrated parent can easily take her business elsewhere. That’s what happened with my client Lisa. She sent her son to a consultant who didn’t mind creating fake content — and, as far as I can tell, neither of them suffered any repercussions for his cheating.

Powerless to change the rules, we usually give up and agree to play the admissions game. And, to soothe the guilt of our complicity in further distorting an already unjust system, we start telling ourselves lies.

Is it really Sarah’s fault that her teachers let her graduate without making sure she could write a coherent paragraph? I’ll just fix her essay so this doesn’t ruin her future.

I’m one of the good guys — I share my expertise online for free and take on pro bono clients.

I don’t have a choice: I need to pay my bills.

Don’t blame me — this whole process is rigged. If I don’t do it, someone else will.

I think many admissions consultants truly believe these stories.

Recently, I was struck by elite consultant Hafeez Lakhani’s response to the US college admissions scandal. Lakhani unironically pats himself on the back for "not cheating the system", even as he charges his clients $260 to $1000 per hour.

My own sins weren’t quite so egregious — my rates were a fraction of Lakhani’s and most of my clients were upper-middle-class families just trying to do their best by their kids. But, as the book Dream Hoarders insightfully points out, these seemingly innocuous families, each acting in their own self-interests, together form an almost impenetrable barrier that keeps poor kids out of college, making a mockery of the so-called “great equalizer” of educational opportunity.

Last year, I finally admitted that charging families to give their kids a leg-up in the admissions process directly harmed other children. I stopped offering paid services and went to work at a nonprofit organisation that supports talented low-income students through the application process. The students and their families don’t pay a single cent for our help. And I no longer have to lie to myself.

Katerina Manoff is a Harvard and University of Pennsylvania graduate who now works at Ukraine Global Scholars