The odds were stacked against Dylan Chidick in the summer of 2017. A Jersey City high school student, he was homeless and struggling to study in a shelter. His twin brothers had heart conditions and needed extra care. His mother had lost her job.

But this week, he learned that he had been accepted to 17 colleges, including Siena College, Kean University, Caldwell University and York College of Pennsylvania. His academic efforts stood in sharp contrast to the stories of privilege and wealth that emerged from the wide-ranging college admissions scam, in which dozens of wealthy and high-profile parents allegedly bought their children’s admission into elite universities.

After the many lessons that Dylan, 17, has had to learn about life’s odds, here was one more.

“I think it is unfair that people could just buy their way in,” said Dylan, speaking on Thursday during a break from classes. “But I know that it has been happening for a long time, and there is always going to be someone with more privilege and more connections, to have it easier than others.”

“And that means that you have to work harder to achieve the same goals,” he said.

Any lingering faith in a system of meritocracy was challenged on Tuesday when federal prosecutors charged 50 people in what they called the “largest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.” The prosecutors alleged that the parents involved paid millions of dollars in bribes to secure spots for their privileged children.