Shortly after my freshman year of college, when I was debating whether to transfer to another college or drop out and venture into the work force sans degree, I met with an older friend who had attended an Ivy League-adjacent school. I wanted her advice on whether to apply to her alma mater.

I’d love it there, she assured me, with one caveat: You have to be really smart, she said. It became evident that her “smart” and my “smart” were different things. She casually rattled off hours she’d logged with a personalized standardized test tutor, paid to boost her score. Her parents opted not to pay an editor to work with her on her application essay, but plenty of her classmates’ families had.

I suddenly felt as though I’d failed a test I didn’t know I was taking. I was even more gobsmacked when I realized how common her experience was. Asking around, I learned that a subset of my peers had been carefully groomed with tools I hadn’t even known existed. I came to realize that my “A” in Literature from my freshman year and a job between classes and on weekends were not going to compete with pedigrees buffed to application perfection thanks to highly compensated college admissions coaches.

I did end up transferring, not to my friend’s school but to The New School, where I finished my degree remotely while working full time, and I graduated in January 2017. Now I talk to young people, including my own sister, who agonize over the fact that, no matter how hard they study, they will never compete with students who have test and application boosts. Even so, I know I’ve enjoyed benefits that many other students haven’t because I’m white and have parents who are college graduates. I’m more angry on behalf of those with fewer resources than me who have to compete with those gaming the system.