The college-admissions scandal is irresistible daily reading as it’s a rare case of rich, beautiful people being held to account for their system-rigging. Who doesn’t enjoy dunking on Lori Loughlin and her Kardashianesque spawn over a half-baked bribery plot to get them admitted to USC by passing them off as rowers?

I’ll be mining cheap clickbait from it for months. Maybe years, once Olivia Jade’s reality show takes off. It’s the greatest thing ever.

But there’s a not-fun human side to it. The victims in this particular (alleged) crime are kids who really did hustle as students to try to get into their dream school and received a thin envelope from the admissions office for their trouble. If you had your heart set on going to a particular college and got rejected, I bet you remember to this day how it felt. Now imagine how it would have felt if you found out that other kids who didn’t hustle managed to buy a seat in the same class you wanted to be part of.

Meet Emma Monden, another YouTuber with a following online. USC was her dream school, she sighs. A year ago she vlogged the experience of being rejected by the university. She mentions specific (and familiar) prep work she did, like taking AP classes and hiring an SAT tutor, to try to meet USC’s high standards. She didn’t make the cut. The Giannulli girls did. She’s composed throughout the clip below and never turns nasty or bitter, but her voice betrays her a few times. The frustration runs deep. Who can blame her?

Seems like a nice kid. There are doubtless many nice kids across the country who received rejections they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten if those with means hadn’t tilted the playing field against them. Illegally, I mean; legacy cases are still legal and S.O.P. at virtually all American universities.

Maybe USC will let her transfer?