social climbing & its flaws

An argument certain sororities love to make to affirm to themselves that social climbing was a valuable use of their time is that whoever is criticizing the system must just be salty because they couldn’t be a part of it. Well, I’m here as someone within the system that saw it for what it was and left for better things.
Anyone can do it. As much as they’d love you to believe you have to be the prettiest, wealthiest, or most well-connected, you really don’t. The price of entry is literally one connection within the system, like a freshman roommate or an acquaintance that you can go to one of their parties with to meet more people. It’s really not that deep. You don’t need a ton of money to wear things that emanate richness. You do, however, need to wipe your personality clean of who you were and become a reflection of what you find around you. College is a place for figuring out who you really are, and most kids experiment with the whole power tripping thing in high school, so this is mostly a place for people that didn’t get to (keep in mind a lot of penn kids were nerdy in order to gain admission). But you don’t have to go through the system to learn its lessons. I do regret wasting my time with it and wish I had someone tell me how empty it is so I could’ve focused on my passions sooner. Penn is definitely complicit in this though because of the type of institution it is but that’s another story.
The system thrives off the fact that there are a few billionaire’s kids with money to throw around and they don’t know what to do with it. They throw it away on expensive brands and parties, hoping it’ll win them friends since they’re out of touch with normal human traits like empathy because their parents were never around for them. This attracts people who want to be showered with wealth and an abundance of hopeful future trophy wives (hint: those relationships never work out). The girls really don’t like each other because they don’t even know each other beyond the superficial. They see one another as competition for the wealthiest guys and will only interact to further their own social standing. And to counter their inferiority complexes they won’t even speak to people that don’t partake in the social climb. Out of fear that then being judged by someone that wants to know who they are, and not where they stand, they won’t be judged favorably.
TLDR: it’s a sad, sad life. Some are born into it and don’t know how to escape it. Others are drawn by the sparkle of the unknown. But don’t expect it to fulfill you or get you where you want to be. You’re at the systems mercy when you decide to take part and it’s a game without a real prize.