You reviewed the applications. One of them is your closest friend.
You are sitting in a wood-paneled meeting room with three other reviewers. In front of each of you is a stack of anonymized essays — first names redacted, schools removed, only the writing itself. The scholarship is $12,000, and it goes to one applicant.
You are halfway through the stack when you read essay #7. You freeze. Two lines in, you already know it's Amelia — your best friend since seventh grade. She told you, quietly, three weeks ago that if this doesn't come through she can't come back next semester.
The others haven't noticed anything. The clock on the wall says you have ninety minutes to submit rankings. There is no 'right' door out of this room. There is only which door you choose, and who you look in the eye afterward.