I was applying to a college, and the big essay asked me how college admissions have made me reconsider myself. I wrote this, but then I decided that it was stupid and started over. I did, however, think it had enough merit to go in a post instead! Needless to say, it is too insecure.
College admissions have seriously made me rethink myself. Once upon a time, I was pretentious, cocky even, until I began working at my future. I realize now how unsure of myself I truly am. I don’t know if it is even worth it applying to prestigious schools such as Harvard or Brown because I don’t know if I can get in, or after that if I can pay. I am eighteenth out of a class of two hundred fifty-one. I am in the 93% of my class; the problem is that it isn’t the 99% of my class.
I feel that colleges, especially prestigious colleges, look far too much into grades and scores. My grades aren’t stellar. I have a 4.0, but I haven’t been through high school without ever seeing a B. I take the hardest classes, but I am rarely at the very top of them. What colleges do not look far enough into are the extra-curricular activities. What I lack in grades, rank, and test scores, I make up for in extra-curricular activities. I have been an active member of 4-H since third grade, being both President of my small community club and Vice President of my County-wide club, an avid band member since fifth grade, the vice president of both Youth Alive, our Bible school, and Key Club, and the Secretary General of Model UN, which I have been a member of my entire high school career. My grades aren’t because of laziness, they are because of business. I am too busy to make straight one hundreds on every single test in AP Chemistry or AP History. I am too busy to study for the SAT or ACT with band competitions and football games every weekend.
But maybe, just maybe, I am making up excuses for myself. This is where the insecurity comes out! Should I have worked harder in high school? Should I have quit band, 4-H, Model UN, youth alive, Key Club, CIU, and National Honors Society to pursue higher, more elite education? Is it my duty to serve my community or to serve myself? Should I try to benefit the school or my future?
With these college admissions came, in an emanating crash, a series of mistakes and problems that I had no idea even existed when I was thirteen years old, when every choice I made started to become tracked.
Most would say that college admissions have made them find themselves; however, I am experiencing the antithesis of that. College admissions make me worry, worry about my future, my choices, my life. With each application sent in sends out another emanating feeling of discontent.
