For over four years of my life, I had one goal in mind; get into a good college. I worked hours on end, studying for my ACT, taking it twice, joining every extracurricular I could make even an inkling of time for. I spent hours late into the night deciding where to apply, writing and re-writing essays, pushing myself to the limits of my well-being so I could be one of the 1,500 lucky students that got admitted to Vanderbilt University.
Except, I didn't. And over 10,000 other applicants didn't either.
It still bothers me sometimes, knowing that myself and the other people were all fully capable of being successful as students there. It bothers me that we chose to work so hard, to choose our admission over our health some days, and we were still deemed "not good enough."
A lot of the time, I find myself wondering what I did wrong, what I could have done different. Should I have taken my ACT again? Were my essays sub-par? There were so many questions I couldn't answer. So, I spent another set of sleepless nights rifling through all of my application material, looking for mistakes. And here's the thing;
I don't think I did anything wrong.
This is the problem that so many of us have. We didn't do anything wrong. We just weren't right enough. After trying so hard for so long, after putting everything we had into these applications, after being so raw, our best just wasn't good enough.
This is the problem with the admission process in these prestigious colleges. They make you feel terrible about yourself. They give you this hope - they send you mail, they give you t-shirts, they coerce you into falling passionately in love with them, and then they pull the plug on this one-sided romance and laugh as you fade away. They scream in your face with their rejection letters. "Dear applicant, thank you for spending $200 on our fly-in program, $70 in our bookstore, $50 on an application fee, and countless hours of your life on us, but it was a fantastic applicant pool and you weren't fantastic enough."
Then, the second letter comes, then the third, and by the fifth rejection, you're feeling worthless. But, please, listen to me.
You are not worthless. These colleges, these people that think it's a business to make you feel like sh*t about yourself, those people are worthless. They are making money off of your misery. Do you really want to be one of them? Do you really want to be a part of this organized clique?
We all stand naked in front of this crowd of admissions officers, telling them our stories that are almost too uncomfortable to share, in hopes of being deemed up to standard. But, you know what? WE don't need that. We need to realize that you aren't defined by some random admissions officer in Nashville. We are defined by what we do with our circumstances. I didn't get into any of the top-tier colleges I applied to. I go to state school with a full-tuition scholarship, and I'm making a difference there. I'm part of Student Government, I'm a writer, and I share important ideas with my fellow classmates. My success - your success - is not defined by the college you attend. If you are making the difference that you wanted to make, then you're being successful. If you're making the grades, if you're involved, then good for you. You're doing just fine.
Don't be so hard on yourself.
