1. The Kid Who Took Your Spot in Admissions
One way or another, this kid’s already in college. Whether their last name is not so coincidentally displayed over the entranceway to a library or physics building, or their academic potential is reliant on their athletic abilities,
they’re just there as a formality to have something to fill the blank space with on the checklist of credentials for their college application. They show up wearing their high school’s apparel as a comfort mechanism, because it reminds them of how great they are, as they probably peaked in high school. They fooled around since freshman year, knowing they wouldn’t need grades to get them places in life. Reading this article has you wondering if they're still enrolled in the school they graduated onto from high school.
2. The Nervous Wreck
In addition to the basic SAT starter pack, which consists of a box of sharpened Ticonderoga #2 pencils (unless you like to live on the edge and bring a box of mechanical pencils so you can have that 5 second debate with your proctor of whether or not they follow regulations), a calculator which your SAT tutor plugged in a bunch of equations so the math section is just a matter of knowing which one of the equations to use, a breakfast bar that you won't have the time or the appetite to eat because Adderall, and a water bottle for the cotton mouth, this kid also brought a gym towel to wipe the puddles of sweat dripping onto their desk. They're on so much Adderall they haven't blinked since 7 a.m. that morning, which is good because blinking wastes time on sections anyways. If all else fails they could always become a drummer because their pencil tapping was very rhythmic throughout each section. They'll end up doing okay, but struggle with the cursive section of verifying their testing integrity because it's the 21st century and nobody knows how to write in cursive anymore.
3. "I got a 2350 on my last one, I just wanna see if I can get a perfect score"
Because what else would this kid be doing on a Saturday? You wonder if it's possible he studied so many vocab words that it took over the part of his brain to control the volume of his voice because he sounds like he's explaining his nonexistent love life to his hard of hearing grandmother at the Thanksgiving table.
Every article of clothing they're wearing is apparel from colleges they already have, or plan on, applying to. If he's wearing jeans, they're too short for his legs and show too much of his ankles. Not only is this an assessment of whatever colleges use this test to assess, this is also a test of his entire life's work. He feels everybody's eyes burning into the back of his head, but he's immune to actually caring because as much as he knows it, in the back of our minds we know it too; this kid is destined for greatness like curing cancer, discovering life on Mars, finding out if there really is more to life than being really really really ridiculously good looking, etc. Furthermore, he probably won't need to be on Adderall to do it. But hey, you'll go on to discover how many shots you can take before blacking out, or how fast you can cram for an exam while still managing to pass the class, so don't beat yourself up too much.
4. "Wait, We Need a Calculator For This?"
You've taken too many practice tests and studied way too many vocab words that you'll never see anywhere else except for on those index cards, for someone within your vicinity to not understand the gravity of the situation, and it almost angers you how unprepared they are. Everybody gives each other wide eye glances, and the "I Got A 2350 On My Last One, I Just Wanna See if I Can Get A Perfect Score" kids poorly stifle their laughter because they're pompous assholes. Your high levels of stress during this time didn't completely numb your soul, and a small part of you also feels bad for them.
But all you can do is lend them one of the spare set of batteries you brought with you in the off chance your calculator died that day for the first time since purchasing it for ninth grade algebra class. Realistically though, everybody knows somebody that's had that happen to them.
