While cleaning up my computer, I found the article I submitted as part of my application to the Epic[school newspaper] last year.
I didn’t make it in, btw. :[
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In this current day and age, there seems to be an undisputed law that college means everything to a student’s future. This may be true, but the narrow-mindedness of this has increased dramatically as the times have worsened. The Department of Education has recorded some 6,962 colleges and universities in the United States, but according to most parents, there are really only 4: Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and Yale. Give and take some, this handful of “acceptable” colleges may vary among parents, but the bottom line stays the same: don’t make one of these you might as well be an unemployed lowlife for the rest of your life.
A couple weeks ago, I had tagged along on one of my mother’s weekly lunchtime tea parties held at a local friend’s house. There, I was introduced to said friend’s 18-year-old daughter. “She’s going to Berkeley,” the mother proudly exclaimed. My mother immediately got a predatory gleam in her eyes; the type that only surfaces when she is faced with either incredible bargains or the topic of colleges.
On the car ride home, my mother launched into one of her long, winded, often repetitive lectures-not-rants about the importance of studying and grades to your future college. “Did you hear about Kathryn?” She asked me, “She’s only going to go to Berkeley because she’s not in debate!”
She’s only going to Berkeley? Since when has the word “only” been used to describe Berkeley? And what does speech and debate have to do with this? My mother then proceeded to ask me just what Rice University was, and oh, it must be a horrible college because only mediocre schools are named after a cereal grain.
This kind of thinking is what leads to the overwhelming pressure every time college applications roll around. Sometime in the past decade, students have stopped trying to find colleges right for them, and started trying to make themselves right for colleges. Colleges may be your key to success, but our successes don’t always have to lie within the Harvard campus.
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