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Description
Issue Two: Knightly Admissions
February 27th, 2004

So, how does it feel to be a college student?

I’m not really sure. Relieved would sum it up best. I have three acceptances out of three results received, including the crucial one that all and sundry were rooting for. The school I had the most hopes resting on has accepted me to the fall 2004 session of the class of 2008. Wow. 2008.

2008 seems like a long way away now. Paradoxically, the 1999-2000 school year, my freshman year of high school, feels in many ways as though it were only yesterday. Way back then, I was torn between ‘four years is such a long time to put up with this’ and ‘in only four years I’ll be gone.’ It’s a shaky feeling, and the closer you get to the big Number Four, the more uncertain your future becomes.

What college am I going to? What do I want to study? Where will I apply? Will I even get in? What if my grades aren’t good enough? Will anyone I know be anywhere near there? Will I be near my parents?

That last one can be interpreted several ways, both good and bad. Of course, none of that even begins to touch one of the worse issues: Can we afford it?

The money problem is a big one. I’m a horrible position: my parents earn just too much money, I’m just too smart, just too lazy, just too foreign, and just too ineligible for the average scholarship. The mere ‘must be a citizen of the United States’ or ‘demonstrate good Christian values’ can exclude my atheistic, resident alien ass. Of course, scholarship searches somehow don’t pay attention when I try to narrow my search to exclude these, and so they turn up in my search results anyway. I think the most ironic was for a Girls Scout essay contest. I’ve never even been in the same room as a Girl Scout troupe.

It’s like fighting a war, made up of many battles. The first one was difficult enough: what am I looking for? Where do I START? ‘College search’ should be listed in thesauruses as synonymous with ‘root canal.’ Every single flier that comes your way uses the exact same phrases: Future (read: you better make a good alum), learning community (read: beware of class leaders), competitive and challenging (read: impossibly high standards and suicide rate), knowledgeable faculty (read: people who know what they’re worth; add $3000 per professor), active student life (read: sports and sororities), and unique (read: just like every other school). Some of them try to get pithy, saying things like ‘Well, we know how many of these you get, and how they all sound alike, so we’ll just make it snappy and condense the same information about our school into a little bulleted list for the impatient among you.’ This inspires confidence in those of us seeking an enriching education. Really.

Of course, most colleges don’t go into lengthy detail about their admission requirements when they’re trying to sell themselves to you. Only after you’ve read the shiny, brightly colored booklet with pictures of smiling sophomores and beautiful campuses do you find out that said school requires a 3.7 GPA, a 1480 on the SAT I, 3 SATI IIs, and multiple extracurricular. They also want about twelve essays out of you and five teacher recommendations, including one from your kindergarten teacher, middle school vice principal, and the guy whose lawn you mowed all last summer. The essays are the worst, though. Your only comfort is that thousands of other high school seniors (and some juniors) are slogging away on the same infuriating topics that you are, and all to the same end. Just don’t forget your deadlines, ‘k?

Then comes the waiting. After all the stress and hassle of making sure that everything was filled out correctly and mailed out on time, there’s typically a good three-month waiting period before any of these schools deign to inform you of your status.

This is the worst part. For months you’ve spent all this time wondering where you may end up in the fall, and suddenly it’s no longer in your control at all. You sent out the envelopes, and now it’s their job to mail something back. You did your best, but now nothing you do is going to affect your future. It’s completely out of your hands.

This is, of course, where Senioritis comes from, that magical lack of caring that tends to hit the graduating class anytime after November. Once the acceptances start rolling in, teachers may as well forget it. The seniors are practically freshman already, and they know it.

So. I am now, in a way, a freshman again. As well as a senior. The predictable path of year-in, year-out education has been extended by another four years, almost guaranteed. There’s no more tension when I think about fall or post-graduation anymore. I know where I’ll be. I know what I’ll be doing.

I know that a Maryland winter can’t possibly have as much snow as a New Jersey winter. I only hope it’s not as hot.

Description
Issue Two: Knightly Admissions
February 27th, 2004

So, how does it feel to be a college student?

I’m not really sure. Relieved would sum it up best. I have three acceptances out of three results received, including the crucial one that all and sundry were rooting for. The school I had the most hopes resting on has accepted me to the fall 2004 session of the class of 2008. Wow. 2008.

2008 seems like a long way away now. Paradoxically, the 1999-2000 school year, my freshman year of high school, feels in many ways as though it were only yesterday. Way back then, I was torn between ‘four years is such a long time to put up with this’ and ‘in only four years I’ll be gone.’ It’s a shaky feeling, and the closer you get to the big Number Four, the more uncertain your future becomes.

What college am I going to? What do I want to study? Where will I apply? Will I even get in? What if my grades aren’t good enough? Will anyone I know be anywhere near there? Will I be near my parents?

That last one can be interpreted several ways, both good and bad. Of course, none of that even begins to touch one of the worse issues: Can we afford it?

The money problem is a big one. I’m a horrible position: my parents earn just too much money, I’m just too smart, just too lazy, just too foreign, and just too ineligible for the average scholarship. The mere ‘must be a citizen of the United States’ or ‘demonstrate good Christian values’ can exclude my atheistic, resident alien ass. Of course, scholarship searches somehow don’t pay attention when I try to narrow my search to exclude these, and so they turn up in my search results anyway. I think the most ironic was for a Girls Scout essay contest. I’ve never even been in the same room as a Girl Scout troupe.

It’s like fighting a war, made up of many battles. The first one was difficult enough: what am I looking for? Where do I START? ‘College search’ should be listed in thesauruses as synonymous with ‘root canal.’ Every single flier that comes your way uses the exact same phrases: Future (read: you better make a good alum), learning community (read: beware of class leaders), competitive and challenging (read: impossibly high standards and suicide rate), knowledgeable faculty (read: people who know what they’re worth; add $3000 per professor), active student life (read: sports and sororities), and unique (read: just like every other school). Some of them try to get pithy, saying things like ‘Well, we know how many of these you get, and how they all sound alike, so we’ll just make it snappy and condense the same information about our school into a little bulleted list for the impatient among you.’ This inspires confidence in those of us seeking an enriching education. Really.

Of course, most colleges don’t go into lengthy detail about their admission requirements when they’re trying to sell themselves to you. Only after you’ve read the shiny, brightly colored booklet with pictures of smiling sophomores and beautiful campuses do you find out that said school requires a 3.7 GPA, a 1480 on the SAT I, 3 SATI IIs, and multiple extracurricular. They also want about twelve essays out of you and five teacher recommendations, including one from your kindergarten teacher, middle school vice principal, and the guy whose lawn you mowed all last summer. The essays are the worst, though. Your only comfort is that thousands of other high school seniors (and some juniors) are slogging away on the same infuriating topics that you are, and all to the same end. Just don’t forget your deadlines, ‘k?

Then comes the waiting. After all the stress and hassle of making sure that everything was filled out correctly and mailed out on time, there’s typically a good three-month waiting period before any of these schools deign to inform you of your status.

This is the worst part. For months you’ve spent all this time wondering where you may end up in the fall, and suddenly it’s no longer in your control at all. You sent out the envelopes, and now it’s their job to mail something back. You did your best, but now nothing you do is going to affect your future. It’s completely out of your hands.

This is, of course, where Senioritis comes from, that magical lack of caring that tends to hit the graduating class anytime after November. Once the acceptances start rolling in, teachers may as well forget it. The seniors are practically freshman already, and they know it.

So. I am now, in a way, a freshman again. As well as a senior. The predictable path of year-in, year-out education has been extended by another four years, almost guaranteed. There’s no more tension when I think about fall or post-graduation anymore. I know where I’ll be. I know what I’ll be doing.

I know that a Maryland winter can’t possibly have as much snow as a New Jersey winter. I only hope it’s not as hot.