“Get your SAT to a 1500, or no chance; raise your 3.5 to a 3.9, or wait, maybe a 4.0—it’s always about someone with better scores, more accomplishments; make your essays raw and real, but polish them—don’t let ‘raw’ look too messy, don’t show too much pain or anger; let them admire how you rose from ashes but don’t let them smell any smoke; show grit but wrap it in grace; make sure they admire the story but not the hard parts; take every tough experience and turn it into something they want to read—a nonprofit, a TED Talk; show leadership—not just in a club but maybe in 10 of them; make sure they see passion, but in a way that fits into bullet points on a résumé; join the science fair, lead debate, do research, code, compete, volunteer—basically be everything they want, so they can see every piece of you, polished and on display, right how they want it; love your community—no, serve it, not just at a soup kitchen, but as a strategy, like a big project; everything you’ve done—it’s all just ‘extracurriculars’ now; every hard time, every healing moment—it’s now a ‘strength’; don’t be yourself, be the ‘best story’ of you, marketable, perfect on paper; they say it’s ‘holistic,’ but only if every part looks good; be unique but not so different that you’re hard to understand; be extraordinary, but also familiar enough to fit in their box; give them everything you’ve got—or at least what they can handle.”
Inspired by ‘Girl’ by Jamaica Kincaid. Heard so many people on here say they feel like this. I thought maybe a few of you could relate.
Surprised to see this post here—I don’t come here much since I’m in college now. And crazy you mention ‘Girl’—I just read it in my college writing class. Never heard of it until a week ago, then this pops up here. Small world!
Every time people talk about how ‘competitive college is,’ they mostly mean a few schools in the U.S. Plenty of great colleges have over 50% acceptance rates.
Not trying to dismiss what you’re saying. I just want to counter the idea that if you don’t have a 4.0 you’re out of luck.
@Leighton
Yes! And it’s a cycle: students read online about how ‘all’ colleges are super competitive and feel like they’re not good enough, so they panic and apply to a ton of schools, which only makes acceptance rates drop further. There are so many great schools!
Dana said:
What a lot of folks here think about college:
True. The whole college app thing is stressful, but the ‘everything has to be perfect or I’m doomed’ mindset just comes from this competitive, one-upping culture here.
This forum is one of the worst places for high school seniors sometimes
@Oswin
Wrote this after seeing people telling a girl with blood cancer and a lower GPA that she had no chance at the Ivies because of a ‘3.8 cutoff.’ I like a lot of things on here and it’s helped me a ton, but some people lack empathy. Everyone here has a story.
