Monday, March 31, 2008

In Honor of the Self...

Today is a special day - today, Monday, March 31, 2008. Ta da! The great day of IVY LEAGUE ADMISSIONS DECISIONS(!) Oh my goodness, someone hold my hand.

I'm not sure I really have my thoughts together on the subject, but I - like many others, I'm sure - awaited this day with the kind of niggling hope and precarious confidence that comes with being a top student throughout life. And I - like many others, I'm sure - saw this hope smashed and this confidence smeared with the appropriately cordial regrets of an undoubtedly stressed-out admissions officer.

THANK YOU Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Harvard, and, even earlier, Stanford.

With compositions even skimpier and more shallow than the 500-word essays I offered you, you have successfully undermined the past four years of my life. I appreciate that!

...

*sigh*

I have heard that this year was supposed to have been the most difficult of any so far to get into college...not only in terms of academic talent but also by sheer numbers, and although I struggle to take this Ivy League rejection to a higher level, I also understand, truly, that this cannot define me.

More than anything, this Ivy League competition is a test of pride and resilience because, honestly, I'm not sure how I could've worked harder for this - for a letter of congratulations and four years of intense competition and family struggle to pay off a $50,000/year education. No. I don't need that. I really don't. But I can't help but want it...because I've worked for that letter, because the moment I stepped onto the Columbia campus, I loved it. I felt it. And I wanted a part of it.

But I am so much better
than this. This entire admissions process undermines the foundations of our learning, undermines the depth and scope of our achievements - because we can't be expressed in hours per week or 500 words on a topic of our choice. There is no person that simple. And maybe I'm bitter, to have been flatly rejected from my dream school, but if whatever I put on my application didn't filter through that convoluted process of admissions reading, so be it.

I apologize to God, for having been so cocky about myself, but other than that, eh, I think I'm done with this college thing. I've got options, and I know I'm lucky for those.

Besides...



There are soo many more better things in life.

I'm over it. So over it.