I wrote this last month and somehow didn't think about posting it here until now. I just graduated from high school yesterday, and I, like many other high school seniors, had to go through the dilemma of pleasing myself or pleasing admissions officers. Luckily, I stuck with the former, but I felt the need to reassure other potentially struggling college applicants of the benefits of doing so.
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This is for anyone preparing to apply to college or doubting their lack of so-called “credentials” before or after the college application process.
When I was a freshman, I was directionless, whiny, and inflexible. Even after I realized this a few months too late, I spent nearly three years pacing around trying to get to where I am now as a senior. So, where am I now? You could argue that I haven't gotten anywhere at all, or that I've even gone backwards -- after all, I stopped going to one of the two clubs I was involved in, and I just gained my first leadership position a few months ago. As of yet, I have absolutely no proof that I have ambition or the ability to take initiative, and plenty of proof that I'm useless. Others may see this as an issue -- but I refuse to.
What I’ve told you are my external (lack of) credentials. Yet in reality, the time I spent staring at a wall and thinking have brought me to the insanely satisfying last six months in which I've become more understanding of myself and what I want to do with my life than ever before. The only problem is that this epiphany hasn't externally manifested itself just yet, and it completely missed my college application deadlines. Had this moment happened a few years earlier instead of now, almost everything on my applications would have been strikingly better, but what about me would have actually changed? Nothing. Had I interrupted my self-assured period of idiocy to embellish my application, what progress would I have made in getting to this moment? None.
One major yet probably irreparable flaw of college applications is that they only provide a blurry snapshot of people who are animated and constantly changing. It’s an unfair game of timing: some people’s ambitions are going to ripen before the Common App comes out while others’ are not, and there are colleges that will turn down people that they suspect fall into the latter category. Don’t bother letting this intimidate or guilt-trip you off a path that you have a good gut feeling about. The college application process constitutes a window of time set at a definite point in your life, whereas the discovery of your niche could happen at any moment and may not necessarily coincide with that window. Simply put, college applications were not designed to suit nature. If you hurry to create a marketable yet ingenuine identity for yourself when you know you need more time to realize your true identity, or if you scrap the better idea for the speedier one, you may be shutting yourself out from your own potential.
Though you may have to make a few sacrifices when it comes to any competitive application, the risk from not getting into a “reach” school is probably less than the risk from turning too far away from your destination, even if that destination is unspecified as of now. So, to future applicants, aim for matches that are likely to accept you for what you’ve done so far. This way, you’ll secure a foundation to start with. Additionally, the more choices you make in favor of personal development rather than in favor of simply looking impressive, the more you’ll be able to attribute any rejections to the admission process’ inability to fully understand where you’re headed, and the less of a reason you’ll have to feel guilty about the rejections. (After all, there’s nothing better than being blameless!)
Regardless of how you will approach (or how you already approached) the whole ordeal, though, there’s no better way to proceed into the future than to start actively being the boss of your future now. This means letting your aspirational prime happen whenever it’s ready to happen, but also taking whatever actions you deem necessary to maximize the satisfaction you receive once it does happen.
So go as slowly and surely as you want.
