Article: College: A Junior's Hesitant Start

Haven't posted in a while; sorry about that! I thought I'd share with you an article I originally wrote for my school's paper. I hope it'll give some insight into what's going on in my life (and why I don't post as much anymore).

On our first meeting with our college counselors, all of us juniors were instructed to write letters to our parents, telling them whatever we wanted about the upcoming college process. I rolled my eyes, and then tried to peek over at what my friend was writing, but she glared at me and shooed me away. I glanced around me; everyone was scribbling furiously.

“Dear Mom and Dad,” I wrote. Then I looked up again. All my classmates seemed to be engrossed. I sighed internally, because it’s tough being the only malcontent, and tried wracking my brain for something suitably heart wrenching, poignant, and comforting.

“Oi. Love, Emma.”

Oh well.

The next step was in mid-January: Junior College Planning Weekend. Junior College Planning Weekend mainly involved lots of reinforcement that college is a match, not a prize (one charming representative made a magnificent analogy of the college search process being like finding a pair of jeans: just because it fits your friend, parents, or Emma Watson doesn’t mean it’ll fit you, and just because it’s super fashionable doesn’t mean it’ll be flattering on you. I couldn’t agree more. Stay away from acid-wash jeggings, kids). I rather enjoyed Junior College Planning Weekend, if only because I have a not-so-secret fondness of inspirational lectures on how I will succeed and I will find a place that’s right for me.

Then, we had our first group meeting. I settled down in the computer lab, all ready to hear some more optimistic babble on how I will succeed and I am a super star. Unfortunately, it didn’t go like that.

On the first meeting, you see, we were introduced to Naviance. Naviance is the college planning website Porter’s uses, and contains the schedule of upcoming college representatives’ visits, various personality tests that lead to various career path tests, and that great tool, The Graph.

The Graph is a terrible thing to behold, looming large and pixilated. You click on a school, and the website leads you to its Graph. On the x-axis of The Graph is the SAT scale to 2400; on the y-axis is the GPA scale to 5.0 (please…). There’s a box in the lower left-hand corner formed by the average SAT and GPA of students from Porter’s who have been accepted. Then, scattered around The Graph are dots of each girl who applied to that school in the past 10 years: green if she was accepted, red if she was denied, blue if she was deferred; a diamond if she was waitlisted and then accepted/denied/left in waitlisted purgatory, a square if she was accepted regular decision, an x if she was denied regular decision, inside a little circle if she applied early decision, and with a little yellow triangle if she applied early action. Then there’s your mark: a big empty circle.

Needless to say, I called my mother and cried. Not only was I not getting into college, I sobbed, I wasn’t even sure that I was reading The Graph correctly. Who can’t even read a graph?!

Her response? “Oi.”

Over the course of the next several days, I spent an inordinate amount of time on Naviance. It became an obsession; I couldn’t stop clicking on schools and staring at The Graphs. And then, about a week later, I stopped. I mainly stopped because I realized I was averaging an hour a night on Naviance (ahem – no judgment, I’m baring my soul here) and perhaps that time could be better spent studying my Spanish flashcards (that’s the type of perspicacious insights colleges look for, I hear).

Soon afterward, I had my first individual meeting with my college counselor. I spoke about myself unintelligently for 30 minutes, and it was marvelous. My college counselor was very lovely and warm, and really made me feel like a super star (I like constant validation, okay?). It was then that I realized that maybe this college search wouldn’t be so bad after all. I started to dream of road trips, visiting various schools along the way. I began to dream of comparing every single quaint coffee shop of every single quaint college town I will visit. I began to dream of lots and lots of free pens.

I’m still apprehensive, don’t get me wrong. I’m still a little nervous, but I’ve accepted that college is better than the alternative (well, during my Naviance-induced craze I did briefly harbor fantasies of bopping around Europe, eating lots of pastries and walking around lots of pretty gardens, before realizing that “professional European traveler” isn’t really a viable career option. Anyway, I’ve resigned myself to college). Unfortunately, this is just the beginning. That’s what seniors are gleefully telling us juniors right now: it’s just the beginning; it gets worse- just wait until senior fall. What they’re also saying, however, is that we will be okay. We will be anxious, overwhelmed, and frustrated, and then we will be okay. It’s not just the seniors; everyone – our parents, college counselors, baristas, grandparents, teachers, admissions representatives, and inspirational speakers – assure us that we will be okay. Why not believe them?