An Objective Critique of the College Application Process

I know that the title is a bit essay-like, but trust me on this one: the college application process must be criticized professionally or else I'll sound like some whining kid (which I, most definitely, am NOT)

August brings in the smell of fall, new shoes, and curriculum. Romantic isn't it? 

For seniors, this month also brings in the monster that we've created in the college application process

           What with the nervous energy created by looming future, and the overwhelming nostalgia, Senior Year can be an emotional roller coaster! It can't be made worse by anything other than the fact that it is also a pivotal year which decides the next 4 years of your life.

I've created a useful (at least I think so) timeline of senior year based on observations and experience...

SUMMER (June to September)

What they're supposed to be doing: 

• Creating a College List (complete with estimated costs for each college),
• Visiting Colleges ("While you're at it...why don't you stay for a week?"),
• Creating Rough Drafts of our Applications essays (it's best to be prepared right?),
• Volunteering in activities that will help the community (and, more importantly, look good on our applications),
• Being a leader at some extra-curricular activity we are passionate about, and

(This one's the clincher...)

• Having fun too.

The demands are...well, they're quite crazy. 

Of course, being passionate, and helping the community while also being on top of the applications process by writing 7-8 essays about yourself and your wit, knowing exactly what you are going to do with your life (and where you are going to spend it) for the next four years, and also having fun...is extremely easy! 

That is, it's easy if you are the kind of person who enjoys:

• trying to sound witty on paper (but end up sounding tacky...wit on paper is always tacky, take it from the expert); 
• volunteering at non-profits not because you like the cause, but because you want to add another item to your weighty college application; and
• researching about your future, and trying to cement one thing you're going to do, when you're barely 17 years old, and have no idea what you want to do with your adult life.

The idea that we have to fake volunteering in the community, and be a "leader" at extra-curricular activities we "enjoy" is so forced to me. If a person is truly passionate about a cause, they will volunteer at events, and rise to positions of leadership because of their passion. If a person is just doing all these things because they want to go to college, they don't really deserve the credit  they get. These people aren't passionate about the cause, they're passionate about themselves and their prospects at college.

FALL (October to December)

What we're supposed to be doing:

• COLLEGE APPLICATIONS!!
• oh, and don't forget to...study (not as big a deal though..)

Suddenly the fun isn't even a part of the agenda. All that needs to be done is the college application process. Having fun is an added bonus, and one must be grateful if one even get's a hint of it. First semester/first quarter of high school studies are tolerated...it isn't really the priority right now. 

         Writing, writing, writing. That is all that is being done. Everyone's trying to be funny, and charming, and creative; they're exaggerating, and finally wielding the full power of the influence of those high test scores. The words "You are more than your test scores" fall on distracted ears, as anxiety brims up in every heart whose SAT score is less than a 2200. 

         We're high school students, we're supposed to be studying, learning, not finding new ways to portray ourselves to trick colleges into taking us in. 

All the advice is about how to make yourself look good; nothing is about how you are already good enough...the thing is to find the college that is right for you (all How To Find The Right College For You articles and advice columns are suddenly disregarded - Harvard, MIT, UCLA, NYU, and Yale are flooded with applications). 

           I'm drowning in the fake-ness and the advice that forces us to be fake. I wish someone would just stand on a high school rooftop, and yell for all the seniors to write what they feel like. I wish that someone would tell seniors to be themselves, to not exaggerate, and to do nothing they aren't really interested in. 

WINTER (January to March)

What they're told to do:

• Have fun! Go on a fun spring break...be crazy, and wild. You're teenagers!
• Oh yeah...don't forget to study (Grades are important)

      The two things that nobody cared about in the fall are now the only things left to do. This is when Senioritis sets in. It is the unique disease that high school seniors develop after the submission of their college applications; it is a form of laziness, and exhaustion so extreme that the most the infected can do is trudge out of bed, and get to school...and of course have fun.

Symptoms include:

• Late Nights
• Afternoons spent hanging out, and chilling instead of volunteering at events they were soo "passionate" about.
• Slightly drooping grades

Now all the pretentiousness is gone, and the seniors admit that they deserve a break. They finally start doing what they want to do, and are relieved that they no longer have to put up the act of a "responsible, community-minded individual." Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, they do deserve a break, but a 6 month break from ones passions shouldn't be considered as a break, but as a letter of resignation. 

           For a while, all is well, seniors do what is absolutely necessary: they reminisce about high school; they hang out with their beloved friends, knowing that this is probably the end of all things familiar; they make some final memories; they laugh and cry and laugh again. Prom season is in the air and all is well

SPRING (April to June)

What they're supposed to be doing:

• Calmly awaiting their acceptance letters, and
• keeping a sleepless vigil over their grades

There ends the beautiful mirage of what senior year is supposed to be like. When these people look back at their senior year of high school, they don't remember the enervating application process; they remember the nervous energy: the needless giggling, and the fake excitement about any and every thing, of waiting for the acceptance letters. The air is slightly strained, but nobody admits it. All seems well on the surface: spring break trips to the beach, and happy pictures are everywhere (Especially Facebook), but the acceptance letters are swooping down like bats in a dark cave. 

         This is the time for religion, and prayers, and hope. The nerve-racking end for an overall nerve-racking year...

Quote of the Day ~ Vampire Weekend

            Sometimes there's just one line in a song, a line that sticks with you even if it only lasted for a couple seconds.

From: dandispo.wordpress.com

         Isn't that life? Every moment of every day is spent trading youth for experience, for wisdom. That adds a kind of desperation to it: the more you live, the more you know about living, but the less time you have to live. Obviously you want to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible, but the cruel thing is that such things can't be rushed. You learn when you learn; there aren't any crash courses in life.
          It seems like a trap; the only way to learn is to gradually not be able to use the knowledge. Maybe it's a way for the world to preserve its secrets (What fun would it be if the elders spelled out the secrets of life -the ones that we are yet to unravel- long before we even thought of them?).      

But it can be looked at from another angle: the more you learn, the older your soul, not your body, becomes. A single moment of significant revelation ages you more than 10 years of blissful ignorance. Maybe this is a soul thing. Maybe a soul can be wise, and old, even if the body is young. (Why do we correlate wisdom to old age? A wise soul's thoughtful, deliberate, and experienced movements are like those of an aged body. Even a young wise soul can appear quite wrinkled with so many abandoned idealist thoughts, and dashed hopes, and knowledge of the ways of the world).
          Only, what is the highlight of being young? The energy? The beauty? The heightened sexuality? I think it's that cheerful, idealistic outlook on life; something more to do with their souls than their bodies. It's always the 20-something year-olds; they're ready to be the change. And they always are. Every generation has seen the rise of its youth (hello 60's hippies), but then when the youth are no longer young, they settle down. Why do they settle down? So the age of your body can influence the age of your soul, just like the opposite view.

I've talked myself into a circle, but what I'm trying to say is that trading youth for wisdom can work both ways. Literally, you do learn more as you grow older (simply because you have more time to learn). But wisdom also makes your soul older; you can learn much in a few seconds, and feel your soul, rather than your body, grow older. Sometimes you trade youth of your mind, and outlook, for wisdom, while at other times, you gradually trade the youth of your life for wisdom.

Newscast-turned-Tabloid

             A rare sound drew me to the family room- the angry buzz of a perfectly groomed news reporter (yes, I knew he was perfectly groomed before I saw him; it was something in that abrupt voice). I walked in cautiously (a rare event like this required as many precautionary as possible) to find my silent parents on the couch: my mother once again had a lugubrious air as she sighed over and over again; my father was frowning at the screen, and was muttering things that would make him seem smart and informed.

            I gaped at them; since when had we ever gathered our news from a television newscast? I glanced at the screen, and saw that it was projecting repulsive images of dead children, and bombs going off in a distance, and a woman who looked like she was trying very hard to appear grim. The only thing I grasped from my quick glimpse was that she was accusing someone- the government perhaps?

       My mother looked up and stated that this is the apocalypse. My father quietly wondered what the world was coming to. The television was now flashing a colorful advertisement for insurance, or mattresses, or some other mundane thing.

        A week later, the TV went silent again, and the family room was as abandoned as ever. With no more plane crashes, apparently there was no need to keep up with the news anymore. 

I think it's because of people like my parents, who switch on the television to sigh, and worry- who switch on the television for the drama- that the media sensationalizes so today. Anything tragic, that looks tragic, and involves the direct deaths or injuries of people is just as good as any exciting TV series today. Ooh and an added benefit is abusing the government (which was elected by the people). The whole television news media has turned into a giant tabloid!

From: www.veteranstoday.com

          I think it's because of the fact the news channels now have to compete with the likes of TV series' like Scandal, Game of Thrones, and Devious Housemaids(I think that's what it's called), that they try to depict news so darkly, so war-like, and so iniquitous. People like scandal, and they will only watch something that is slightly scandalous. News channels have to add those sexual, gory, and scandalous elements to their shows to get people to watch them, to get advertisers to fund them. 

Media sensationalism is an old story. Actually, it's been hyped just as much as death has been hyped by the media. The way to solve it is what we're supposed to be thinking about.

How can we stop the media from sensationalizing?

Option A. Make people more sensible (highly unlikely)

Option B. Make a news channel that is not for-profit (hence, preventing the whole incentive of viewership bringing in money from advertisers.) Like BBC.

Option C. Make news channels like CNN, and FOX, and NBC use another channel for scandalous TV series' like well...Scandal, and provide unadulterated news. I realize that they all already have side channels, but they simply don't seem to get enough of the drama!

Option D. Balance all the sensationalism by also giving an unadulterated view in another show.

I'm sure a lot of people would watch if they knew that the news they're watching is absolutely trustable too  :)

Quote of the Day ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

        Jogging against the wind has always made me feel better about life; the wind is like a conquered enemy as I run against its efforts- a merry one too, rushing past with all the bustle of my gramma's kitchen at Christmas. Unfortunately, the weather lately has just been so dead; the harsh sun rays fall on us but we don't mind because we're so hollow and empty that we think that the continuous light will fill us. Can weather get anymore depressing?
       This drought is so very underrated; it's killing us all from inside (Read about the West Coast-South West Drought here). I suppose this is only the beginning....as a professional pessimist, I believe there is going to be a year when the spring turns to summer, but the summer never gives way to fall. What if the wind doesn't comes back one day? (President Obama isn't helping with his new endorsement of a plan to dig the Atlantic Ocean out in search of oil...)

             But I only miss the wind because it was an enemy I could feel; an enemy I could lash out at. This is the only tangible way to get back at the attacker, because every other antagonist in my life is ever so subtle: poking me in the back and then retreating into the shadows; laughing and talking down at me while hiding in my head.
            This quote actually doesn't really connect to my state of mind at all, but it's something I want to talk about. So here goes :)

From: www.redbubble.com

            Everyone worth knowing is a bit crazy, but they are what society deems as crazy. What if people who are strange/enigmatic/weird/crazy are actually the ones in the right? It's all subjective isn't it? So what if the majority of people is messed up, and the minority, which isn't, they call "weird"?
          The people with "problems" are the ones who feel the most; the ones deemed "messed up" are the ones who care the most; the ones on medication are the ones who think the most. Some of the most profound things I've ever heard, I've heard from people my gramma would call the "wrong crowd," people who know themselves to be outcasts, people who are "unsuccessful". This isn't just my experience of people, Sylvia Plath, Vincent Van Gogh, Ned Vizzini, Emily Dickinson...who's going to deny it? People who had the most insight; people who were the least in denial are famously considered the troubled ones, so much so that they do become the troubled ones...
         So obviously society's idea of messed up/weird is wrong...What if every other preconceived idea is wrong? That just scares me, but coming to think of it; we, as a people, are in denial. We go through life, one ambition after the next without stopping to think what it all means. It's all so scary; don't we see that our lives are mechanical...we form an idea of what we would make us happy, then we pursue it, then we achieve it; but by then we realize that this thing of happiness is not really a thing of happiness, so we form a new idea. It's an infinitely repeating cycle- a circle. Let's break this cycle. Let's think for ourselves; let's form views and ideas that are independent of others (if it's necessary, you should shut your eyes and close your ears to outside influence); let's step out of our shielded world of denial.
         I don't care what anyone says, but I'm going to respect the person with the most life views, the person who's thought about everything that interests them, not the person with the most money or influence.
I'd rather be flying up there with those bird which look so small from the ground..

The World is a Black Hole

Snuggled into my favorite blanket, and cradling a cup of hot chocolate, I stared out of the window. Somehow the mist outside had gotten into my head, my mind is a haze.

The outside world looked enticing; and, I felt myself being drawn to it like it was a black hole. It is a black hole. It’s terrifying, but attractive- the world outside, it drags me in and never lets me go. It makes me feel like I’m useless, like I’m not needed by anything or anyone, like I have no purpose (but do I have a purpose?). To and fro it marches, with the purposeful clatter of its stilettos, trampling my self-esteem underfoot. But I only go back and get hurt again. Those who wander aimlessly in this black hole are lost, and we are better off that way.

I wanted to throw off my blanket off and put on a coat, I wanted to run out into the foggy morning and prove my worth. I wanted to smile and laugh loudly and put on my own lethal-looking stilettos, but I knew that I would lose myself in the mist; I knew that my smile would falter weakly, and my laugh would turn to a whimper. The world would taunt me once more- slap me then pull me in again, drag me in again- until another bubble of my laughter disappears amidst the sound of a weak little cry.

I snuggled deeper into my blanket and took a scalding sip from my cup; I waited for the warmth to fill my body, but I felt a shiver run down my spine instead. No, I’d rather be lost, and aimless, and trampled, a bald dandelion, in this windy world of purpose. I’d rather get hurt again and again and again, than feel this haze in place of my brain, this haze that reminds me of my failures and freezes my insides. I’d rather go out and try my hand at proving my worth again. I’ll wander till I find my path. Besides, feeling a smile crack on my face, I thought, Not all who wander are lost.

The door creaked open, it has long since been used to my comings and goings, and I stepped into the back hole again.

From: www.longcitywalksblog.com

What is intellectual?

After a picture of Albert Einstein (who, I
think, was more intelligent than intellectual),
this is the first picture that
turned up on my simple
Google search

        Somewhere along the line, someone got the stupid idea that only those books deemed classical are considered intellectual. Of course, by someone, I mean Hollywood (There isn’t a day that goes by without me noticing the stereotyping created by what constitutes our entire film industry). Well, maybe I’ve been too harsh- it is Hollywood’s job to create stereotypes, to create an idiosyncratic character who reflects characteristics of the certain parts of society it wants to invoke -it is the way of art- but I still can’t help but cringe every time a new movie comes out and the nerdy-but-cute girl enters with an old-and-boring book in her hand, and huge glasses.

          Hollywood has programmed us to think that an “intellectual” is a man in cordovan loafers and a turtleneck, or a women with no fashion sense whatsoever; both have the essential glasses, and their noses stuck in a wearying book. Unfortunately, intellectual doesn’t mean that you read books of old- it means that you have insightful opinions on them. It is not the subject that makes a person intellectual, but the thought the person puts into it. One can be an intellectual on all things teen pop culture if they want; all they have to read is Teen Vogue, and Seventeen, and other magazines, and have an impressive opinion about the things they read- millions of girls simply copy their styles off of these magazines, but millions of others use them as ground zero, building up from there, and enhancing their own styles. So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that a person who reads Teen Vogue can be considered intellectual just as much as person who spent all of last weekend reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, but has learnt nothing from it-except for what has directly been stated, can be considered pretentiously stupid.

She's intellectual too...that style is unmistakably
original

              This is probably going to lead into stereotyping, so I'm going to stop before I go down that road. Any ol' person can study. Studying is easy, it's like being a kitchen sponge: soaking everything in, and then not knowing what to do, so you gradually let everything seep out. Learning, on the other hand, is more like being a frying pan: you take what you knowledge you get and then work on it, and change it, until you've made something useful from it. Because learning isn't about reading textbooks and other people's research, and rearranging it; learning is about reading textbooks and research papers, then forming your own thoughts about it-doing your own research. A lot of people focus on the reading, and they forget that thinking is a really important part of learning too! And just like that, you'll see that the original and stylish girl who reads Teen Vogue has learnt just as well as the guy who discovered a whole new side to James Joyces' Ulysses- because both of them did their research, and both of them thought about their research, and got new ideas about it.

Intellectual-ness (intellectuality? no that doesn't work either...)isn't about how much knowledge you have, and what kind of knowledge you have, it's about being able to think and use that knowledge.

Quote of the Day ~ Neil Gaiman

           I was reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane (even though I, technically, don’t have no time to do anything as unproductive as reading….I mean reading isn’t going to get me into college is it?), and I just snapped when I read this quote. I finally found the energy I thought I’d temporarily lost, the energy to write.

             It’s true isn't it? There’s no passing or failing at being a person. Whatever kind of person you are...you’re still a person, and that’s what counts. The real judge of whether you pass or fail is you. Do you think that you’re good at being? Do you think that you’d pass according to your own standards? If you bumped into yourself at the grocery store (one of the most judgmental places...don’t ever walk into the organic food section without designer clothes. Don’t.), what would you say later? Would you even make an impression...or too much of a bad one?

           That’s the question to ask. That’s the question we've all been itching to ask ourselves all those times we laughed at not-so-funny jokes, or tried to fit in though it kinda hurt us. We all thought that approval from others may mean approval from ourselves, turns out we were wrong. As long as you like yourself, you pass; you’re approved.

This is where I come in; everyone knows that you’re only happy when you approve of yourself. But what if you don’t know? What if you can’t decide whether you’re happy with what you see in yourself?
              It’s the forever questioning. It’s that feeling that you (I) don’t know what you are (I am). It’s the feeling that I don’t know what is right for me (and society isn't helping by being all, “College is good. Here, waste a fortune on it, and you’ll figure everything out”), and also the feeling that I’m passing myself when I don’t really know what grade I should give. But maybe that isn't the point. There is no pass or fail at being a person- I give up my right to judge myself. What is is what is (wow that statement looks so wrong in writing). Let me try again, What it is, is what it shall be- no stopping it (and by it, I mean life). For now, I’m going to just do what I think is right...I’m not going to judge my judgments; I’m not going to worry about whether I’m giving myself the right grade or not, I’m going to go with my flow-just do whatever I want to do without over-analyzing.

There’s no passing or failing at being a person, and there’s no passing or failing at taking care of yourself and wondering whether you're doing the right thing. If you've got the brains to over-think it...you’re probably fine.
(At least I think so)