One wins out, right?
May 1, 2008
By: Grace Baranowski <gbaranowski@hilite.org>
They tell me that it’s not a big deal.
That no matter what I choose, I’ll be fine wherever I go. But I can’t help but be slightly apprehensive about signing my name to a document that will determine the course of the next four years and possibly the trajectory of my career and adult life.
Today is that day, my most crucial deadline yet—May 1. Today is the deadline for the deposit binding me to my final choice of the universities. After so many years of waiting, wondering and wishing, it’s hard to believe that I’ve reached the end of the college application process.
As a naïve freshman and sophomore, I spent hours clicking first on Harvard and then Yale and then random Google searches with “best American colleges” and Campus Dirt reports. My future had become a common topic of conversation among friendly adults I met, and it worried me that I didn’t know the answer. Somehow, I thought that looking at so many college Web sites would provide the answers I needed. I eventually specified a few, and the ensuing college trips narrowed the list down to a more realistic number of six.
Then, it seemed to me that college admissions officers had engaged me in an addictively toxic relationship, perfected after years of ambitious parents and equally eager students. The tour guides enamored us with stories of collegiate bonding and engaging classroom discussions. They led us down a euphoric path of daydreams at each school. After all, the months of receiving friendly letters, combined with the promises of the tour guides and the appeal of brick-walled quads put each family in a dreamy glow. A dad might proudly prod his daughter in the back, asking jokingly (yet hopefully, somehow) if she liked the university’s campus. The daughter might shyly hope too.
But the romance hit a major roadblock when lists of academic requirements, average test scores and ridiculously selective admissions statistics greeted prospective students on PowerPoint presentations at every school. It was roses crushed under rocket fire; it was a thousand expectations ignited by the marginal possibility of acceptance. I fell just as hard as the others. My love, though, wasn’t meant for just one school. Several had charmed me into seeing myself there. In hindsight, it would have been easier in the long run if I had just mentally committed to one, or at least made a clearly prioritized list. But I didn’t. I applied to the set of six, waited and hoped.
Oddly enough, I wasn’t that nervous about applying to the schools, once I had specified my targets. I had done everything I could in the years prior. All I had to do was report it accurately and click “send.” Even the period of waiting didn’t seem stressful. I had already applied; any extra stress on my part was pointless.
But the earliest stab of palpable anxiety struck as I logged onto my individual application page for the first university. As the page loaded, my breathing accelerated and then stopped for a split-second, to be replaced with yelps of joy. This situation repeated another time, and then another, and then another, and then another. Five of my six universities granted me admission. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Thoughtless euphoria caught me in a wave of emotion as I imagined myself attending each of the five simultaneously.
But pretty soon it became obvious that I couldn’t be in five places at once. I easily knocked out three, leaving me with two universities.
Now, I suppose it was a good problem to have—to have to decide between two universities, both tied as my first-choice. But on the other hand, I wished there was some sort of litmus test I could have given.
I compared each university’s programs side by side. The individual advantages added up in maddeningly miniscule piles. One grain of sand compared to another made two very similar dunes, leaving me grasping for a solid decision.
I floundered in mental anguish, going back and forth between the two in my mind, like a possessed seesaw bent on torturing its occupant. My frustration came to its climax during a Saturday night dinner.
I had been comparing details via the Internet all day because my parents had told me that I needed to decide by the end of that weekend. With Dad looking pensively out the window on my right, Mom looking concerned on my left, I poked angrily at my rice and peas in the center.
Dad brought it up first: “So… what are you thinking?” I let out an angsty sigh. Two or three rice grains stuck between the tines of my fork. I mashed them into a white pulp and wiped the utensil on a nearby napkin. “I… don’t… know!” Near tears, I rested my hands on my forehead and sighed again. The decision wasn’t getting any easier.
But I didn’t expect it to. For a decision that had required so much thought, it was inevitable that the resolution would be painfully drawn-out. It was, after all, the first big life decision I’d faced.
This deadline is probably the first big life decision for most of the seniors here, too. So many others are faced with choices equally as tough, or even more so. So I know that the frustration, uncertainty and angst I experienced isn’t unique to me.
And I know it isn’t uncalled for, either. Each college offers different opportunities that could affect our lives in so many ways. One class or one professor or one friend could set the course of life, like a rogue asteroid colliding with another and both following a forever-altered path. In college we define ourselves, and the school itself becomes a sort of self-definition too.
So the college I’ll attend next year is…Grace Baranowski is a managing editor for the HiLite. Contact her at gbaranowski@hilite.org.
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