Early College Admissions
Colleges are sending out early decision letters this week. I have been hearing about big envelope / small envelope apprehension all week, from a group in line at Starbucks to the man on his phone at the gas station to the daily reports I get from my brother who is waiting nervously to hear from his college of choice. The stress is palpable, perhaps because it is so multi-layered. Not only is the mere fact of waiting for a letter maddening, but early decision acceptances or rejections are so intensely wrapped up in the mindset that there is one perfect college for every person that it is difficult not to see the result as a be-all, end-all. I’m hardly the first to say that I find this troubling—I certainly believe that there are colleges, and more specifically college types, that are well suited to particular people but it seems unreasonable to maintain that there is a one-to-one ratio between a person and his “perfect college”. And although it sounds moralistic and will hardly assuage anyone’s anxiety as they check their mailboxes, things really do work out just fine.
The summer after my junior year in high school, I decided that I wanted to go to Dartmouth. It made perfect sense. My older sister, who still incited sparks of childhood sibling idolization, went there, and I saw the concept of college through her eyes; to me, college simply meant Dartmouth. My sister had been accepted early and it all seemed so easy—and then the rest of her senior year seemed so fun. We were remarkably similar on paper, and I assumed that the cards would fall into place for me as well. These clearly aren’t the best reasons for someone to choose their early decision school, but realistically, there’s just not much for a high schooler to go on when trying to decide how they want to spend their next several years, regardless of the number of schools they visit or amount of admission material they dutifully memorize.
On December 15, 2001, I learned that my “fate” would, indeed, be different than that of my sister’s. I had been deferred, and I was as stunned as I was heartbroken. For whatever over-confident reason, I had simply expected to get in. My two best friends were also deferred, and we commiserated in the school hallways, tearfully telling friends and the teachers who had written our recommendations that our plans had been dashed. Though there were many reassuring words and pats on the back, one consolation remark was particularly memorable. As we told our calculus teacher the bad news, she gave us a bright smile and drawled in her born-and-raised-in-Texas drawl, “Aww girls, don’t ya’ll worry. You’ll find your husbands at another school.” Oh my god, how ridiculous. I’m actually STILL laughing about this one. (and am going to choose not to delve into my related diatribe about feminism and education here.)
But while she was totally off base with the husband card (I mean, really…), my nutty calculus teacher did predict the basic sentiment of the end of the story—we would easily find happiness at other schools. A few months and one particularly miserable application-filled winter break later, I got a couple of big envelopes, decided to go to Harvard, and now, 6 months after graduating, can’t fathom having gone anywhere else. Harvard became synonymous with home for me, regardless of the fact that I hadn’t pegged the school as “IT” when I was 17.
And while I adored Harvard for its resources, its course offerings, its dorm life, and its dining halls (oh man, I loved the dining hall)—all of the things that you read about in admissions brochures—the reason the school became my school was because it was where I built a community. As much as now I hate to admit it with all of my current school pride, I think that I could have built this type of community just about anywhere that fit a certain set of overarching criteria.
Obviously, getting into the college you want early is absolutely amazing, but rejection (or deferral) isn’t so disastrous. I can say this confidently because I’m not in the thick of it anymore, but if you can take the admissions process which even a tiny grain of salt, you may find that you, more than the school itself, will end up defining your college experience. And then you too can write reminiscing blogs with lots of “good advice”. Ha.
Posted by Julia Bonnheim
Colleges and Universities|Admissions
