Over and over, as college creeps closer and closer, peeking in through the cracks in the door, that question continues to slither into every-day conversation. I have never realized how much of me was measured on paper - GPA, class rank, community service, work experience, extracurricular activities - all of that gets thrown around, passing through hands and going under the glass.
And this is when I feel most revealed - it's as if I've been striped naked in front of a panel of judges but no one's looking at me, but rather looking at the discarded pile of clothes and using that to determine who I am and what I look like at my barest.
I am not my GPA.
(I'm also not my SAT scores, sorry College Board but you've brought me down to size enough.)
My GPA - my life on paper, on file - no of that sums up at all who I am. None of that tells you that I help my peers with homework nearly every weekday, or that I spent a holiday feeding the homeless, that I donate all my spare change when I see a hungry hand, or that I believe in generous tips.
None of that could tell them my favorite book in elementary school was Little Women, or that I spent my Christmas money on a collection of literary criticisms of Shakespeare's plays.
That can't tell them I've spent weekends trying my hand in bread-making, or that I once attended Korean school only to learn that my gift wasn't in language even if it was 'part of my culture'.
They do not know about the hideous hand me down sofas, or the unstable jobs; they don't know that my mother is the queen of scraping change together, and mastering the 'leftover surprise dinner'.
They have never witnessed my struggles or the struggles of countless others and yet they're defining where I'm going - where we're all going.
(And by they I mean those college admissions directors - aka, the first signs of the evil that lays in my future.)
My life cannot be dissected, and somehow I feel cheated - or have I cheated myself?
I know I have decent grades, but I still see can't see where I'm going as I wait to hear from schools on whether I've been accepted or not.
I'm not going to lie, I'm absolutely terrified because part of me feels as if this is defining my future and as I look over the pile of papers and as I fill out each application, I realize I've done nothing with my life.
(Did I really waste that much time on Molly Ringwald movies and Harry Potter? God, please don't let it be so.)
But I think, that's where this needs to end.
I need to just accept what is, and to build from that, and in the end, I think - no I know - I need to give in to this part of life, to this defining need to categorize people based on what it is four years has given them.
I'm no longer a little girl.
I have no right to angst anymore, it's time to find some cathartic release and just....
move on.
I'm looking to a better future.
And I pray that my generation is too.
Maybe it's a call to arms - maybe it's time we all just bite down and take the bullet.
There's enough destruction, why should we destroy ourselves over this?
You are so right. It's sad that we work so hard in elementary and middle school, but when it comes to applying to college, elementary & middle school don't matter. It's all what you did and how well you did it the last 4 years in high school.
We may not want to be based on test scores ], but in reality, when applying to college, we basically are, whether we like it or not (sadly).
So I've been working so hard in high school. I'm in my junior year, getting ready to tour my top 3 colleges. I know that because I worked so hard I'm looking towards a bright future.
Colleges (or rather, most colleges) realize that there is so much more to you than your transcript or resume tells. That's what college application essays are for. That's what interviews are for.
I'm getting the same depressing message, only it's either slightly better or slightly worse (haven't decided which yet) because I write my own transcript, being homeschooled. But I try and force hope down my own throat by telling myself that it's not about how my achievements appear on paper, but how I view what I've done with my life. Because college will be old news in five years, but my life is so much longer.
"but my life is so much longer."
That is an excellent way to look at it. It is so true. Take it from an old lady. College was a short, short period that I hardly remember. Too much has happened since then, and really, the life lessons have been the most valuable.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
you sound much like myself.
i'm in the same position right now.
and sometimes i feel a lot of angst towards formal schooling and society's means of measuring our intelligence.
they can have us memorize all the formulas and equations they want, but what does that do if we can't apply it? if we can't see past the pen and the paper?
all these "brains" with their 4.0s and class president titles, their top ten standing and their youth leadership conferences.
i don't mean to bash any of those things, or anybody who has accomplished those things, it's great it really is. but i'm a very, very farsighted person, and i truly don't see any of that mattering in the future, or helping anybody besides yourself.
ahhhh the frustrations of this modern world ehh?
You just have to realize that wherever you go, it will be where you are supposed to be.
No one has the ability to tell you that you did not work hard enough or that you were not good enough. I did everything under the sun in high school and I didn't make it into my dream school. It happens. But I know that I am where I need to be.
You are not your GPA; once you figure out where you are going, RELAX.
Know that you did your best, and that should ALWAYS be good enough.
-brittnie
I agree 100% with this post, and I'm sure the majority of high school seniors do too. The demands made of us--to be these super-human savers of the world, who also just happen to beast standardized tests--are insanely unfair.
I think your advice to just bite the bullet is exactly what we need to hear, though. It also helps to remember that we shouldn't try to cram a lifetime's worth of achievement into our four years of high school...Hopefully, we'll have the decades after college to do something with out lives too glorious to fit on a piece of paper :)
Great post!
It amazes me how colleges look at GPAs and ACT/SAT scores, and if the person was in NHS/a similar group more than anything else. I've never been asked for an interview, nor for an essay (and it's not for lack of trying). I tend to think that college/university admissions only want those with the highest GPAs, to make the school look good.
'Tis sad.
That's what it seems like. Unfortnantely we live in a society that breeds that kind of thinking. However, it's not all that bad for example half of all Havard applicants that scored perfect on their ACT didn't get in. It wasn't because they didn't have a good SAT score or their GPA wasn't adequate, it was becasue they weren't involved in anything. I strongly believe that involvment and what you do should be looked at above a GPA or an ACT score, because what one does defines him or her as a person. Standarized measurments can never measure as high as someone can go. Defining students with paper isn't what colleges need to look for and in most cases I believe colleges do dig deeper and find out who they truly are looking at.