Okidoke. So, I’ve officially lasted longer with this blog than I have with any other, as I am on my SECOND post! This is quite a feat.
That being said, let’s chat about something  every senior in high school (who’s like me, anyway) never wants to see, hear, say, or think EVER again….COLLEGE ADMISSIONS, SCHOLARSHIPS, FINANCIAL AID, or even (yes I am going to say it…) THE FAFSA!
As I embark on this seemingly dark and lonely road to collegedom, I’m not quite sure where to start. I’ve always been told to do this:
1) Find a Major
…ok, so I’ve picked English with a Writing Emphasis and a Minor in Secondary Education
2) Find a School
…ok, so I’ve applied here and there and have been accepted to my top pick, North Central College in Naperville, Illinois, USA.
3) Find Scholarships
…ok, so I’m swimming in a pool of papers and websites and deadlines (that I like to hear ‘woosh right by’ <–Thank you hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy) and impatient mothers and fathers and guidance counselors and YADADADA.
So those are the big three. I’ve got the plans, I’ve got the school, and I’ve got the paperwork….now what?
In my opinion, the whole college process is just like finding and attempting to establish a relationship with a hot girl, you know? I’ve got this quality, she’s got that quality, I’m that, she’s this, etc…you know, the real general stuff. But the real challenge comes when you try to actually establish a relationship and make it all work.
I can easily fill out long, boring applications and write essays about how some dead president impacted my life. I am perfectly capable of typing my social security number 27 times in different applications, and I am certainly able to use lots of money for gas and travel to college visit after college visit. It’s funny because parents and teachers make that seem like the easy part!
But as I sit here chipping away at the iceberg that is my tuition via scholarship applications, I’m realizing how wrong they were. It is easy to overlook the small details or leave out a letter of recommendatio, but if that should happen…KABLAMO! You’re out of the pile right then and there.
My parents wanted me to get into the best school that I could, but also a school that I wanted to go to. North Central is that place…nobody ever said anything about paying for it.
Now, I may sound like Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye…a complaining, whining teen who knows nothing about the real world or hard work and dedication and, in some regards, you may be right. But what I ultimately did not understand is now the what or the who and the where, but the why.
WHY is this so difficult?
WHY is good chunk of the education for the rest of our lives based on this small period of time?
WHY does it have to be so stressful?
WHY WHY WHY.
In the same way that plastic forks do not make it into White House state dinners (apparently crashers do, though), slackers do not make it into the real world. Well, I suppose the make it there, but just dont get very far. College is like a furnace filter…it stops most of the crap from getting into everybody’s air, but let’s just enough crap through so there can be a healthy balance of good and bad in the air. College seperates the brainiacs from the riff-raff of the world. Or, at least I hope it does.
I’m not in college yet, but I’m hoping all of this is worth it. I, like so many other high school seniors, want so much out of our own lives that sometimes we get a little bit carried away somewhere in the future, and not in the present (where we all SHOULD be anyway). This is my time to prove to the world, and myself, that I am more than riff-raff, and that I am meant for success.
“Whatever you are, be a good one.”
 – Abraham Lincoln
Have a good night.