Atharv Dua Q3 Blog #10 - Reject the college rejections
“Hood College” (it’s real, search it up) REALLY thought that—through a flier in the mail and an email in my spam inbox—it was going to convince me to pull up and throw $100 at them to get the PRIVILEGE of applying to get the PRIVILEGE of attending…and spending $300 grand. In essence, they want me to pay them to pay them.
I’m sure you’ve all seen that clip of that one movie where some teacher said that the definition of power was to be able to exert influence in someone else’s life/a course of events. I believe it is because of the importance and the prestige WE accord to some colleges (yes, they weren’t born with it) that the colleges appear to have influence over the way in which we conduct our daily lives (stressing about extracurriculars, grades, awards, essays and everything else), which is then, by definition, power over us.
Now, one argument might be that it is because we care so much about our futures (and obviously rightly so) that we gravitate towards colleges with higher prestige and thus do our absolute best to be the person they want us to be. Therefore, there is no way out of this pre-rat race (or potentially even worse than one: we spend much longer on school, extracurriculars etc. than a 9-5) if we want to secure happiness. However, skill can only get you so far, as a lot of decisions could be based on factors completely out of our control, such as legacy admissions, need-aware colleges, and even just blatant favoritism for someone with a “good personality.” And STILL! With no guarantee of admission, with no guarantee of us spending a penny less than $300,000 (depending on the college), with no guarantee of the brighter future that we long for, all we can do is try to navigate college admissions.
How can we take back the power? Aside from just psychological actions like not constantly worrying about college admissions, we could change what we consider success. A focus on skill-development and communication abilities could take us really far, maybe even to Harvard! (get it?) We could email Congress and beg them to fund education in a way where there’s just more universities, more funding at said universities so costs are lower and a strict framework of exactly how acceptances would work (CDS doesn’t exactly count).
The point is, you need to empower yourself. Whether that be through prestigious summer programs, like the Research Science Institute at MIT where you…conduct research in science (needed Sherlock to crack this case) or even through startup/business competitions like VYBE where you learn more about entrepreneurship, collaboration from a non-profit that worked with Pfizer, communication, networking and much more. I think there’s so many opportunities out there for high school students, and we should take advantage of them to kill two birds with one stone: focus on self-improvement because that empowers us, and boost our college portfolios for future employment.
It fascinates me that when colleges continuously email us about certain opportunities or simply to promote themself, all they do is annoy us and cause us to dread the concept of college even more. When you mention that the importance and prestige that we give to the colleges is what causes them to appear as more influential, I absolutely agree. Several colleges are extremely popular all over the world because of the reputation that they have. But who gave them that reputation? It's the students that attend the college and go on to graduate and become successful individuals. At this point, it's like the colleges should be the ones begging us to apply to them, just so they can keep up their reputation. if you think about it, if the amount of applications to a certain college drops all of a sudden, then everyone will start to think that something is wrong with the college and that there is a reason that students don't want to go there. Of course, that won't happen because students value their education too much and desperately want to go to a good college and earn a degree, as that is what surviving in society today requires. When you ask about taking power back, as much as I love the idea of changing what we consider success and the fact that is has changed in certain places or ways, I genuinely think that it is an extremely difficult or maybe even impossible goal to reach. College admissions are only getting more competitive, and I don't know what could help change that.
ReplyDeleteHi Atharv! I appreciate that you addressed the emails from unknown colleges trying to entice you into going to their school, honestly I get so many a day I have stopped reading them. It is crazy to think about, like you stated in your blog, the amount of power colleges have over students almost running their entire high school careers. I thought that it was interesting how one of the ways you suggested taking the power back from colleges was to enroll in summer programs and startup/business competitions but then stated that these activities could boost college portfolios. Wouldn't participating in these activities still be giving power to the colleges if you are taking them to boost your college portfolio?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I love your writing style! The choice to capitalize certain words throughout your blog really made them stand out and had me analyzing the sentences which included them a little more closely. I also really enjoyed the parentheses you added throughout your blog as it added humor and an insight into some of the ways you view different topics.
I look forward to reading your next blog!
The AUDACITY of Hood College! There is nothing I hate more in this world than waking up to a flooded inbox from the most obscure universities ever. College Board, if you are going to sell my personal data, at least do me the one favor of making sure I’ve actually heard of the colleges spamming my email! I appreciate your classification of high school as a “pre-rat race” because it often feels like THE race itself even though we are still developing children.
ReplyDeleteCommunity work is indeed important. Helping others rather than spiraling about my own life really helps my perspective because I know that I am putting my effort toward meaningful societal contributions. This VYBE organization sounds like a shameless plug… regardless, I’ll check it out!
There is one point I disagree on: prestigious summer programs are the epitome of us being controlled!!!! They are essentially dumbed-down versions of college admission, and they still have the exact same “pay them to pay them” process you speak of. Most (not all, but most) programs ride off the coattails of a prestigious university without actually establishing that same educational merit. It’s all one big money-making scheme, I’m telling you…
P.S. –I have seen short satire videos online of students sending rejection letters to the college that rejected them as a joke—could your title be a reference to this trend?