Never before I started college applications have I had to look at myself from an objective point of view. I have been forced to see myself as a white girl who gets good grades, tests well, is involved at her church, has leadership roles in several clubs, and likes math. A few weeks into the beginning of this whole process, it hit me that this is all that some colleges want to know about me in order to make an admissions decision. That scares me. I have laid in bed wondering if my worth can be summed up in my family background, my transcript, my activities, my test scores, and an essay I wrote. I have spent weeks convinced that it can. So I decided that I would find value and identity in the college that I choose to go to come April because these simple facts are not enough for me. So I set the goal to get into the best colleges I can so that I could grow into someone notable and mean more than what most colleges want to know about me.
One night in November as I was laying in bed thinking about all this, I remembered something that I guess is easy for me to forget when I have a lot on my mind: I am a person. I have a personality, beliefs, goals, thoughts, desires, feelings, and character. If college admission staff members were to ask anybody who knows me about me, they would not get answers that include my test scores or family background. They would hear that I have a shining, bubbly, and positive personality; I plan ahead; I make people smile; I over-think everything; I care about the people in my life more than anything I have; I am always busy. I know that the people who care about me really do know me and love me for the person I am, not for my list of accomplishments.
Even though college applications have brought me stress and distorted opinions of myself, I am grateful for them because they have forced me to look at myself objectively and have made me realize that I should not do that. I am a person, and other people are people, too. If I know that I cannot be looked at objectively, I must realize that I cannot look at others objectively, either. Judging people by their activities or transcript is not fair because it is not looking at people for who they are. It’s easy to draw certain conclusions about the head cheerleader, academic bowl president, or top musician, but they are people with a personality, beliefs, goals, thoughts, desires, feelings, and character, just like me. Nobody can be defined within the limits of what is included in the average college application.
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