I am in the stretch of my life where I am fretting over college applications. Which college should I apply to? What major should I start out with? What do I even want to do when I grow up? I mean, I never thought that I actually would grow up. Unfortunately, I have come to realize that despite my hard work and dedication, there are some aspects of my application that might mean getting that rejection letter from my dream college.
The one thing that most people think colleges look for is test scores. SAT, ACT, subject tests, and all the others certainly seem extremely important. (First, let me go off on a tangent and say that I do not know what colleges actually look for. This post is not intended to instruct anyone on what’s important. It is just me saying what is important to me and what appears important to colleges.) The way I see it though, tests should only be a small part of the application. Just like school itself, some people just know how to work the system while others don’t. There are classes that can raise a student’s SAT score by at least 100 points just by teaching them test strategies: no actual test material, only how to take the test. That to me is absurd. That tells me that the test is not an accurate judge of how much someone does or don’t know, but rather just a measure of how good they are at taking tests.
Luckily, counselors, College Board, and others have all said that test scores are not the only thing that can get someone into college. There are, of course, GPA, class rank, curricular programs, extracurricular programs, and athletics to buff up the app. All of these are generally good indications of how hard someone works. Like most things, there is some level of subjectivity and they can’t be perfect at telling how good a student is. The hope is that all of these things together will provide an overall accurate image of the student and their exploits. However, I can’t help but be suspicious of whether all or part of these can truly epitomize a student’s effort. All of them (with the exception of athletics) deal with academics, which some people would say is the only thing that matters. I see it as limiting.
In essence, a GPA is only a record of how well a student does worksheets or tests, and don’t forget that it’s a percentage. This in no way reflects the effort or time spent. For example, a math prodigy could finish all of their homework in class and have the rest of the day off, while someone who struggles in math could opt out of hanging out with friends to instead work hard on finishing their homework. In my opinion, the second student deserves more praise because they put in more effort and willingly put work before play, clearly indicating that it was important to them. The first student might not even care. However, a GPA does not at all reflect that. Therefore, colleges also look at what classes you take.
When I watch application videos by/about the colleges I want to go to, the students often talk about taking classes such as Utopian Literature or Muslim Culture and History. That to me is utterly ridiculous. At least where I live, there are no such classes. Also, there is no way that I know of to partake in such classes while being an honors student, because the requirements of the rigorous program leave no room in the schedule. For me, the International Baccalaureate program is all-consuming. It takes up every class period up to and including my senior year. It’s not that I put off classes until then, because that is simply impossible to do in the program. In fact, I often had to forgo from taking classes such as a second foreign language or journalism because there simply wasn’t room in my schedule. The classes that I am now most involved in and “majoring” in I had to seriously fight for because the counselors didn’t believe that I could do them. So yes, I have a varied and full schedule of the most rigorous program offered in my area, a program sometimes considered the most rigorous in the nation. But the program at my school is rather poor – there are hardly any classes outside of the four core that are offered as IB for example, and the strong majority of the IB classes are just AP with another name. Basically, I have absolutely no room in my schedule for such interesting and specialized classes even if they were offered. So is there really something else that can help you get in to college?
The last big thing, I believe, is extracurricular activities. Counselors say time and again that academics just aren’t cutting it anymore. Now the top colleges want not only a first rate academic record, but more beyond that. A top student must show excellence in all things. Most extracurriculars are academic – Student Council, National Honor Society, school clubs – but there are also completely unrelated things like volunteering. While these will of course help buff up the application, I just don’t see them seriously swaying acceptance. If there are low test scores and an average GPA, a lot of extracurriculars just won’t get someone in. They’re more icing to the cake rather than being a major ingredient. Of course, if there is something extraordinary, such as going to nationals on the Science Bowl team, that would probably help quite a bit. But if the student is that laudable math student mentioned above, they probably don’t have time to do things like that.
All of these things can of course be completely superficial as well. In bad cases, they can simply be done only for the application – to look good on paper. The student could have a “tiger mom” that constantly pushes them to do all of these things so that they can get into a good college. In the worst cases, they could be completely false. But having said these things, how do I fit in?
Well, I have a strong GPA (4.0) and a high class rank (about 5 people away from top 2%), and I am enrolled in the most rigorous program offered in my area (International Baccalaureate), which also happens to be an internationally recognized program. I have done dual credit every time it is offered in one of my classes, earning multiple college hours. I have a full schedule of challenging classes, the only one of which that is not honors is orchestra, which I will have done all four years of high school. Oh, and I will also be the first person in my school’s history to have done both the IB program and orchestra all four years. I have held numerous club offices over the years, including founding my own club (which sadly failed), and will be crowned Orchestra Queen this coming December. I have done many activities outside of school, including my city’s Youth Symphony program, playing in the pit for a nearby town’s high school production of The Sound of Music, and volunteering as an on-location production assistant for my local PBS station. Unfortunately, my SAT scores aren’t the best. My reading was great, scoring over 700, but my math was in the 500’s. I have yet to receive my ACT scores. I made a 4 on my sophomore US History AP exam and am currently awaiting this year’s English AP score. If I had dropped out of the IB program this semester, I could have graduated from high school in three years on the Distinguished Achievement Program. This all sounds very impressive to me, but I have to remember that I live in a rather small Texas city. Texas, which according to the Huffington Post, ranks 31 in the nation in Science and Math, having below average scores. I can’t help but think that if I lived in a metropolis such as Boston, LA, or New York City with the same credentials, I would be accepted almost anywhere. As it is, affirmative action may be my best bet. Because I live in Texas, the majority of my achievements could be seen as easily achieved simply because of my geographical location in an education poor state, especially when coupled with my low scores on national tests. This, as seen by admissions counselors, could appear as doing well for my circumstances, but not being able to stand up on a national scale at a highly prestigious college.
I think that this is tremendously unfair. True, my classes may not be as challenging as those in New York, but what is challenge besides a scale of comparison? A high schooler considers algebra a piece of cake, but to a third grader algebra could be the most difficult thing they’ve ever done, making it very challenging. Therefore, you can’t judge a third grader’s algebra skills against a high school freshman’s, but must judge that third grader against other third graders. To clarify, though my classes may not stand up to those offered elsewhere, they are the most challenging classes offered in my entire area, earning me an automatic transfer in order to even take them. I also don’t believe that someone can judge you (aka the application) based on a piece of paper, which is in essence a laundry list of achievements, or perhaps a 30 minute interview. True, that may give the admissions office a glimpse of your character and how well you did in school, but they still have generally no idea of the effort and time spent. Such a short and shallow glimpse can be compared to book covers. Looking at a book with a dated 1960’s design on its cover compared to a glossy, sleek computer generated image on the book beside it, one would probably think that the latter would be better – perhaps because it must have had more funding to get that artwork, or simply because it looks newer and better. However, only once you get deep into both books can you truly decide which one is better. This is why athletic recruiters watch athletes at work: to see how they play under stress and how they handle different situations, as well as teamwork skills. Why should academics be any different?
Let me compare myself to my brother. I have already listed all of my accomplishments above, but my brother is even more impressive. Until his senior year (with senioritis), he was candidate for Valedictorian or Salutatorian, had some of the highest grades I have every seen, and was in football, a Latin Club co-president, and a member of a national Science Bowl team. On paper, that would look absolutely amazing, and he would beat me out on most applications. However, he never cared. He’s kind of a genius, especially with math and science, which led to a high GPA and class rank, but I can’t recall him ever putting school first or exhibiting dedication to class. He never worked hard because he simply didn’t need to, and he never sought out anything on his own. I, on the other hand, might be bright, but am not as strictly intelligent as he is. But I do work extremely hard and I love learning. My GPA is a direct result of my hard work and dedication, and if I had more time I would constantly seek out new things to learn. These things don’t show up on an application. The one chance that I have to exhibit all of this is on the personal essay, but that’s only a glimpse.
In essence, I honestly don’t know whether I’ll get into the colleges I want to go to, but I am sure that if the admissions counselors really got to know me and understood how hard I work and how driven I am, that there would be little question of my acceptance. There are many more people like me, and I feel very bad for the students who simply don’t fit into the system but are some of the brightest kids I know. Character, though hard to judge, and a willingness to learn should in the very least be just as important as a spotless academic record.
(Please understand that this post is not intended to brag about my accomplishments, but rather show that because of my scores on one standardized test, they could mean little to nothing to the colleges that I’m applying to.)
prongs 