College Musings (I swear I’ll stop soon)

by Marlena

(I feel like I talk about college decisions wayyyy too much on here, but soon it’ll be all over! Just not before this Friday because I’m going on a student visit day at Maryland. Haha get ready for another post!)

So, now’s the time of the year when everyone finds out where they’re going to college. Of course, I’ve known for a while now where I’m going. At first, I thought I’d feeling some sort of envy when hearing where other people got in, especially when it’s an Ivy League or just somewhere I got rejected from. But surprisingly, I feel really at peace about going to a school that I never really wanted to go, at least until the past few weeks. I also feel no regret/envy when people announce that they got into and are going to places that I didn’t and am not. Instead, I feel this fierce pride that my friends and peers got into some of the best schools in the country. I feel happy and proud to know them. I also know that I am just as likely to succeed in life going to an excellent honors program at a state university as others are likely to succeed going to Ivy Leagues. After all, what matters is really what you do at college and not where you go. Anyway, I was just kinda surprised at my lack of bitterness as I hear people announce where they will be attending.

It’s a very competitive environment and everyone is constantly compared each other as far as grades, scores, colleges, socially, whatever. This is pretty much inevitable at the type of high school I go to, and I realize competition is a part of everyday life. However, I just wish that people would keep this weird compulsion to compare yourself to other people more internal, if that makes sense. For instance, a few months ago when early decisions began to come out, someone began a spreadsheet to keep track of where each person had been accepted. It’s totally awesome to feel proud of our friends for getting into great universities, but I feel like that spreadsheet was deliberately posted in the IB facebook group knowing that people would (maybe unintentionally or subconsciously) use it to compare different students. This competition puts weird expectations and pressures on all students, which we already get constantly from parents, teachers, media, etc. I think it’s mostly the already established hyper-competitive IB environment that’s mostly to blame. Anyway that was basically a long-winded way of saying what we all know already: that the college application process and pressure-cooker IB system suck.

I’ve also decided that it should not matter if I miss a specific friend, because I should just take responsibility and do something to get back in touch with them. But I have the feeling that I’m going to dearly the presence of the all the people I sit near in class, and all the people that I  wave to in the hallways, and all the people I sometimes talk to after school when we’re all bored. I’m close enough to them to miss them, but not so close I could actually contact them without feeling weird or awkward or that they would judge me because they don’t know me that well. And if we would see each other again, we would probably spend a little time catching up, but it’s not like we could make plans to keep getting together in the future. I’m not that outgoing, so it’s not like I need to be surrounded by many people. I love having close friends and I hope to make more at Maryland, but I also like having people who kind of…float around, without getting too close to you. Cool people with their own interests and in-groups, who you just see around during the day. That’s how you know you’re in a community, not a clique. And that’s is one thing I loved about IB.