Lessons from A Newly Finished College Applicant

I submitted my final college application today, so in the spirit of being done with writing essays about my personality and greatest life challenge, let's write another essay! 

I was thinking about the Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard and UNC trial that's happening this year, and I suppose it hit me that...well, nothing about this process is designed for us, the seventeen year old child trying to get a good education.

If it was, the deadlines wouldn't all be around important holidays, and they wouldn't make us write six essays per school or wax poetic about "Why Us?" as though the reasons aren't obvious -- I mean, Harvard knows why students want to go to Harvard, right? They wouldn't make us wait until late March for a decision, effectively filling our entire senior year with anticipation, stress, and worry. 

So I know nobody is asking me, and nobody really cares what I think, but here is how I would structure the College Application process if I was an absolutist ruler like Louis XIV:

1. Every college needs to be on the Common App. And, there needs to be several Common App Essays (like five or six) but no college should be allowed to ask any additional questions. You get five essays from us. Everyone gets the same five essays from us. We're not writing seventy essays. 

2.  Early decision deadline is October 15th. Results come back November 15th -- and a very small percentage of those results are deferrals. Regular decision deadline is December 15th. Results come back January 15th. Everyone gets to enjoy the second semester of their senior year, and the sanctity of all holiday seasons are preserved.

But you know what else I realized? The college admissions process doesn't care about us because who does? It's quite literally not their job to worry about any individual seventeen year old student trying to write 250 words about the greatest academic experience they've had thus far. Perhaps we should stop seeing college admissions as a relationship between individual students and individual universities, and rather see the process as a relationship between universities as a collective and the future society they're creating. 

The vast majority of us are not Steve Jobs -- college is the place where the leaders of tomorrow are developed. So colleges can't consider what Joe Smith from Missouri is feeling (or even what he deserves) because they're busy creating a student body that represents the kind of future we hope to have. It's not about us. 

I'll say it louder for everyone in the back: it's not about us. Maybe this sounds rude, but frankly, it should assuage all your fears. You're going to be fine, because this was never really about you.

Once you realize that, almost everything else becomes crystal clear: paranoid that you've missed something? Call the admissions office and ask. Most of them are the loveliest people alive and want nothing but good things for you. Worried about the interview? Trust that the admissions committee is always going to assume the best. It's going to be okay, and you can believe me because I have no clue where I'm going next August and I'm still telling you this. 

Oh, and while we're on the topic: men, if come March, a girl gets into MIT, do us all a favor and don't utter a single lie about how "it's so much easier for women to get in". Statistically, sure, but let's trust the research canon that exists about self-selectivity being the driving cause of that and not assume that women are less worthy of their places at these top institutions. It's funny -- everytime I have this debate with a guy I know, they bring up anecdotal evidence as though their friend not getting into MIT proves that women have it easier. There are studies that show the incoming class of freshman girls and guys into MIT are identical in quality -- why Johnny didn't get in isn't really relevant.