College Applications

Weekends, especially Sundays are a day of college applications. Essays, transcripts, soul searching, legal forms, the list is endless. One time, I spent a whole weekend searching the web for addresses and making labels for teacher recommendations. I found myself thinking, “College better we worth it." All joking aside, college applications have been a large portion of my life lately.

Most of my time spent on college applications is the essays portion. Who knew it could take months to write the perfect 250 words? At first I found the process tedious and often frustrating. I thought the prompts were the most boring prompts and the admissions officers were just shooting themselves in the foot by assigning them because in the end they would be the ones reading the essays. But as I spent more time figuring out what to write about, I realized that these essays were for my benefit as much as they were for the admissions officers. Of course the whole point was “to show my personality and voice through writing so admissions could get to know me better,” but for me it has also been a time to get to know myself better. Some prompts ask me to give two words that describe myself others ask about the evolution of my academic interests. Wait what? I would never doubt knowing who I am, but I never had to explain myself, in words, to others so it has been quite a task.

While trying to eloquently describe myself in an essay is a long process, it has been an even longer process finding what about myself it is that I want the admissions officers to know. Do I want them to know me as a studious student? A fun student? A hardworking student?

Another common prompt is what my values are, how they formed and how they have changed throughout the years. Until recently I had never sat down and thought of my values. Of course I value life, humanity, integrity, justice as so on but what do I really value? This essay is one that I have yet to attack, but questions like these have helped me find out more about myself, and made me think about myself in tangible words. Maybe college essays aren’t all just torture.