Choosing a place
where you will spend the next four years of your life is definitely not an easy
task. Colleges will constantly bombard you with letters, emails, and even
videos to a point when you actually believe that you want to attend every
single college in the United States. So what eventually happens, is that the
college administration process which is heavily based on advertising, turns us,
students, into materialistic and shallow thinkers. “It has to be an Ivy League”, “It has to be
urban”, “It has to be ranked in playboy’s top party schools”, and the list goes
on for the many requirements that students set when choosing schools.
One day while I was
out with my friends, we were discussing about an event that we wanted to attend
and of course the conversation about shoes came up. My friend was telling us
about how you can never find a pair of shoes that are equally stylish and
comfortable. You either have to pick a pair of extremely stylish shoes in which
every girl in the room will envy you but after an hour you will be able to hear
your feet crying, or you can pick a pair in which you will be perfectly
comfortable but will in no way please your aesthetics.
That was the
conversation that caused me to realize that colleges are just like shoes.
Shocked? Let me elaborate. Just like with shoes, when searching for a college
you want everything: stellar academics, amazing networking opportunities,
killer social and party scene, countless student organizations and groups, and
huge athletics all of course at a reasonable price. But the truth is, you are
never going to find this combo. What we all have to learn to do is compromise.
When buying a shoe, either the comfort, the style, or the price factor may tip
you over into not caring if the shoe has every aspect you were looking for.
Similarly, when you start getting acceptance letters from colleges and you have
to decide where you want to get your college education, there is going to be
one aspect that will finalize your decision. That aspect may be as simple as
the beautiful campus, or as important as the school’s prestigious political
science department.
I myself am going
through the admission process as we speak and I am having a rough time on
deciding which college is my “favorite”. I am getting my fair share of campaign
emails and letters, which only makes things harder. But what all of us seniors
must do right now is take a deep breath, focus on not missing any deadlines,
and when those acceptance letters start arriving freak out calmly decide
what fits us best.
