EDIs Unite!
EDI decisions come out tomorrow, and though I'm going crazy with (late) papers, performances, and end of the year to-do's, I had to take a second and reflect on the decisions that will come out tomorrow. As the title implies, I was an EDI kid, and I remember the day I got into Tufts like it was yesterday.
I think I may have mentioned before that I didn't exactly fit in my high school. Blonde, tan, and incompetent has never been my flavor, and that's all my high school offered. It didn't help that by some freak accident I beat a tan, blonde, and questionably incompetent girl from my high school in an election and became class president our senior year. All of her friends, who were the only people involved in the activities I ran and also happened to be in all of my classes, made sure that I had the worst possible senior year. It was awesome (not). And I still don't understand why people would go through so much effort to make someone else unhappy--or why they still hang on to those feelings today.
The final slap in the face came when I was late to classes due to a scholarship interview around the time decisions were coming out. I think I'd been swamped with work so I posted a very frustrated Facebook status the night before. My classmates took my Facebook status and absence as a clear sign that I didn't get into Tufts and openly discussed how awesome it was that I didn't get what I wanted, and how awful it would be to go to school with me (I'm from Florida, and 98% of my high school go to college together in-state).
I didn't find out about the incident 'till the next day when I accidentally checked the history of a computer in my physics class and saw that Tufts had been recently searched, along with the decision schedule. I was really disappointed by what my classmates had said and couldn't believe the lengths they'd gone through to confirm that I didn't accomplish my goals.
A week later I got in. I checked at school in a computer lab by myself because I couldn't bear the thought of checking at home. I cried, I printed out Dean Coffin's letter because I couldn't believe it and instantly texted all five of my friends and my mom.
The next day, the incompetent blondes of my high school begrudgingly congratulated me on my acceptance, but I didn't care. I wore my brown Tufts hoodie, that I still own!, proudly and began my count down to my arrival on the hill. I went Facebook crazy with my fellow baby Jumbos and began taking part in the music exchanges and things that mark the dreadfully slow months from being accepted to actually leaving for college.
Tomorrow, it'll be a whole new set of baby Jumbos opening that same email from Dean Coffin. It will grant them with a golden ticket to the most incredible experience yet. And regardless of who you were (or are) in high school, that golden ticket means you stop being that and you become a Jumbo: a quirky, intelligent, passionate about something, active citizen--a force to be reckoned with.
And from the point of view of a crazed junior, nothing puts finals in perspective more than thinking about the day we became Jumbos!