“Womp womp” moments in college admissions
Often when people think of admissions officers, they envision a grumpy old man with a red pen, ruthlessly slashing through admissions files with one goal…
Due to the time of year, there have been A LOT of tours on campus lately. Seeing all the people exploring campus has reminded me that college visits were stressful. I always felt unreasonably self-conscious. Sometimes so much so that I had trouble just figuring out how I felt about the school. It's taken me until now to put this into words, and I've never heard anyone else talk about it. Hopefully I'm not the only one to feel this way, so my reflections can at least be useful to someone.
Visiting a college is an especially weird experience. College campuses consist of all the same basic things that vary slightly from place to place. No matter what the school's location and focus, you'll probably find a library, places to eat food, academic buildings, auditoriums, athletic facilities, and dorms on its map. Maybe that's why last Fall a visiting parent asked some people I was walking with where was the nearest bathroom, and could we point him to the nuclear reactor? Wow, didn't know we had one of those! (Turned out he was actually looking at a map of MIT). Once you're on a college campus (and holding the right map), that is your chance to see what it's like in person.
Of course, every school will boast what they have and do that's different. Every school wants (or should want) visitors to feel free to explore. Unfortunately, that only adds more pressure to the situation. Now not only do you have to figure out whether you can see yourself in this particular school's ecosystem, but now you have to also find all the key places in this completely unfamiliar place. (Key places at Tufts = library roof, cannon, new Jumbo statue, pres lawn, etc.)
To be more specific about how I struggled to fully enjoy college visits, here's a handful of things I felt at every school:
1. Unsettling, pit-of-the-stomach-clenching anxiety. As I got closer to the school, I could feel my insides churning at the mere thought of getting there. Considering I experienced a milder version of this just going to high school until my senior year, visiting a college with the hopes of trying to see if I'd be happy living there was a bundle of joy.
2. Pressure: At any event for prospective students, there are a lot of people who want to help answer your questions. But even if I loved the school, I never had any of these questions. And that was frustrating. When I had no questions they could give constructive answers to, I felt like I had failed my part of the visit and was wasting their time in some way.
3. That it was all futile: In the end, it's not like I could completely choose where to go to school. What if I fell in love with a school that didn't like my application? Or worse, none of the schools I liked gave enough financial aid? Everything about the application process stressed me out. It's a miracle I even got all my applications in on time (there was one application in particular that I was still fixing up just before the deadline when my laptop stopped cooperating - I submitted the application with an entire two and a half minutes to spare).
So, final note: it's okay to feel a little lost, stressed, and angst-y about the whole college application process. Writing this has reminded me that even when I tried to talk myself out of being stressed, I couldn't picture myself on the other side of applying to college. Now a year later I'm here at Tufts, and I couldn't imagine being at any other school. Whether you're just starting to look at schools or trying to make a decision, don't place too much importance in anything. Take it seriously, by all means. But the rest of your life isn't riding on this one decision - there's always transferring, taking a gap year, and infinitely many other opportunities if you don't like where you end up. Applying to college is just one step along the way. Be patient (especially with yourself) and trust the process. Just visit colleges however you want - don't feel pressured to have a million questions memorized. It's okay to just focus on being there. And above all, try to have fun exploring before getting to class becomes more important than figuring out where the dining hall is.
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