College...???

Today in class we were reading an essay titled “getting in”. It was an essay that talked about getting in to Ivy League Colleges like Harvard. It talked about the changing admissions process and how it changed from a meritocracy to a more sketchy process (physical appearance, race, gender, personality, etc) In America we make Ivy League School to be more than they really are. For me this essay gave me an entire different perspective of Ivy Leagues and the process of getting into college as a whole. Talking about this in class really made me think about my opinion of Ivy Leagues.

I think as a whole, students are taught at such a young age that all the smart kids and successful people in life go to the Ivies like Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Princeton, etc. This idea was definitely engraved into my head. I had this idea that if you wanted to be successful you had to go to an Ivy league. However during my first semester of college guidance this stereotype was broken. I began to realize that while the Ivies were excellent school, there are other schools out there that don’t have the label “Ivy” stamped on to them but are still very good schools. When looking at college in a practical sense it the prices of Ivy college tuition seems incredibly high, and ridiculous. I know you get a good education, but is that price really worth it? Going into my Jr. year I had my heart set on going to an Ivy and my dream school was Stanford. While I still would like to go to Stanford, it just seems so impractical due to the high tuition. Also getting in to an Ivy gives you bragging rights and everything, but really that's only the beginning. You have to go to school there in an environment that is extremely competitive because everyone around you is brilliant. The more I thought about it the more I realized liked the idea of getting into an Ivy more than actually competing at one. While I still want to go to Stanford I realized that it's not that Brand named School I want but rather the quality of the education. For me college is going to be what you make of it regardless of which school you go to, whether it is an Ivy or state school.

The selection process for colleges overall seem to be very unclear and it doesn't go by a set of rules. This is because merit wise there are so many components. You are not accepted only on your grades you earn in high school but also by your SAT, SAT subject tests, and ACT scores. There are so many additional tests that we have to take such as the SATs in order to be eligible to go to college. Also colleges tend to put an emphasis on this and what if you are like me, I get good grades in school but when it comes to SATs and standardize testing, I suck. Not only do I feel that it is an unfair assessment of what you know it is expensive. Are the SATs a true assessment of how well you will do in college because if that is so then I am destined to fail college (even though I'm doing well in school now) Each test is about 50 dollars and many students choose to take it multiple times.

I never really put much thought to college until this year. There is so much to think about from which colleges are fit for you (is an Ivy college the place for me?), what to look for in a college, the acceptance and application process and all the extra tests we have to take. As a Junior my college search has only begun and I know it will only get harder and harder because there are just so many components and aspects to consider when applying and looking for the right college.