To all victims of the college application process, take one big deep breath, exhale slowly, and repeat. I write this to myself as much as others, because, gosh, this is a stressful experience. I try my best to be hopeful about the application process but, it has come to the point where I am really kicking myself for not being better at sports. This process competes with being as stressful as my experience dressing large, inflexible, partially not-movable mannequins in the window at “B” Chic, and close to as dreadful as the time I stood at the top of a ski hill with moguls, trees, and a much higher degree of difficulty than anticipated, in a snowstorm. At this point in time, I have finished about half a bag of goldfish, while sitting on my bed with my baby blankets around my feet, and watching out my window as buckets of rain pour down on quietly thinning trees.
As I’m sure anyone reading this can by now detect, I do not currently have all my “ducks in a row.” Teacher recommendations still need to be asked for, the Common App still needs to be filled all the way out, and my “Personal Essay” of two months is moments away from being thrown into the trash bin. And, although I know I have lots and lots to do, I have become so overwhelmed at my inability to express who I am in 650 words or less, that I feel like those mannequins I dress in the window, unable to move on my own.
To a certain extent, it is OK to have a moment of wallow. To take a couple of minutes, make like a hippo, and roll around in the mud. I will inevitably feel stuck in my wallow but, like all great persevering hippos, I will stand up, wash up, and move along with my pod.
The strangest part of this entire rigmarole is we are simply signing up for another four years of school. So why are we all so concerned? What is going on here!? What is all this tom foolery about!?!?
To everyone involved in the college process, I beg of you, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and repeat. To all students going through the college process, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and repeat — everything will turn out fine. To all parents trying to spearhead the college process, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and repeat — if Johnny did not like writing papers before, he sure is not going to now. To all friends and family asking about the college process, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and repeat — if it is good news students will share.
The college process can take a lot out of a person. Sometimes it forces us applicants to be a little less ourselves, as we try to fit into a college’s mold, or squeeze our lives onto an application or word document. Right now, prospective applicants are fishing for and fleshing out what makes them unique and important but, it is not what we do that makes us important, it is how we do them so enjoy as much as possible. So let us not fret because, remember, as the great Troy Bolton once so beautifully articulated, “We are all in this together.”
Lynn Huffard is a senior at Wilton High School. She shares this column with four classmates.