College Application Stress

This blog post isn’t written as eloquently as I would have liked, but I have a lot of important thoughts to share with anyone who may be reading. Hopefully my words can bring comfort to at least a few readers.

By Vera Li

With the college application season quickly approaching, I have been experiencing a great deal of anxiety and dread, and I’m sure any other rising senior reading this likely feels the same.

Unfortunately, this society stresses perfection. So much is expected of a group of 16 and 17-year-olds. Not only do they have to be the perfect student, but also model citizens, entrepreneurs, and leaders simultaneously. The more prestigious the college, the higher the expectations are - and the more impressive the student needs to be. This leaves those who don’t meet many or any of the requirements feeling unintelligent or unworthy because their GPA isn’t high enough, they don’t have enough or any leadership positions, they don’t have enough volunteer hours, or they don’t have enough awards. The numbers become their entire existence and when the results don’t play in their favor, they lose sight of who they are and what their purpose is on this earth. What’s the purpose of my existence if I can’t be PERFECT, if I can’t be EXCEPTIONAL? they wonder. The best schools only want the best students, so if I don’t get in, that makes me a terrible student who doesn’t deserve the best education.

I’ve felt, and still feel, this soul-crushing anxiety and dread. My entire life, I’ve dreamed of going to an Ivy League, not because I knew anything particularly special about these colleges, but solely because of the name and prestige. I naively believed that being accepted into one of the most well-known and highly respected colleges in the nation and the world would fill the empty void in my life and rid me of my insecurities. I thought that if I got into a school like Harvard, I would be worthy of recognition by the people around and my life would fall right into place. I felt that as the first child of a 1st generation immigrant Chinese family, I was expected to bring honor to the family and show my success through my acceptance into a top school. I made getting accepted into an Ivy League my life goal at this point in my life. I didn't care about my career -- that anxiety would come later. At that young age, I decided that an Ivy League would guarantee my happiness.

However, as time went on, this life goal became a heavy weight on my shoulders. The pressure to get admitted into one of these schools began to drag me downwards. Everything had to be perfect. My grades were never high enough. I didn’t have enough extracurriculars or leadership positions. I joined sports teams too late in my life and wasn’t provided the proper resources to grow and develop my skills. My tunnel vision view of life blinded me, and I broke down over every little imperfection. (This stress later presented itself as one of the biggest factors for my eating disorder, which ironically only made everything worse because it sucked time and energy away from volunteering, leadership positions, studying, etc)

Eventually, I came to realize that Ivy Leagues and other top schools were not the end-all-be-all. I realized this, but I still refused to come to terms with it. I knew, logically, that not going to a top school was not going to ruin my life and that a less prestigious college did not mean that I was doomed.

But I couldn’t let go.

I couldn’t let go of the belief that I had to be the one who made it into a top school. I couldn’t let go of the fear of what others would think of me if I went to a less prestigious school. I couldn’t let go of my unrealistic childhood fantasy, the vision of me attending one of the top schools in the nation -- even if I knew that the perfection I was expecting from admission into a college was all an illusion.

I felt like I would disappoint not only my family and peers, but myself as well.

This inability for me to let go of this childhood fantasy is still taking an immense toll on my mental health. Even before college application season, I constantly compared myself to my peers, and since then, it has only gotten worse. It seems like everyone else is working harder than me and has something in their life going for them, whether it be leadership in an organization they founded or being the captain of a varsity sports team. I often feel extremely insecure about myself, which culminates in green envy and jealousy. I start to feel ultra-competitive with everyone, even my friends, because the question “What makes you qualified for our school?” still gives me a mental freeze as my brain runs through the millions of activities that my friends and peers have done and I haven’t.

I know that I’m not the only one who feels a stab of despair each time “college” is even brought up in a conversation because just that word gives me a sinking feeling that I’m letting down the Ivy League dream of the 6-year-old me.

“While college feels like the end, in reality, it's only the beginning.”

It saddens me to think that so many of us place our worth on something so insignificant such as where we go to college. Going to Princeton doesn’t automatically make you better or more successful than someone who goes to a less prestigious college. The college you go to doesn’t give the full picture of who you are and of what you hope to become. I’ve learned that basing your self-worth on the college you go to only brings out your most toxic character traits, and it does not make you happier. College is just one step in our lives, and while it can definitely feel like the end of the world if we don’t get into the “best” schools, everything happens for a reason. Chances are, you may realize that not going to Cornell hasn’t ruined your life, and perhaps you may even find that your life is much better than it would have been if you had been accepted. Maybe you’ll land an interesting job that pays well and avoid the immense amount of college debt. Who knows?

As for coping mechanisms, I would suggest anything that helps you feel calm and takes your mind off of the stress when it gets unbearable. All I can say is that I have faith that we will all find a school that helps us on our own individual journeys. While college feels like the end, in reality, it’s only the beginning.

Keep your heads up <3