College Apps

Hey, I'm a High School Senior, I had to post about them sooner or later. It's late, and I'm tired, so I'm just posting a slightly edited version of another paragraph I wrote for English (Mr. Jarvis was our school's headmaster until this year). This verges on whiny bitching, but I think it raises legitimate issues that come up in and with the process.

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Sitting in the info session, listening to the representative blather on with the same statistics and platitudes I've heard at half a dozen other colleges, I can think only of Mr. Jarvis's words on the college process: "You'll do great wherever you go." If that's so, I can't help but think, why all this effort? Why the weeks out of my summer touring all the country's finest learning institutions? Ah yes, I recall: the fabled "match," finding the one college that fits my interests, goals, and personality. And yet ... even supposing I find this college, this "match," and fall in love with it, I will be attaching myself to a school I have no guarantee of getting into. I suppose it's worth it, though, worth the risk of disappointment, if it means a chance of ending up at my perfect school ... But can I even really tell ahead of time? Mr. Jarvis did also mention that he knew plenty of kids who loved second choice schools, and others who ended up hating that one school they had been dying to get into. There's so much conflicting information, and so much work ... Maybe I should just roll a die.