Tangled In The Ivy

It all started in Math Club freshman year. With a mother who pushed for me, a writer, to join Math Club, I ended up in the  calculus room with no idea of what was about to hit me: Geniuses. 

Because, you see,  on our school’s Math Club, three seniors ruled the team. One was a self-defined math lover. Another was a well-rounded scientist who knew everything (and by ‘everything’, I mean everything). And the remaining third was a shy Indian who enjoyed Korean pop songs and placing first in state math competitions. The following year, they went to Caltech, Stanford, and Yale, respectively. 

And that was my first welcome to high school. 

At my school, it’s common knowledge for the freshmen to know the valedictorian of the current senior class. During my  ninth grade year, the valedictorian was a boy who slaved away at the books and viewed “B”s as bombs that would blow up his futures. For tests, he always set the curve at least fifteen points above everyone else. No one expected anything  less than spectacular for him and he ended up at Upenn. 

When he graduated, I thought “Well, that’s the end of it! Good show everyone.” Except the next year, the valedictorian got accepted to Harvard, with several other seniors being accepted to Rice, University of Chicago, UPenn, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Stanford. 

My friends and I were starting to feel slightly pressured. High school wasn’t like middle school anymore. Our nights of watching American Idol were long over. It was time to hit the books. Again…and again…and again.

It hasn’t stopped. I’m a current junior and this year, a senior friend of mine got accepted to good ‘ole Caltech and MIT, both early action. The girl who sits in front of me in AP Government is going to Rice on a swimming scholarship and across the room sits a boy who has been talking to Princeton’s wrestling coach about possible recruitment.

I’m not sure about my other classmates, but I know that I was definitely intimidated by the recent graduates. I was so intimidated that I felt like nothing was ever good enough—everyone else was always doing something better. My friends and I would be so obsessed with creating the perfect platform for a good future that even a minor defect, such as a bad grade, would send us spiraling into downward slumps. Our future looked so depressing. MUST. GET. INTO. TOP. TIER. SCHOOL was our class’s mantra and instead of inspiring us, it pushed us away from what learning and school were all about.

But then junior year happened. Amidst the hours of late-night AP U.S. History cramming and  problem solving for my math class, I had an epiphany. A wondrous, glorious epiphany that only an overly stressed junior could have.  I realized that all this pressure was unnecessary. It didn’t matter how much I stressed or felt intimidated—the college decisions would still be the same. I had a choice. I could move forward with a confident, happy-go-lucky attitude or I could sulk in my room about how much I thought I was failing at life. I also realized that despite whatever may or may not occur a year from now, I’ll end up at the perfect college for me. High school  graduates nearly always end up at the school that’s somehow perfect for them.

No matter what happens; no matter how dramatic or ‘life-changing’ I think my next year in high school is, I know everything will work out for the best and I’ll end up where I belong. My college decision won’t make me. I make myself.