You’re probably stressing out right now. The college process is hard. Where will you end up? What will you study? Who are you going to be?
Take a deep breath.
Relax.
Every single one of your friends ends up at a school they will thrive in, and enjoy. Not everyone scores a golden ticket to their dream school; not everyone gets that scholarship they wished for every night; and, no, not everyone goes to the University of Delaware. However, many of your best friends go to the colleges they’ve been talking about since freshman year of high school; you would be impressed at the scholarships everyone racked up; and, sure, quite a few of your friends are killing it at UD right now.
Your hard work pays off, but not before some disappointment. On December 15th you will wake up at 6AM, home alone, scratching at the door, staring at the mailbox until 11:34am. You won’t like the look of that tiny envelope in the mailbox, and what’s inside will break your heart. That one word, “deferred,” will hurt you more than a combination of every other rejection you have ever felt. Never fear, by the time regular decisions notifications come out, you will have been accepted to some pretty great schools—just not THE school, yet.
On April 1st you will sit by the window all morning until the postman drives by. You won’t have slept for two nights, your stomach will feel like a black hole, and your parents will whisper hushed conversations about how to deal with the worst of the two possible outcomes: there will be no “maybe” letter this time around. When the mailman rolls up to the driveway you will feel silent tears run cold down your cheek, your heart will plummet into your abdomen, and your knees will transform into jelly. All of a sudden you will find yourself standing in the living room with a tiny envelope trembling in your clammy hands. When you open the letter and pull of the paper inside, you will feel like a pre-schooler cautiously reading her first book.
“It gives me great pleasure to inform you that the Committee on Admissions has voted to accept your application for admission…”
You will read this line approximately 9 times. The words seem warm, but what do they mean? It will hit you, you will look at your Mum and Dad with shock and croak out three syllables, “I got in.”
I suppose you can imagine the rest of the story, or at least most of it, until you arrive at the Hilltop on Wednesday, August 20th, 2014.
This is the part where I am supposed to tell you that your life changes into the magic-fairy-disney-hogwarts-dream you were expecting. There are moments when standing outside of Healy Hall I feel overcome with a sense of wonder and awe that has, more than once, moved me to the brink of happy tears. However, college is not a fairytale. Parents, teachers, and older friends never mention the difficult parts of college. Everyone says it will be the best time of our lives—and I don’t doubt that—but they neglect to remind us that we will still be human.
Here are a few things you should know:
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You will miss home and your family, and that’s okay. Everyone does. It doesn’t mean you weren’t ready for college, just that you were lucky enough to live in a home filled with more love than should be possible.
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You will miss your silly, quirky friends who you never realized know you like the back of their own hands. Making a whole new set of friends from scratch is hard after spending everyday of this last summer with people that you love like a second family.
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Doing your own laundry does not give you a sense of pride or autonomy.
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You will read. A LOT. Work on learning to read quickly now, if you can.
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Everyone here got straight As in high school, but not every Georgetown student can graduate with a 4.0. You will have to work like you never did before, but more than that, you will have to get comfortable with a B or two.
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Money does not grow on trees, and Wisey’s smoothies are $4.50 BEFORE tax.
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No matter what the host says about their “chill RA”, freshman dorm parties are never a good idea.
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The classes you wanted to drop will be the ones you love the most.
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You will mess up. A lot. You will mess up with friends, professors, papers, auditions, applications, room decorations, and miserable trips to try to catch that “Cold War Kids” concert at GW. The important thing to remember is that life is full of mess-ups, and the decisions you make in college are real life decisions with training wheels: the system here allows you to learn and grow.
For any other college bound student I would add something about learning to live around a roommate, but you will be blessed by the angels of CHARMS and get to live with a smart, funny, outgoing stunner from Connecticut who will become your best friend. (Shout out to the TRUE campus cutie, my roommate, Michelle Basta.)
I still have a lot of learning to do. I have a lot more mistakes to make, and hopefully many more successes to enjoy as well. As do you, baby Hoya. Enjoy senior year, but look forward to the next chapter ahead of you. Through ups and downs, I would not trade my experience on the Hilltop thus far for the world, and it has only just begun.
Hoya Saxa.