Top 6% of your class. 4.0 GPA. Auto-admit to the University of Texas at Austin. These sound like crazy stats, right? They truly are, but for me personally, they came with a lot of baggage.
College application season felt like my own personal hell, and not in the ways you would think. I never had a dream school, never had that place that was truly calling my name. And when I applied to UT Austin, boy, was I nervous. I didn’t fully grasp the concept of what being in the top 6% of my grade meant. I didn’t realize it meant I would be automatically admitted to the university. And people would tell me this. They would tell me I had nothing to worry about!
But I was so hard on myself. I thought I would be the one exception. That they would take one look at my activities list and my SAT score and send my application to the bottom of the list.
And these first couple of weeks of school haven’t been easy on me either. All of high school, I never knew what my true calling was. Pre-med, business, finance? I feel like I had so many options, yet not enough time to choose. And I ended up as a Psychology major on the pre-med track! Granted, there are quite a few parts to the major that I definitely love. I’ve always been a chemistry fanatic, and studying the brain has been an interest of mine since I took AP Psychology in my junior year of high school. But there’s always been this persistent nagging at the back of my brain.
Have you ever heard that saying, “With the good comes the bad”?  Well, with my good came the bad and the ugly. Rejection in any form can be a harsh reality to face. The workload here is not made for the weak. And all of these things added fuel.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ll always be forever grateful for my place here at such a coveted institution. I’m appreciative every day for my supportive parents and friends, and that I have so many resources to help me accomplish so many of my goals. But with it all, I never quite felt like I belonged here. I felt like an imposter. I felt that if I had never been in the top 6%, I wouldn’t have been accepted to the school. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be here, amongst all of those who had put in so much more effort and care into their application.
And it took me a while to overcome these incessant feelings. It took me a while to sit back and realize that I was here for a reason. Truly, we all are.
I realized that putting myself down was doing me more harm than good. I needed to celebrate my accomplishments. I needed to honor the person I am today and all the effort I had put in to getting to where I am today, for I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t. Instead of thinking, “I don’t deserve to be here,” I tried changing my mindset to “I deserve it all, and more!”
And this applies to anyone. You worked hard for your place, wherever you are. You put in the effort and time and care because you knew it was important to you to be the best version of yourself. And like they always say, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” And I had to tell myself to quit the comparisons! I had to tell myself to take pride in who I was.
Because if there’s no one around to support you, the only person you have left is yourself. Try to be your own cheerleader, especially on those days you feel the worst. No matter what you’re doing, what you’re pursuing, what your hobbies are, it is all a retelling of you. You are the accumulation of all your efforts, so be proud. It’s okay to feel accomplished, no matter how big or small you believe your accomplishments are.
And if anyone could do it all, it’s you. Definitely not an imposter.