We’re officially in reading season. Recently I read an essay all about the balance beam written by a high school gymnast. She wrote about conquering her nerves and summoning reliance in her training, and then discussed the skill of tuning out the other routines simultaneously being performed and cheered in the competition. While the essay was for college admission it was not about college admission. However, the parallels (not bars– just similarities) are unquestionable.
Conquer your nerves and rely on your training.
Many of you recently submitted Early Action or Early Decision applications. Initially there is some relief in “being done,” but it’s understandable to experience an underlying feeling of nervousness and anxiety as you realize you no longer have control. There is no essay to read over and edit again; you can’t get one more person to take a look to be sure you haven’t missed something.
Good news: admission dean/director totally understands your pain. Think about it: every spring we admit thousands of students. Not only thousands, but thousands more than we have room for on campus. Last year at Georgia Tech we admitted about 7,500 students for a class goal of 2,850. Crazy, right? We admit more students than we can accommodate because of yield (not everyone says yes to our offer). When we initially finish and release decisions it’s a huge relief. We go home, sleep, eat some good food, sleep, remind our families who we are, and sleep. But inevitably in April a faculty member or alumnus will read an article about our admitted class then call or write me and ask, “Did you mean to admit that many? I thought our first year class was closer to 3,000?”
The “what ifs” start to flood in. What if we did take too many students? What if our predictive models are wrong? What if the housing department rounds up a posse and tries to haul me off in the night? The what ifs will kill you. Breathe, my friends. Breathe. You know what you’re doing (and I know what I’m doing).
Truth #1: You cannot control all outcomes. We believe if we pack the night before, leave two hours early and use Waze we’ll be able to tailgate before the game and be in our seats at kickoff. But then you get stuck in horrific traffic, the ice in the cooler melts, you barely sit down before halftime, and the team you were favored to beat by 13 stages a fourth quarter comeback to win. We don’t know what’s going to happen, right?! And that’s kind of the beauty of it! Isn’t that why we live this life anyway?
The most likely scenario is you will not get into every school you applied to. You may get in and not be able to afford to go. You may get into your dream school, then your girlfriend breaks up with you and decides to go there, and you end up choosing another college 500 miles in the other direction. Listen, we’ve had years when we did overshoot our goal due to yield. One year we had a class of 3,200. Life!
But what does your training tell you? You’ve worked hard. You’ve applied to a variety of schools based on selectivity where you’d be happy to go. Finish the routine. Enjoy your senior year. If you wobble, correct it. If you fall off, jump back up. You cannot sneak behind the judges table and alter scores or manipulate outcomes. But you can have a great, memorable senior year you’re proud of. Smile while you’re up on the beam and stick the landing.
Tune out the distractions around you. During your junior and senior year in particular, you are going to see and hear some crazy and loud voices.
- You might read or hear you need to pay $800 for a test prep class in order to raise your ACT score by two points. Don’t look down. Tune out the distractions and remember the number of free, online options is growing and their results are equal to and outperforming many high-priced (highly marketed) companies in this space. If you or your parents believe you need to pay for something for it to be valuable, also look at local options. Many community colleges and area high schools offer great test prep for a fraction of the costs you’ll see when you simply Google for “SAT/ACT test prep.” (I’d also encourage you to go for a hike to disprove the theory of pay = value, but that’s a blog for another day.)
- You might hear mom or dad tell Aunt Carol, “We are really trying to get that Calculus grade up,” or “Our first choice is Vanderbilt.” Keep your balance. Eyes straight ahead.
- You might see a classmate get into your dream school who you think is not as academically talented or generally qualified as you, while you get deferred. Someone clapping and high-fiving them as they come off the floor exercise has no bearing on your beam performance. Take a deep breath. Finish strong.
Truth #2: You can control yourself. This is your routine. You own this. Contrary to what some may say or write or tweet, your job is not to get in–your job is to get ready for college. You have a choice on how you get ready as you search for colleges, tour colleges, apply to colleges and ultimately select a college. Want to know if you’re doing it right? When your classmate gets in, you are the first one putting your hand up for a high-five. I came across a Hemingway quote in an essay last week: “There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” Grow, encourage, explore, and improve. That’s a college admission process done well.
One Lie: (Yeah, this is not like the game. I’m just straight telling you the lie. You call it not as fun–I call it transparency–it’s all semantics.) The college admission process is not a balance beam. You are not on your tip toes, placing one foot in front of the other while performing flips, turns and twists. You can, and will, make missteps. You can score a point below your goal on the ACT, make a B+ in a class, score a 3 on an AP exam, or forget to underline a book title in your essay, and still get into your first choice college. You can do all of those things and not end up at your first choice college, and still be phenomenally happy.
How do I know? Because we have plenty of students on campus who will tell you Georgia Tech was not their first choice. They either didn’t get into their first choice school, or they did get in and couldn’t afford it. Similarly, there are students we denied who are now thrilled about being on another college’s campus and would not change it for the world.
The bottom line is there is not only one place for you. There is not one college that will help you get where you think you want to ultimately go in life. The truth is college admission– and college itself for that matter– is not a four-inch wide beam. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.
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