This week we welcome Senior Associate Director of Admission Mary Tipton Woolley to the blog. Welcome, Mary Tipton!
Ah, summer. The time of year to sit back, relax and enjoy life. Maybe for some, but not for those of us in college admission! In the admission office, “summer” is the time to wrap up the enrolling class, reflect on the year behind and plan for the year ahead. Summer is in quotes because it goes by so quickly!
As a parent, I’m glad to only have 10 weeks to find camps/babysitters for my child, but as a higher education professional, it’s challenging. We are busy checking final transcripts for enrolling students (yes, we really do check your final transcripts!) and other required documents. In just a couple of weeks 300 first-year students will arrive on campus for the summer term, so the timing of these final checks is critical. If you swing by our office this summer, you’ll find us wrapping up the past year and planning for the year ahead.
Students, you are likely doing the exact same thing. Whether you’re already enjoying your summer or slogging through the last few days of school, follow our lead and make it a summer!
Assess the year behind
Take time to reflect on the year that has passed, determine what you can learn from it, and decide what you need to work on in the year ahead. What worked well? Where do you need to make improvements? Our staff is taking a deep dive into important areas like our visit program (which now accommodates over 40,000 visitors per year!), training, and professional development. Meanwhile, our transfer team is still finalizing decisions for fall transfer students—their summer hasn’t even started yet!
Ask Yourself: what classes did you enjoy most? Where do you have gaps in learning that you can work on over the summer? My six-year-old is reading (mostly) every night to make sure she continues to improve before starting first grade in the fall. Maybe you need to go back over work from the past year to ensure you’re ready to move forward in the year ahead. Maybe there is an activity that you want to improve in the year ahead – can you run more over the summer to earn a faster time, or study robotics to improve your team standings?
Prioritize tasks for the year ahead
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know we changed the way we review first-year applications. The team-based reading approach was a huge success, but I’m already thinking about how we can move our process forward and provide staff what they need to manage application volume in an efficient and effective way. Our transfer team is looking for opportunities to revise the way they review applications to manage the volume and priorities they have been asked to meet. We also have staff planning fall travel. I’m still old school, but have learned the hard way over the last few years that waiting to schedule high school visits until August does not end well! On top of planning for next year’s application cycle, our campus visit team is planning events for next year. They are constantly looking for ways to accommodate everyone who wants to visit campus, which is no small feat!
Ask yourself: what are your goals for the year ahead? Maybe it’s to improve your grades, find a job, get involved in something new, or take on a leadership role. Whatever it may be, now is the time to think about how you’re going to get there. If you’re going to be a senior in the fall, getting a jump on your college applications will be critical to ensuring your sanity in the year ahead (trust me!). Many applications, like the Common Application and Coalition Application (both of which we accept) never close. That means essays and activity pages are available now, while you have time to reflect, write and refine.
Make it a summer!
No matter what is on your agenda for the summer – working, summer camp, vacation – I hope you’ll take time to reflect, plan for the upcoming year and have fun! Summer is a time to recharge. We do that by attending conferences, going on office retreats and taking some time off to be with family and friends. We all need that kind of recharge to be successful in the year ahead. If part of your summer plans include visiting Atlanta, I hope you’ll swing by campus. It’s called “Hotlanta” for a reason, but we still offer tours all summer – no matter the temperature and humidity!
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Congratulations to the Class of 2018. You did it! I realize some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Well… it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, I always expected to graduate from high school.” But even if it is just momentarily- take it in. Hold your head high. Give a classmate or a fellow teammate or a teacher or parent a big high five or a fist bump or a hug. It is a big accomplishment and I hope you’ll take time to enjoy it. You put in a lot of late nights and hard work. You made sacrifices and tough choices along the way.
And to parents, the same. Lots of late nights, hard work, sacrifices and tough choices. Not to mention carpool lines, endless days at practices or games or recitals. You have basically earned an advanced degree in logistics by helping this day come to fruition. You purchased copious amounts of food, exercised extreme patience, listened, intervened, questioned yourself, literally and figuratively pulled your hair out, and yet from the first day of kindergarten, when the halls were filled with artwork and children with book bags hanging down to their ankles, until now, you never wavered in your love and support. You also deserve a huge congratulations. Enjoy those hugs!
You know, they say that high school graduation speakers are among the top five most influential voices in a person’s life, and you may be waiting with baited breath for yours this spring. But just in case you do doze off or go down some social media rabbit trail on your phone or have classmate next to you insisting that you play a best of 17 game of hangman or tick-tack-toe, I wanted to provide you an alternative.
I am from Atlanta originally, and after my first year in college, I came home for the summer to take advantage of a meaningful internship… delivering Chinese food. Actually, as the only American working at this all- family, all- cash run restaurant, it was quite an education. But that is a different story for a different day.
A friend of mine from high school, and for the purposes of this story, we’ll call him Gene…actually, that is his real name (really no need to disguise his identity), had gotten really into kayaking that year. He was excited to share his newfound passion with me and another good friend of ours, Jeff (also his real name).
Photo credit: Atlanta Trails
Before we went to a river, however, Gene wanted to help us learn some basics. So one Tuesday night after work, we loaded the boats up onto his old Volvo and headed to Stone Mountain Lake. Now, if you are not from Georgia, there is really nothing you need to know specifically about this lake, except that it is like almost every other inland lake in the world—completely calm.
On the bank of the lake, we put on our helmets, life jackets, and skirts- a tight fitting piece of waterproof equipment that you stretch around the hole of the boat to insure no water comes in. He threw us our paddles and we shoved off into the water.
Skillfully, Gene showed us how to “roll.” Rolling is a maneuver paddlers use to right themselves when their boat tips over in the water. Admittedly, I did hear him twice say “inevitably tip,” but whether it was ego or wishful thinking, I thought he was directing that at Jeff. In order to roll, you stab your paddle into the water, flip your hips, and then allow your torso, shoulders, and ultimately your head to come out of the water (which, of course, is the absolute first thing you want out). For about 45 solid minutes, Jeff and I attempted to emulate this move. Unfortunately, all we were able to accomplish was scaring away all of the ducks and drawing a small crowd of onlookers who were taking great pleasure in our awkward attempts.
Finally, Gene had seen enough. We paddled back to the shore and sat down to eat the sandwiches and chips we’d brought along. Tired, wet, and cold, we sat for a few minutes just looking back out at the still lake. Gene stood up, arched his back, and said, “Yep. I think you’re ready for the river.”
Ready for the River….
So after work that Friday night, we loaded up our boats and gear, packed some healthy snacks like Fritos, Pop Tarts, and Gatorade, and headed to the Nantahala River in North Carolina. We arrived around 1 a.m., camped out, and had a hearty breakfast of granola bars and coffee before heading to the river.
On the way down the mountain, Gene explained that the Nantahala has Class II, III, and IV rapids. My loose translation of what he told us was essentially people can die here. Perfect. Well, I at least I could fall back on my solid lake training and nutritious breakfast. Wait…
We found a parking spot, unloaded our kayaks from the roof, and headed to the river bank. I think it was at that point Gene considered, potentially for the first time, that we may be in over our heads- both literally and figuratively. So, in a final ditch effort, he got into his kayak on the shore and asked us to do the same. As guys were walking past, he starts emulating the roll–showing us how to jam the paddle into the water (although he was doing this into the sandy bank) and flip our hips simultaneously.
It seemed ridiculous. I felt ridiculous. And based on the bearded, shaggy looking guys with tattoos of kayak paddles on their biceps who were walking by and audibly scoffing, I figured my assessment was correct. I am pretty sure I heard one tandem put money on one of us dying that day, and to be honest, if it were me, I would have been in on that action. (Side Note- I later learned there is a direct correlation between kayaking ability and facial hair, but that is merely tertiary in this story).
In what proved to be the smoothest part of the day by far, we pushed off and headed down river. After that, it got ugly fast. Within 20 minutes both Jeff and I flipped twice and were unable to roll back over. And I’m not going to lie. This happened to both of us at least once in pretty still water. We just flipped for no apparent reason.
The pain about flipping over when you can’t roll is that you have to pull the skirt off the ridge of the boat, grab the kayak, find your paddle, and swim to the shore. Along the way, you are inevitably hitting idle rocks, or continuing to go down pseudo-rapids. Oh… and it’s cold. This water has just been released from a mountain dam. I’m not saying its Vermont but water in that part of North Carolina in late May is chilly. You get to the side, dump out the water, regain the breath you lost between the effort and the temps, and head back in. After about the sixth time, it’s pretty miserable.
Into the Washing Machine
Miraculously, after several hours, we made it to the final rapid of that section. This was a beast affectionately known as “The Washing Machine.” Gene called it a “hydraulic,” which loosely translated means “death trap.” Essentially, this is just a furious, whirling mess of water, rocks, and debris at the bottom of a several foot drop.
We pulled our boats over to a sandy beach and climbed up to a rickety old observation deck (Note: I was there recently and saw that they have installed a paved path and picnic tables. I think they somehow made the rapid smaller too). We ate some beef jerky and watched other boats go down.
“See that rock,” Gene said, pointing to a big boulder a few yards ahead of the precipitous drop-off. “You have to get to the left of it. Go right and… Well, don’t go right. Check out that log.”
I saw it enter, spin, disappear, and then come shooting out splintered into a thousand pieces.
“Yea. That’ll be you if you go right.” Terrifying.
At the bottom of the rapid I saw these really skilled kayakers playing in the rapid. Basically, once they had gone down, they would turn their boat back upriver and intentionally put the nose of their boat back into the rapid. They would spin, sometimes flip, but then immediately right themselves and “surf” along the rocks. Then they would be pushed out by the force of the water and go back in for more. It did look cool, but with only had 45 minutes of preparation, five hours of sleep, and a few Pop Tarts in my belly, I was thinking survival at this point.
Then, Gene’s voice interrupted. “All right. Let’s do it.” I picked up my helmet and headed back down towards the water. Right as we get back to the kayaks, Gene says (almost off-handedly), “You know. If you don’t want to do this, you could portage.”Like so many of the terms associated with this God-forsaken sport, I’d never heard this one either, but I rightly inferred that it meant “carry your boat around.”
“Yep,” he explained. “If you don’t want to tackle The Washing Machine, you can portage down the road, and I’ll meet you on the other side.” Now, let’s be honest. No self-respecting, red-blooded, eighteen-year-old is going to do that. Far better to die in a hydraulic, right?!
Not actually me… credit to anoldent – Flickr: Nantahala River 34, CC BY-SA 2.0
Gene went first. Naturally, he adeptly navigated to the left of the rapid, momentarily disappeared from view as he went over the rocks, and then came out upright in the waters on the other side. Then, he turned, pumps his fist, and waved at us to come down.
I remember doing rock-paper-scissors with Jeff to see who was to go second. Technically, he lost and was up next. I watched him go slowly toward the rock. Now, I’m not saying I wanted to see him go right, but there was a part of me hoping for a slightly rough ride so I could finish on top. One upping each other was what this was all about after all.
But it was not to be. In the run of his life he not only went left, but somehow managed to stay upright. I saw him and Gene high five. And even at a 30-yard distance I could see Jeff’s smug smirk.
Now it was my turn. I took a deep breath, said the only part of a Hail Mary I remembered, and headed down river. I saw the rock clearly and I had a good line, but at the most pivotal moment, with the final key stroke I needed to go left… Honestly, I still cannot explain what happened, but I completely whiffed. I got no water at all with my paddle. Only air.
My boat hit the rock square on. A complete T-bone, which gives you a 50/50 shot of going either way. Well, I would not be telling this story today if I had gone left. Instead, the impact spun me around backwards.I am not sure if it was the water, the rocks, or my utter and complete panic, but I flipped over. So now I’m backwards, upside down, and hurtling into the hydraulic. I’m guessing it was the force of the fall that shot my paddle from my hands, and it was definitely the ferocity of the water that caused my helmet to spin around backwards and completely cover my face. In that moment, backwards, upside down, to the right, with no paddle, no vision and water surging through orifices in my body that I did not even know existed, I remember thinking, “Well… it’s been a good ride. At least I didn’t portage.”
But then I recalled two things Gene said just as we left the observation deck. One, of course, was don’t go right. Definitely remembered that. But the other was, “If you do end up in the hydraulic, you are going to want to fight it and swim out. That’s the last thing you should do. The water is too strong and you’ll exhaust yourself. You have to relax. Let your body go.” So I did. I put my hands down and went completely limp.
In doing so, I got utterly catapulted into the air. I had to have gotten about two or three feet of air. I I am not sure if this was the water slapping across my face or the momentum and torque, but my helmet totally whipped back around.
Absolute Eruption
Fresh air. Light. And then, Bam! I land on the water hard and then bounced once. Then, an absolute eruption. At first I thought it was thunder. Then I looked up at the observation deck. It was pandemonium. Guys were hugging, screaming, chest bumping, high fiving, slamming their kayak paddles together in a tribe like celebration. They were going absolutely nuts.
And so were the really skilled kayakers all around me who were playing in the rapid. They were yelling and pointing at me in congratulations, pumping their fists with approval. Elated.
As I’m taking in this absurd scene someone taps me on the shoulder. I look back and this other kayaker is holding my paddle. He has this look of absolute awe as he says, “Dude. That. Was. Awesome! I have been trying to hand roll for like six years. Can you teach me?” I’d never heard that term either, but I was able to gather myself enough to grab the paddle, spin around and say, “Man. I haven’t got time for that today.”
Then I paddled down to where Gene and Jeff were literally crying they were laughing so hard.
So why do I share this with you today? I think it’s pretty obvious really. God’s speed. No, in all seriousness, there are three points to share with you.
First, you are READY!
You are ready for college. You are ready for the challenges it will bring. You have a helmet. You can do the work. You have a life-jacket in the tremendous support system around you: your family, friends, teachers, and all of those folks who have and will always be there for you. You are prepared. You are not coming onto the river from a still lake without proper training or practices. You’re not heading to a campus on a terrible diet of Fritos and Pop Tarts. You have a boat and a paddle. You are ready for the adventure the next four years will bring. And my hope is you see it that way- as a great river to endeavor out into. I hope that you will play in it and surf”in it. Take a class that sounds interesting just because you want to. Learn to unicycle, try an instrument, eat some food you can’t spell or pronounce. Go on a 10 hour road trip to a state you’ve never been in before. Enjoy. Use your skills and talents and all of the ways you’ve been equipped to thrive and have fun! You. Are. Ready!
Second, you are NOT READY!
Didn’t you listen to the story? There are rocks, rapids, hydraulics, and currents beneath the surface that you will never see coming. This is no joke. You are going to get bumped around. Some of you have never seen a B except on an eye chart. Prepare for a C. Things are not going to completely go your way. You are going to get spun around. You may not make the team or be elected into a club you are hoping for. Your first choice internship is going to fall through, and even worse, your best friend is going to get it. You are going to feel like there is water rushing across your face. That major is going to turn out to be a bad fit. And that’s all before the big break up at Thanksgiving. Sickness, bankruptcy, divorce… What? Am I going to far?
But you see my point, right? You cannot totally prepare for all of what is coming. You are not prepared for all of what is coming! Not on your own. So in those hydraulic moments, I hope you will remember what you see around you today. Remember those faces. Look at those smiles. They are here to hand you your paddle when you emerge. The truth is we all have those times when it feels like our paddle has been ripped away and we are backwards and upside down. We all question if we are up for certain challenges. But your family and friends- they are your boat and life jacket. And no hydraulic of life is going to take them away. In college, at some point or another, you will have some dark days. You will wonder if you can keep it all together. In those times, you have to relax and stop fighting. You have to stop trying to do it all yourself and reach out. Let them cheer for you, high five you, fist bump or paddle slam or simply celebrate you as you navigate your way through.
Lastly, DON’T PORTAGE!
Please don’t waste your college days, or your days beyond those, by taking the easy way out. Regrets come from moments when we see an opportunity and we let it pass.
Every good graduation speech has at least on quote. Since this is not a graduation speech, and its quality is debatable, I’m going to give you two.
1 – “A ship at harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” John A. Shedd
We are created to endure, to live fully, to live not out of fear but love and adventure. Don’t be too scared to risk. Don’t be too concerned with how you will look to try something new or different. Don’t stay in a major you know is not right for you. Don’t avoid a class or bypass a trip or stay in a relationship simply because it’s the safest path. This is your run on the river. Point the nose of your boat directly into it and go!
2 – “Most live lives of quiet desperation & go to their graves with their songs still in them.” Henry David Thoreau
Don’t let that be your college career or your life beyond it. I hope you’ll take advantage of all that awaits you in college. Study abroad, take tough classes, hang out with people from places you’ve never been. KNOW THAT when you are in the hydraulics life throws at you that ultimately you’ll come out down river, in calm waters, and with friends and family around you–just like they are today.
Congratulations, Class of 2018! I’m excited to see where the waters lead you.
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This week we welcome Regional Director of Admission (West Coast) Ashley Brookshire to the blog. Welcome, Ashley!
It’s a time to close the door on winter and set your sights on the sunny days to come. Spring cleaning allows me to catch my breath, get re-organized, and look forward to the excitement of warm weather and summer travel. It’s not without its burden – I don’t particularly enjoy scrubbing baseboards and emptying closets – but I do love the relief of having the work done and updated systems set to keep my home a place of rest and relaxation.
When I think about spring cleaning, I often think of my house. In reality, there are many aspects of my life that could use this kind of attention. My finances, work, and personal inbox – amongst many other areas – can use the renewed TLC this time of year brings.
As rising seniors looking ahead to the college application process next year, make time to conduct some spring cleaning of your own. Here are some good places to start:
New You
If you haven’t already noticed, colleges send a lot of emails. A LOT. One way to keep your personal or school email inbox manageable over the course of the upcoming year is to create a separate email address for your college communications. Something simple (and appropriate) like myname@gmail.com allows you to segment this portion of your life for the next few months and isolate the emails you’ll receive daily (okay, probably hourly) from the rest of the messages you’re balancing for school, work, clubs, etc.
Unsubscribe
There are tons of ways you can start receiving communication from colleges. Outside of actually signing up on a college’s website to receive more information, if you’ve taken the SAT or ACT, visited a college campus, attended a college rep presentation at your high school, are related to a passionate alumnus who knows your email address and birthdate, or breathed in the vicinity of a college fair table, you could find yourself on a college’s contact list.
As you begin to explore your college options, you’ll likely discover some of the 4,000+ colleges in the US are not a great fit for you (that’s a good thing!). As you discover what you’re most passionate about in a college experience, you’ll begin to identify schools that don’t quite match what you’re looking for. Your best friend should become the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of each email you receive. As you begin to narrow the list of schools in which you are most interested, it’s time to triage your inbox. You don’t want the one really important email from a university you’d love to attend to be accidentally missed in an inbox full of messages from colleges you are no longer considering.
Compile Your Thoughts and Research
As you start to look at different colleges and programs, there are an infinite number of data points to consider. Take time this summer to turn messy notes and thoughts into a useful resource. A Google Doc, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint can be key in helping you capture all of the information from your college search and turn it into a handy tool. Helpful items to represent on your document include important deadlines (both for admission and financial aid), programs aligning with your personal and professional interests, qualities about the school that excite you, any red flags for you, and the contact information of your admission representative. Remember, this is a resource for you, so make sure it’s set up in a way that best captures what matters most to you! You’ll have enough on your plate as a senior in the fall – use this time to set up a system that keeps you organized and all of the information you’ve gathered in an accessible format.
As the school year winds down and you head into summer, make sure you’re taking on a few tasks to set you up for success this fall. Not all spring cleaning takes place in cobb-webbed corners or under beds, so take some time to de-clutter and get organized.
Ashley Brookshire is an Atlanta native and Georgia Tech alumna who has worked in college admission for nearly a decade. Ashley serves as Georgia Tech’s Regional Director of Admission for the West Coast, making her home in Southern California. She’s been a California resident for more than 5 years and is a member of the Regional Admission Counselors of California.
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Last week I visited Jekyll Island, Georgia as part of a leadership program. If you have never been to the Golden Isles of our state, I hope you will make an effort to visit sometime. Not far from Jekyll you also have some incredibly preserved treasures like Cumberland Island and Sapelo Island. The entire region provides a rare and amazing combination of beaches, wildlife, restaurants, and recreation. Truly something for everyone in this beautiful part of Georgia.
One afternoon we went on tour with Joseph Colbert, Yank Moore and other members of the Jekyll Island Authority Conservation team—a group charged with everything from protecting nesting loggerhead turtles and dune systems to preserving the integrity of tidal marshes. They showed us how they tag and track alligators, rattlesnakes, armadillos, turtles, bobcats and more in order to understand patterns, threats, and ecosystems. The diversity of wildlife was fascinating, but I have to say the most intriguing part to me was the discussion around prescribed/controlled burning.
Feel the Burn
Fire and burning is part of the natural cycle and ecosystem. Our modern human tendency to suppress fire actually increases the presence of invasive, homogeneous plants and weeds, effectively killing native grasses and flowers, and in turn reducing plant and animal diversity. Prescribed burns not only limit the damage of future fires caused by lightning or other sources that could severely damage the habitat and animals, but they also eliminate intrusive and dominant plants and brush that actually hinder the emergence of the far more diverse, vibrant, beautiful growth underneath. Ironically, the dominant, invasive, homogeneous plants and brush that grow in fire-suppressed areas are more flammable, so when fires do occur the damage is far worse. (These are the Clark Notes. Apologies to all students of ecology, agriculture, or members of the fire service world who may be cringing at my very rough summary.)
Listening to Joseph describe the process and rationale of controlled burns was convicting. It made me realize we often allow the known and visible to limit our vibrant, full, beautiful life and the possibilities that exist deeper in all of us. Pain (burning/fire) is inevitable, but short-term discomfort or perceived danger is a necessary part of a rich, diverse, flourishing future. Too frequently we inaccurately associate homogeneity with safety.
If you are a graduating senior…
You are almost done. Congratulations! Seriously, congratulations. You may have always expected to graduate high school and move on to college, but in reality tens of thousands of American students do not. You’ve worked hard and accomplished a great milestone in your life. Well done! But… (you knew that was coming, right?) now the hard work lies ahead. You can see it as hard, or see it as an opportunity.
Sure, it would be easy to go off to college and keep doing what you have done. On some level, you have a recipe for success. Good grades, achievement, leadership, contribution. All good things. But what lies beneath? What do you know is within you that is going to require some burning to bring forth? What scares you but excites you? What do you want to be, to accomplish, to achieve, to explore? College is an opportunity for finding those things.
I am not saying you have to completely reinvent yourself, but I implore you to spend time this summer, before you leave home, to reflect on why you are going to college and how you are going to intentionally grow, thrive and develop there. Be bold enough to burn. Be courageous enough to peel back the top layer (as impressive or pretty as it may appear on the outside) to expose those parts of you perhaps only you know or believe have been suppressed, so they can rise and flourish. The process is not easy or painless. But Joseph would tell you, and I’m telling you, most people twice or three times your age know suppressing the fire is far more damaging in the long run.
If you are a junior/sophomore…
In terms of college, it is easy to only see the top layer. You know where mom and dad went to school. You’re surrounded by the big schools or popular schools in your state and region. You read the list of highly ranked schools that are commonly cited in articles. You’ve been told about the “acceptable” or “expected” schools for a student from your school, community, or neighborhood. Burn them down (the ideas—not the schools!). The landscape of higher education, like the biodiversity under the visible, dominant intrusive top-layer is rich, vibrant and beautiful. But it will take some work to lift it up and see it.
So when schools email you or send you invitations to visit; when you receive brochures in the mail or someone from a school you’ve never heard of calls you; when colleges visit your city or school next fall, I urge you to pause and consider. If you do not at least dig down, burn through, and explore the variety of options you have, you will continue to see your choices as limited and suppressed. And that is not what the admission process is supposed to be. Instead it should be dynamic and life-giving. In the end, you should only go to a highly visible school after you have recognized and considered all your options and then chose it.
Regardless of where you are in this process, I challenge you to not accept what is in front of you because it appears safe, comfortable, or acceptable. And that does not only apply to colleges, my friends—that applies to life in general. Safe, comfortable, acceptable, homogenous… if too many of those adjectives are your rationale for anything, you have some burning to do. You will be glad you did.
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This week we welcome Communications Officer (and former Assistant Director of Admission) Becky Tankersley to the blog. Welcome, Becky!
When you think about stressful experiences, taking a test in front of a crowd probably ranks pretty high on the list. Last year Rick shared a story about his son’s Taekwondo belt test. My 6-year old daughter has been in Taekwondo for a few months now and is getting ready for her third belt test. Now that we’ve been through a couple of tests we know what to expect… but that wasn’t initially the case.
Her first test to move from a white belt (beginner) to a yellow belt (slightly more advanced) was a nerve-racking experience for her—as well as for me as a parent. She had no idea what to expect, and candidly neither did I.
The white belts and yellow belts tested together in the same room. Clearly the instructors know what they’re doing, because the yellow belts were tested first, giving the white belts a chance to watch and get an idea of what’s going on. When their time came, all the white belts stood in a group, and 12-15 kids were tested on their basic form, kicking motion, and board breaking simultaneously. Meanwhile a crowd of parents (and newly minted orange belts) watched.
Focus… Concentration…
Everything went according to plan until the board breaking portion. Older students (or junior instructors) each paired up with younger students to hold their boards for breaking. The kids got ready as the Master led the chant: “Focus…. Concentration… kyah!” A series of boards around the room shattered… except for one.
One boy did not break his board. The rest of the students celebrated with smiles on their faces and sat down in their spots. The Master continued the chant for the boy: “Focus… concentration….” The boy tried again. And again. And again. At least six tries went by before he quietly whispered to the junior instructor “can you crack the board for me a little?” She whispered back, “no, but I know you can do it.” Every eye in the room was on this kid, and I started to feel uncomfortable to the point I felt bad for watching, so I intentionally averted my eyes to look out the window. When I glanced back, the board suddenly cracked and the room erupted in cheers. He sat down with a smile, belt testing continued, and each student received their yellow belt.
On the drive home we talked about the experience. My daughter asked, “Why did you cheer for him? You don’t know who he is…” An understandable question for a 6-year old involved in a sport for the first time. I replied, “We cheered because that was tough. Everyone was watching as he failed over and over again. It would’ve been easy for him to quit—but he didn’t. He kept going, even with people watching, and that takes courage. And when you see someone have courage like that it’s worth cheering for.”
Belt Tests and Graduations
Belt tests and graduations have some things in common. As you work up to the big event, you go to class, you practice, you study, and you prepare. You work for the goal, and lots of people—some you know, many of whom you don’t—show up to watch and cheer.
As a high school senior on the cusp of graduation, here are three takeaways to keep in mind as you finish out your year.
You don’t know someone else’s story. In our case we saw the boy struggle to break his board and, after many tries, ultimately achieve success. But most of the time in life that’s not the case. Now that May 1 has passed, you’ll see peers recognized for acceptances, scholarships, and other achievements. It’s easy to look at another person’s end result and think about how lucky they are. But behind that “luck” is a lot of hard work, time invested, and sacrifice. You may not see the number of times they failed. You may not know the physical or emotional challenges they overcame to achieve their goal. Cheer them on, and remember…
Someone else’s win isn’t your loss. This is the time to celebrate! You did it! You’ve worked hard for years to graduate from high school. You may have a friend who got into their (or your) dream school and you didn’t. You may still be sitting on someone’s waitlist. Of course that stings. But remember, you’ve gotten accepted (and hopefully have deposited!) to a great place too. And guess what? There are people at that school making plans right now to welcome you to campus next fall, and they want to make your first year an amazing experience. So enjoy these last few weeks of high school and summer with your friends. Then…
Get Ready to Level Up. After my daughter got her yellow belt, we celebrated and told her how proud we were to see her work for a goal and achieve it. Then we reminded her: it will get harder from here. Each level you go up in life, things become more challenging. More is expected of you—if you want to succeed you have to continue to work hard. It’s the same for you as you head to college. You’re moving up a level. More will be expected of you—not only in the classroom, but also in life. No longer will your family be there to make sure you get places on time, to feed you healthy meals, to do your laundry, or give you a curfew to make sure you’re in bed at a decent hour to sleep. These life choices are now up to you. You can take your new-found freedom and run wild—or you can make the best choices for you as you take the next step into adulthood. Life won’t be as easy as it has been—but as you already know, nothing rewarding comes easily.
Make time for work, but also make time for fun. Your moment of truth is here, Class of 2018. Celebrate each other and get ready for your next adventure. After all, life moves pretty fast—if you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Becky Tankersley has worked in higher education for more than 10 years. She joined Georgia Tech in 2012 after working at a small, private college in the mountains of Northeast Tennessee. Prior to working in higher education, she worked as a television news producer. Her current role blends her skills in college recruitment and communication. Becky is the editor of the GT Admission Blog, and also serves as a Content Coordinator for the American Association of Collegiate Registrar and Admission Officers.
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