The Process: Man, I love College..

I'm sure Asher Roth is right. I might love it when I get there. Then again, he and I seem like pretty different people with very different life goals. I don't exactly "drink my beer and smoke my weed." But what I do know is that right now, I'm not so into college. Literally and figuratively.

Now that exams are over, I can finally relax and have a great senior summer. Pause- this Saturday are the SAT IIs. Three of them. Then come teacher recommendations, writing essays, preparing your common app, narrowing down your list of schools, finding schools that will actually accept you, etc...

Now that Jay Leno has departed, Osama Bin Laden's released another tape, and our economy still sucks, I'm sure you could use a laugh. In the mood for a joke? The college process is actually a joke. Recently, I went to another college fair. But this one; this one was supposed to be different. When the invitation came in the mail, it was not a flyer on cheap yellow paper. No, this was good stuff. Neatly printed on a little white card. We got it and I thought, “Gee, maybe this actually means something. Maybe it is some kind of an honor that I got invited to this thing. It looks like a semi-personal invitation, right?” Hosted by Harvard, Stanford, Georgetown, Duke, and Penn, and held at the Inner Harbor Sheraton, it is needless to say it was a step up from the usual college fairs that take place in back rooms of seedy business centers off the interstate, or hotels that remind me of the one Holden Caulfield stays at in 'The Catcher in the Rye. ' But anyways, we decided to give it a shot. Maybe I'd have some personal interaction with an admissions representative this time? Or they'd actually tell us something, rather than saying there is no model student or no model experience at their school, and explaining that they look at each student "collectively." We arrived downtown with 30 minutes to spare (we know B-More like the back of our hands) only to find that the hotel’s garage parking cost $15 dollars. Doesn’t the Sheraton, or Harvard, for that matter, know we’re in a recession?! No, I guess their multi-million dollar endowments made them forget. Which reminds me; why is it that we must pay so much to be told that we are inadequate or to risk rejection from our dream school? (NOT that Harvard is my dream school. It may be though.) $83 dollars for each AP exam. Countless more for SAT books, classes, tutors. Self-addressed stamped envelopes to send for information. Admissions/ application fees. It never ends, and it adds up. This doesn’t even count the, oh, 60,000 dollars a year easy you can tack on for tuition, room, and board, at your "institution of higher learning", assuming you are admitted to one. College is just kind of ridiculous. I sometimes wonder whether the difference in income between what I and a non college graduate make one day will actually pay off. But anyways, then you get upstairs to the conference room and realize that the mugs for the complimentary tea and coffee are already gone from the back of the room. You have come up just short once again, this time to the college-obsessed, crazy, personal-trained, espresso-hyped, super peppy moms who never stop interfering in their children’s lives, and snapped up the refreshments so that they would have enough caffeine to run on for the duration of the night’s festivities. I suppose they need their energy to ask those questions about sliding scales, GPAs, IBs, pre-professional programs, and whether Georgetown prefers one SAT II over another. Who cares. Really.

And all it does is make you feel inadequate. Your test scores aren't high enough. Your GPA isn't high enough. You don't do enough extracurriculars. You're not good at sports. You don't take challenging enough classes. Your application will make you look lazy, even if you're not. You're not oblong enough; you haven't pursued one interest or passion to a point of excellence, and you're not well-rounded enough. They tell you they will look at you as a complete candidate, but what if you, like the majority, are lacking in all or many of these departments? You're out of luck.

You're also out of luck if you're a white, suburban, upper-middle class girl from a private school in Baltimore. Because, like giving a moose a muffin, if you receive an invitation to a college fair or event, chances are, you're going to run into about, oh, 50% of your class. And not only this but, oh, about 10 other people from your class of 60 are going to be applying to your first choice school with you. So good luck on getting in. Sorry that your demographic has suddenly become the least desirable one due to the college frenzy of the 21st century.

Soon enough you are startled from these thoughts by a young, uptight woman whose hair is pulled into a bun on the back of her head, as she clears her throat. She begins to speak about her school, and what makes it special, but all the facts begin to run together, like a Monet. You have a sheet of statistics, and can almost instantly count yourself out, for your credentials are not nearly good enough to get your Common App even a second glance. But you listen on anyways, and soon a man comes up to talk about his school. It is founded by Ben Franklin, and you think, "Hey, I love Ben Franklin. American History is my favorite subject. That John Adams series was pretty darn good. I love 'National Treasure.' And one time, my godsister took me to the Franklin Institute, that was pretty fun. Philadelphia's awesome." But then he stops talking about Ben, and begins to list interdisciplinary majors and teacher-student ratios. After a night of this, and no, you do not actually get to speak with any representatives, you head home and think.

"What am I supposed to write about? I have so much to say. I don't want to write it about a specific person or experience. I don't want to limit it to 2,000 characters. I wish I did more than devote my time and energy to intangible things, and thinking, and writing. Where does thinking get you, if there is no physical manifestation of your thought? Where does writing get you, if only three or four people read it, and it is not published, not entered in a contest? Where does playing lacrosse for eleven years because you love it? And what about being on a bad team, and being a benchwarmer, but being orally presented with the "unsung hero" award at an athletics awards ceremony? What about being pulled aside by your coaches one Wednesday afternoon for them to tell you that you are the hardest worker on the team? What about how I like to spend time in the English Department office at school, talking with the teachers about, literature, politics, and my crusades against improper grammar? What about my love for sports, and how I read the economist on Saturdays, or how every Sunday I do the New York Times crossword puzzle with my mom?

'What about how I dedicated myself last summer to running and eating healthy, losing 30 pounds and keeping it off? What about how I make babies smile, and can talk with adults for hours, even though people my own age take no interest in me. What about how I lost two elections for leadership positions in school this year, but I still ran? What about how I convinced the entire grade to go all out for spirit week, for the first time ever? The sad thing is, and please excuse the narcissism, I feel like these are good qualities. Or at least defining ones. But how am I supposed to compete with someone so much "better" qualified for a school, even if they b.s. an essay about their summer program or grandmother?" I can't. But I guess all one can do is laugh. That's the biggest joke about college. I know a few great people, thoughtful people, insightful people, driven people. And all I can hope is that this rule isn't true for them. These friends and colleagues are deserving, relentless in their work effort, and devoted.

But it's some sick and twisted game. Not like Candyland, no, because for this one, we're trying to find the path to the rest of our lives rather than to a fictionalized Oz of sugary confections. And let me tell you, I already know that life is not sweet. 'The Baltimore Sun' recently ran an article (yes, it printed more than just auto ads and photos and copies of other newspapers' articles for one day) about the college process. It effectively, and surprisingly, characterized the entire process by telling the story of two students. Same school. Same classes. Almost identical grades. Similar outside credentials. One boy got into Penn and Princeton. Yale and Harvard said 'no.' A girl was accepted by Yale and Princeton but wait-listed by Harvard. She had also been wait-listed at Tufts, where a third, who did not apply to any Ivies (although he wanted to) got in ED. I know, it's hard to keep track of all that. So what can we learn from this? Nothing. The college process is as big a gamble as throwing your entire savings into the current financial market would be. In fact, it's like using your life savings to buy GM stocks. Kind of.

The point is, this process is not clear. It is not fair. And it is not fun. So college better be, for the stress and sacrifices it has caused and will continue to cause for the next nine months. And one thing is for sure. Asher Roth better be right.