College Admission Essay

The first day of college, for anyone, can be quite intimidating. Formidable buildings looming over serpentine sidewalks, strangers elusively lurking through seemingly infinite hallways; every step taken pulls you deeper into uncertainty…right? Unfortunately, your high school teacher’s daunting tales of the three-hundred-page essay and uncompromising professor, while effectively frightening, are a poor representation of what college is really like. Higher education, to me, is the liberation from a severely outdated system, which serves as a vessel into adult life. An institution of higher education teaches not only academics, but valuable lessons about responsibility and independence, as well. Its merits extend beyond the classroom, and offer

For some people, it is the highlight of their entire young life. For me, it was an experience I wanted to finish as quickly as possible. My questioning of the redundant rules and obnoxious amount of required hours (that mostly didn’t contribute to my desired field of study) would be met only with a vague answer along the lines of “because that’s just how it is.” We were given training courses on how to ace a test instead of actually comprehending the material. Every day I became more and more furious witnessing my peers and I become inundated with unnecessarily intense coursework. Counselors offered no empathy to kids with extenuating circumstances, begging to drop just one course to lighten their load. There was no room to bend the rules, and everything had to be perfectto a T. But that is far from what the real world is

Many students involve themselves in AP classes, sports, music and art, clubs, and much more, so it’s no wonder high school students are so stressed. Living comfortably in college requires the same kind of balance, but with minor variances. For some people, work becomes a much more important priority compared to socialization. Others spend an exceptional amount of time involving themselves in extracurricular activities and social events around campus. Either way, studies are still most likely the primary focus. But real-life, adult responsibilities will always finagle their way in. It is important for students to learn how to handle both of these, recognizing the practical choices they must make, while simultaneously engaging in activities that nurture self-expression. Journalist Danielle Allen expresses the importance of balance in her article “Helping Students Find Their Place in the World,” explaining that “human beings generally need to foster their development along four dimensions…We can’t do without the skills, knowledge and understanding that enable us to make a living. But neither can we do without a related set of competencies that help us understand who we are as human beings so that we can make reasonable choices about what, individually and collectively, we should do” (Allen,