Given that I don’t keep a journal, I have decided to treat this edition of View From the Top as a sort of reflection on submitting my final college application. Fair warning, this may devolve into an unhinged rambling session very quickly. But I hope you find it thrilling and enlightening regardless!
Submitting my final college application was underwhelming. I hit the “review and submit” button, checked about a million “College X can sell my soul” agreements and was presented with the digital confetti that fell across the Common App webpage. I had been anticipating a huge weight leaving my shoulders — a montage would commence with some 2013 indie rock musician crooning about friendship in the background. But I honestly felt nothing — no tension was released; the credits did not roll. The classic refrain is that once you submit, you’re free. And I guess that’s the case for many people — at least for people not at Marlborough. I know that I should relax, and yet! Here I am, worrying about my physics test.
That isn’t to say that I’m still studying incessantly. I am fully serious when I say that my Quizlet account might have expired due to lack of use. But my anxiety about grades has not evaporated, and I am not alone in this case. I may need to start a GoFundMe and study how Marlborough students react to the absence of academic pressure. I was talking to someone who said that they can’t watch TV without their computer in their lap because they don’t want to feel unproductive. Scientists are squealing! They need to put us in a lab.
I have not come to any major resolution on this subject, so there is unfortunately no overarching message to this View From the Top. Maybe the moral of this story is the lack of a moral — how meta is that? The college process is not a question-and-answer. It’s closer to juggling for the king while he decides if you’re funny enough to be his court jester. You think you want to go to one college, and then you want to go somewhere else, and then you want to hop train cars with a banjo and a bag of oranges. If you’re a senior reading this, maybe we should have a spa day or something. I’m open to suggestions.
