by Ella Scher ‘23 

We want your money, they say. We want your time. We want your energy, and we want your will to live. The government? No. The Illuminati? Hardly. Instead, it’s that most dreaded of terms, the one that makes parents break out in nervous hives and gives juniors and seniors the shakes. College applications. College applications are mind-blowingly prevalent in the day-to-day life of a high-schooler– to an alarming degree. We missed you at lunch. You didn’t do your homework. You need to get some exercise. Your excuse? Oh, sorry. I was filling out my college applications. 

You’re forking over anywhere from 40 to 100 dollars to a college–just to get them to read your application!–no guarantee you’ll actually get in. You’ll write about your most traumatic or life-changing experience in 500 words, hoping that some jaded admissions officer will see the real you, some spark of uniqueness, one that makes you somehow worthy of the mantle of The College Experience. (AKA, stuffed into a dorm reminiscent of a jail cell, too much drinking, and lectures from professors who don’t even know your name.) Forcing high-schoolers who barely have any idea of what direction they want to take with their lives to pour out their innermost thoughts onto a piece of paper seems unrealistic, wasteful, and oddly dystopian. But who am I kidding? Go ahead. Take this test and surrender your dignity for a chance at higher education, that you may be able to call yourself accomplished one day.