DAY 10 - talk about a regret you have
(a day late again...whoops...day 11 and 12 will hopefully come tomorrow!)
Definitely a little more involved than "your favorite movie." So as not to over share in a public space...let me talk about a sort of recent and fluffy regret.
Last year, I was generally the one to (secretly) judge people for completely freaking out about the college application process, for applying to 15 different schools and going crazy over which to choose, and especially for frantically comparing standardized test scores with other overachieving kids and guessing about whether or not their top choice would accept them based on that one number. Despite what a lot of other people thought--and despite what I was probably told--I was pretty convinced that the SAT was not going to be the deciding factor for the admissions committees when they saw my college application (for those of you that are not from the States, the SAT is the standardized test that the majority of American universities consider when they made admission decisions). In the middle of 11th grade (the second-to-last year of school before university, as long as I'm addressing the Europeans!), I took the test once just because I had to. A lot of kids took classes and practice tests to improve their scores, and I pretty stubbornly decided against it without thinking twice.
When I took the test for the first and last time, I did just okay compared to what I think I could have done. I did pretty miserably compared to other people with my GPA, for example. But I thought spending time and money on a prep course was a total waste when I could do things like...oh, I don't know...travel. Or be in a musical. Or do ANYTHING else that actually involved learning actual THINGS versus learning how to take a silly multiple-choice test. There are a lot of studies and surveys that question the validity of the SAT anyway. I just told myself that colleges would see beyond my "mediocre" scores if they really wanted me and consider what I hoped would be a very attractive application otherwise. I had really good grades in high school and was certainly involved in extracurriculars, I'd had paying jobs, I had done volunteer work, I was really proud of the essays I wrote, etc., etc. I convinced myself that the colleges would be thinking as I was--that I traded those extra SAT points for actual life experience, and they would see that. But, obviously, the test wouldn't exist if all college admissions committees thought that way, and of COURSE there are millions of other kids out there with great grades and tons of other qualifiers. I knew all of that and refused to really admit it.
I applied to 5 colleges--way fewer than many of my friends did. I considered two of them true safeties, two of them fairly close to matches for my grades/abilities/etc., and one of them a true reach school. But I was--and am--pretty sure that my reach school was not an impossible goal for me, realistically. I really felt like my interests, personality and intellect would be a perfect fit for the school, and I was so, so, SO proud of my application to that school especially, but I neglected one (obviously important) aspect. Needless to say, my acceptance/wait list/rejection letters came, and some of the news I received was different from the news I was expecting. I think I had the potential to get better results than I did. I'll never know what would have happened if I had just tried the SAT one more time, and I really regret that. I mean, maybe nothing would have been different, but I'll never know now!
I definitely don't regret the way my college decision played out--at least not yet. I obviously haven't actually started college, but UVA is a school with a lot of great options, a mostly good reputation nationally and internationally, as well as the most financially intelligent decision I could have made (had I been accepted to my top choice). It was my second choice anyway. Maybe I would have made this decision had I been given a choice between the two...but probably not. Maybe it's better this way, because I doubt I would have had the self-control to choose UVA, and I'll probably be equally happy at there than I would have been anywhere else. I still think I was right on principle by not freaking out over the standardized testing--the SAT is in no way a legitimate way of judging intelligence or aptitude in my mind. This is really the one time I have ever actively chosen to fight the system, as cowardly as that is, and I was kind of proud of finding the confidence in myself to do it even silently (so ridiculous). But I still regret limiting my own college decision options at the time by not just going with the flow.
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