This column is dedicated to my secret high school rival , the corrupt world that is higher education and my high school-era self-hatred.
When I started my junior year at Wahlert Catholic High School, I couldn’t wait to apply to colleges. I was excited for the future: picking the classes I wanted to take, living somewhere other than Dubuque, Iowa and never having to see a majority of my high school classmates again.
I had been trained since eighth grade on the college application process – I knew all about “safety schools,” and I had my list of “dream schools” lined up. I was still optimistic even though my high school was in no way a dream. The teachers were as strict as the dress code, we had no air conditioning, there was asbestos in the ceiling, a hole in the walls let wasps in during lunch period and my graduating class was right around 100 students. But Wahlert Catholic excelled in academics, so I felt prepared for applying to college.
After applying to a few schools, my parents drew the line. I was being cut off from my “dream schools” for two reasons: I would be paying my own tuition, and it’s no secret schools like Notre Dame and Boston College are expensive; and they wanted to protect me from outrageously low acceptance rates.
I was heartbroken. My high school counselor tried to make me feel motivated again by telling me I probably wouldn’t have been accepted to any of my “dream schools,” anyway.
Senior year came and so did the acceptance letters. I understood my situation until I heard a classmate and friend, Julia, lamenting hers: she was struggling to decide whether she wanted to go to Stanford, Notre Dame or Duke.
It made me furious. Throughout my entire life I had been told how smart I was. On the other end of things, my parents, teachers and counselors desperately tried to dissuade me from applying to those “dream schools” like Notre Dame and the University of Chicago because my acceptance was unlikely – and I wouldn’t be able to afford them if I did.
Why did Julia get something I had wanted my entire life while I was consigned to decide between a handful of schools picked out by my mother?
I took the exact same courses as Julia. I got the same ACT score as her. We were in the same extracurricular organizations. I even had a job, and she didn’t.
How did she end up the better candidate for fate? Was it because she was blonde? Or that she was from Wisconsin? Or that her parents were paying her tuition for her, and I was relying on my life savings and student loans? Or maybe there was a secret rule that Wahlert Catholic could only send a certain number of seniors to Ivy League schools before making a sacrifice to our 50-year-old golden eagle mascot costume, and I didn’t make the cut?
I’m ashamed to admit it, but I grew to resent Julia for everything that year, and I kept up a one-sided rivalry with her until after graduation. But I hated myself more than anything – for not being good enough.
I didn’t see how messed up that situation was. Looking back, I’m grateful my parents were mindful of my lack of finances when I wasn’t.
But I still believe what my teachers and counselors did in the name of “protecting me” was a mistake. Kids are resilient. We bounce back. I’ve applied to countless jobs and internships, and have been let down since coming to college. My solution? Open a new Google tab and look for more jobs and internships. I was questioned to no end why I wanted to be an English major – everyone at Wahlert Catholic was either going to study medicine, law, engineering or the fine arts. And in my sophomore year? I added a second major with a startlingly bleak job outlook. But I love it, and that’s why I do it.
When my parents sat me down and told me I couldn’t afford half the schools I had applied to, I blamed them for letting me get that far in the process – not the unhealthy environment I went to school in, the one that taught me the only “acceptable” schools out there were ones that would require a trust fund and plasma donations for the rest of my life. I just didn’t realize this until I got to Bradley — a great school that somehow flew under my radar until March of my senior year.
Some kids are born with college applications in their hands. They’re sent to a school – like mine – that does everything it can to ensure its students are prepared to excel in higher education. But that’s so stifling, and it’s such a privilege.
There’s no way a girl like me, a graduate of the high school I went to, could be managing editor of the university paper at Stanford. I’ve seen “Gilmore Girls;” I know how stuff works.
I’ll never know now, but even if I had gotten accepted at some of those schools, I wouldn’t have the same opportunities as I do here. And four years after the fact, I can finally say I’m grateful I don’t.
