The College App Process: Is it Worth the Stress?

Once I stepped into the doors of my high school, I already had the reality of the college process in the back of my head. I had to strategize what classes to take, how many hard ass classes to take, what extra curricular activities to do within and outside of school; etc. in order to figure out how my cumulative GPA will pan out in the end for me to get into decent schools. I work madd hard in school since it's in my nature to do so (and I would get threatened to be sent back to the village if i did otherwise) so from that comes the usual stressing over grades and stuff. If I don't put pressure on myself on top of the pressure that is around me, I get lazy and slack. However, I can only do that for so long. And I definitely realized that when junior year came around.

That was the time when I started the whole SAT deal, the whole narrowing down which schools I was interested in, and when I was going to actually see some of those schools at one point. By second semester, the amount of stuff I had to take care of on top of the crap loads of work and track, I had no idea if I was going to make it through junior year with what I had hoped for. I had to get on my grind, and I did, despite that I had to ex out my social life and sleep to be able to finish the year out the way I needed to.

Even though it's almost December, and most regular decision apps are due in January, I feel that this process is a never ending cycle. I don't know how much longer I can write essays, study SAT strategy, keep myself from getting senioritis, and deal with the self inflicted pressure. The only light at the end of the tunnel is that first acceptance letter.

At the end, even though I forget this all the time, the other side of the coin is the fact that we all will end up where we're meant to be. What we think will happen will most likely not be the case. And the amount of work that we put in to be able to get where we want to be is on us. We can only do our best.