The Admissions Labrinth: Navigating the Route to College By Burke Thompson
As I sit down under the tree on Christmas morning, I immediately begin to tear open a promising present. Perfectly rectangular. Good weight. Obviously not clothes, unless some cruel trick has been played. Maybe an Xbox. I tear open the wrapping paper, surely about to unveil my new console... Wait. An Xbox doesn’t have pages. Seventh grade me had just received the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2015 from my grandparents, and, while I promptly lost it before the new year, I still remember the book as my first experience with higher-level education (aside from watching Clemson football games). Though I may not own the original to this day, it has been replaced by the 2019 edition as my college search truly begins, heading into the second semester of my junior year.
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these answers appear all well and good and may give some satisfaction, the rabbit hole truly begins when the applicant attempts to understand and undertake these guidelines. Important follow-up questions have hundreds of possible answers; for example, what does it mean to do well in school? Does it mean I have to have straight A’s? Does it mean I have to take all APs? Is it better for me to make a 93 in an honors class or an 84 in an AP class? When asked this question during visits or during Porter-Gaud college nights, many college reps will – understandably – squirm and reply “Admissions offices appreciate when you challenge yourself” and will move on to the next question.
Unhelpful answers like these are unavoidable due to the massive variety of applicants and course offerings from schools, but they still cause even more follow up questions and student confusion. And yet, after hours of combing Internally, we ask ourselves, through the book, innumerable “Well, what does it mean to challenge myself?” college websites, and other resources, I still feel as if Does it mean we have to waste away our lives, I know nothing about the requirements of the college poring over books precariously perched on dimly process whatsoever. As students of Porter-Gaud and lit desks, trashing our social lives, ignoring our children of the digital age, we have amazing access families, and losing sleep in pursuit of challenging to all kinds of statistics, informational meetings, ourselves? Or does it simply mean we need to visits, and third-party tools. These data, however continue to take a language through our senior helpful they may be to admissions experts, do little year? As students, we have no resolution for these to answer questions of how to get into a particular questions and are often stranded in the dark as we institution or to alleviate stress, and students rarely decide our courses and possibly our academic fates. receive straight answers to personal questions. Similarly, the SAT and ACT also add to the Well, let’s start with question number one. How do confusion. I distinctly remember two contradictory I get into college? The universal reply seems to be statements offered by visiting college administrators; pretty simple: a successful applicant must do well in in sophomore year, a representative from Boston school, do well on standardized tests, write decent College assured the crowd that no college would admissions essays, and stay out of trouble. Though reject an application based on scores alone, whereas
