Trials and tribulations of applying for college

Tania Budihardjo, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Something changed in me during my years at junior high school. Call it adolescent restlessness if you must, but I dreamed of a new world without limits.

I yearned for a world without lecturing parents, without the shallow high school social hierarchy and drama, without the endless busy work and uninspiring teachers. In a word, I longed for college, or at least, how I thought college would be. Whenever matters at school or home frustrated me, I adopted the mantra: "Things will be different at college".

I quickly concluded that the University of Washington (UW), the school everyone expected me to attend, would not fit my ideal. All the practical reasons my parents gave for my attending UW only drove me further away.

I wanted to be liberal, to do the unexpected. Going to a different (and in my view, better) college would empower me, I believed, to begin to forge my unique path in life.

I couldn't stand the thought that many of my classmates would be attending UW. It wasn't that I had personal problems with them; I just needed a new, different society to find out who I really was, to become the best version of myself. Through choosing a different college than everyone else, I would be throwing off the shackles of dependence and adolescence.

I threw all my efforts into getting into another, better school. I did it all: The energy-draining, three-hour-long SAT classes, three SAT II's and got high grades.

During the summer before senior year, my reading material ranged from How to Get Into Any College, to Best 331 Colleges, to Peterson's Guide to Colleges.

Slowly but surely, after much rumination, I developed my ideal of a college: A medium-sized liberal arts college, at least a few states away from home, renowned for both its science and humanities programs. I narrowed down my choices to Pomona College, Haverford College, Davidson College, Middlebury College, four of the finest liberal arts colleges in the country.

Fortunately, my parents had become more open-minded about liberal arts colleges. Of course, I would also apply to the University of Washington, but it could hardly be considered a choice.

I felt excited and confident that I had made the right selection of schools.

However, that confidence didn't last long. During the winter break, about three weeks before my college application deadlines, another event occurred to disrupt my peace of mind.

An acquaintance of mine, alias Gabrielle, asked me a simple, popular question: "Where are you applying to college?" It was usually followed by a smile, and a "Oh, where is that?" Instead, Gabrielle asked me, "why?" She went on to counsel me for an hour about how Ivy League colleges were the only ones worth going to. Liberal arts colleges would produce ivory tower intellectuals who were not only strange, but also unmarketable, because liberal arts colleges are less well-known.

My conversation with Gabrielle left me dazed. I had heard that kind of advice a million times, but for some reason this time I was disturbed. I furtively decided to apply to Duke, UPenn, UW, and my first choice from before, Pomona College.

But as I looked at the applications and the time left, I realized how foolish I was acting. Deep inside, I knew I didn't need Duke, as fine an institution as it was, to grow up in as a person. And I didn't even know anything about UPenn, besides the fact it would be neat to live in Pennsylvania and see places frequented by Benjamin Franklin.

As my time and energy ran out, an epiphany happened to me. The University of Washington might not be such a bad choice after all. UW was known as a good, inexpensive school, and I also realized it would be nice to have my parents close by to share my college victories and struggles with. Middlebury College and Haverford College were perhaps too far. To my astonishment, it was I now who acknowledged that I might not be ready to fly too far from the nest. I applied to only two schools: the University of Washington and Pomona College. The other colleges were too far.

Many students, limited by financial circumstances or opinionated parents, have little choice in which school they can attend. Then there are others who are apathetic, who just decide to attend their parent's alma mater.

I was on the other end of the spectrum; highly idealistic and highly biased. I felt sure I could only be happy in a liberal arts college, which caused me much stress at the possibility that I might not get into one. I dismissed all the advantages of attending the University of Washington: Its quality, its convenience, its practicality.

After that, I was easily influenced by the well-meaning, but not necessarily helpful advice of Gabrielle. This is the part where I temporarily gave up my ideals because of someone else's persuasive advice.

By all means, have an ideal, know all the details about your dream school, and search for it with perseverance. Once you've found it, take the tests, do all the work, as much as it may be, and keep your eyes focused on your goal.

But the best way, I've learned, is to decide what you want, but remember that you can be happy even if the college is not your first choice. Do all you can to get into your first choice, but don't be too dramatic if you don't get in.

Pomona College rejected me. Strangely enough, I felt relieved just to know where I would be going next year.

A few weeks ago, I attended UW's orientation, and most of my worries have since been assuaged. Even though it is a big school, and not in the top 20, I actually like my future classmates. Almost everyone is friendly and down-to-earth, and like me, have high academic goals and plan to take difficult classes. I think I'll actually like it there, because I wouldn't be there if it weren't meant to be. Destiny, which seemed to have lead me away from UW, was actually leading me to it the entire time. And I'm a lot wiser for it.