Right now, I feel like a small helpless child, staring straight into the yawning jaws of the big bad wolf, moments from being devoured. This college process is so unnervingly different from anything I've experienced in life. It is surprisingly difficult to sit down and capture the very essence of exactly who I am, and what it means to be myself. Through this process, I've realized that I am truly figuring out how to uncoil the convoluted layers of my mind, and present it to the big bad wolf, all wrapped up in a nice little package tied off with a bow.
As a child, I was burdened with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. Opening a door meant grabbing the knob with both hands. Talking to someone directly meant staring at their feet so as to hide the shame of compulsively blinking as though sand were in my eyes. A playful staring contest in the school yard was like hell swallowing me whole, not to my burning, tear-filled eyes, but to my mind. My parents, fearing I would regress into some compulsive madness when it got so out of control, took me to Duke to participate in a clinical study. I was diagnosed with one of the most severe cases of OCD they had seen in a child in years, but fortunately for me, this did not become my weakness.
During this study, Duke opted to give me an IQ test. I was their 8 year-old guinea pig, and everyone expected the scores to reflect it. The guinea pig scored a 138.
As I write this, I'm not shuffling through mounds of transcripts or combing my mind to pick up every scrap of anything of merit I've done that maybe, just maybe, would set me apart from the thousands of others in my position. I am an AP student taking rigorous AP courses with thousands of essays, tests, and sleepless nights to prove it. I won first place in the Ossoli Circle Poetry competition for what was just my natural response to a friend taking his own life. I am the president of my youth group, and I represent it's ideals and opinions in front of an entire board of Methodist chairmen. I've sunk literally hundreds of hours into marching band, each one filled with intense work and the back-breaking pain of marching for hours on end with a snare strapped to my shoulders. The pain alone from the drum seemingly fusing with my chest and back, almost like an extension of my own body, day after day was more of a test of my resolve, and of my will to persevere than any AP courses I've taken. I could fill a resume full of my accomplishments, stacking it with powerful adjectives and primping myself like a prized show dog. But once its been read, once the activities and class loads have been analyzed, will it be known who I truly am? In the end, where do I fit in? I mean, I am the most important aspect to this formula, right?
I just listed multiple sentences of only a few points I could brag about. In any other essay, what I just did would be considered amongst the most shameless and belligerent manners of boasting. But is this not necessary? Is this not what the whole point of the entire college process is? What better way to present my achievements than this?
That is, unless that's not my point.
As Laertes, much like myself, prepared to depart home for studies far away, Polonius presented him with words of infinite wisdom:
"To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man."
That, no matter what, is my point.
I'll be judged. I'll be picked at and dissected like a rat, and if Im lucky, maybe some of the characteristics I hold most dear will be gleaned from the scraps. Maybe not. In the end, all I can pray for is that who I am, what I am, will shine through. My ACT score in math? 19. Science? 22. English and reading? 31. No one is perfect, no one is spread evenly across the top of the board. Everyone falters, and everyone succeeds. When working at the concession stands at Neyland Stadium, I have to turn to my friends to figure out the change for something as simple as a soda and a bag of skittles, every time. Yet, at the same time, I won first place for simply letting my pen do the talking. I'm not afraid of my science and math scores. In fact, I'm proud of them, and I'll wave them like a banner to show the world how I won't let that become my weakness. Not science, not math, not OCD.
I want to write. I want to fill pages with the product of my mind. I want to be bold, brash, and thought provoking. I want to take the mold and crumble it into pieces. I want revolutionize my entire evolving industry, making it better, and changing how people perceive it. And whats more, is that I know that I can and will do it. The point of this application is me simply asking for assistance, and to be equipped by only the best for what I will do.
Georgetown University holds a special, almost transcendental distinction in my college search. Seeing the breathtaking campus was enough to catch my attention, but my further research into the university was what firmly grasped my interests. I had never remotely considered having the opportunity to apply to Georgetown. I always saw it as just one of those schools that I could never even dream of being accepted to. An obstinate institution, towering over hordes of hopeful applicants waiting for their rejection letter. But when this whole process started, I found an unprecedented torrent of confidence and self-determination. As gushy and cliched as this might sound, I've never spoken truer words, ever. I found myself asking, "Why not me?"
I have ambitions that burst out of my very being, building and expanding with each word I write and each thought I process. At the young age of 17, I feel as though I'm clinching an entire, malleable Earth in my fist, bending, shaping, and sculpting my vision for what lies in store. This ambition is apparent in every aspect of my life. Not just on this application as some embodiment of character that I can conveniently jot down to better my image, but in the very actions that comprise my day to day existence. Its apparent in my writing, my speech, even the way an idea comes to my mind and it becomes my obsession to push myself until there's nothing left to achieve it. My ambition might not always benefit me. It might even become a downfall someday. But when that day comes, I'll hail my ambition even still, because despite my image, livelihood, position, or even well-being, my ambition will be what got me there. It will be what drives a student that has what could be arguably considered a disability for learning math to apply to Georgetown, a god among the academic white noise and echelons above what everyone would expect out of someone like me. It will be what drives me though my studies and sleepless nights to come. It will be what drives me to walk across the stage in four more years and not simply merge into a career field, but create one.
This steadfast, absolute self-assurance takes ambition and passion. It takes an unwavering ability to jump off the edge, and not hope, not pray, but know that the integrity I hold in myself and my natural talents will catch me.
No longer is walking out the door a task. No longer do I hide my face in shame. I intend to prove what a guinea pig is capable of. I intend to write this, and thousands more like it, and when the cursor is flickering at the end of the last word, "to thine own self be true."
I intend to look life in the eyes, and stare it down.
Without hesitation. Without a flinch.
