College applications are hard. They are especially difficult if you have had a good life and are decent at school and nothing dramatically noteworthy has ever gone wrong for you or those you love.
When I hear stories about other people's college essays, and their resultant immediate acceptances to Ivy League schools, I am always slightly jealous. Damn that blind orphan who now attends Harvard! How dare that girl whose father died of cancer last year think she has a place at Yale?
It's as if the prompts are designed specifically to sort out the true desolates from the wannabees.
"Explain the greatest adversity you have ever faced, and provide specific details."
Oh, give me a break. They might as well have asked, "Please give us your best attempt at convincing us that trying out for the field hockey team in middle school, and all related subsequent humiliation, was actually a big deal."
Don't get me wrong. I don't sit in my room and cry about my life not being adequately hard enough to provide a good essay filler. I don't write in my diary about how my life is terrible, because my life isn't terrible. But maybe, just maybe, I could experience a dramatic, though short-term, life event which would provide some real essay fodder? Just one little thing that could catapult me out of the ocean of mediocrity and into the sea of pity and anguish? Would it be too much to ask to have just one little almost fatal, hopefully painless and gentle, disease?
My feeble attempts to convince colleges I was actually worthwhile were, undoubtedly, looked down upon with disgust at my disrespect to those actually suffering. I imagine they can hear my nervous, pleading voice whining through the text.
"Uhm, hello. I am Emily Churchill and, uhm, I still have a right to go to your college. Just because I live in suburbia with my married parents and 2.4 siblings doesn't mean I'm normal. No, it doesn't ... right? But ... no, I am white. No, I don't qualify for financial aid. No, wait! Don't put me in the 'Denied' pile! No, wait, plea..."
For exceptionally uncompetitive, exceptionally ordinary people, among whom I count myself, the whole college essay writing process was one filled with long blank periods and empty Microsoft pages. I remember one time specifically, when my English class was supposed to write on a prompt such as the one above. I sat sadly and watched as my classmates, lucky jerks, happily typed up their life stories of woe and read them to each other, tears filling their eyes as they recounted their baby brothers being diagnosed with leukemia. I stared grumpily at my desktop, trying to convince myself that my dog being put down when I was 10 actually counted as the trial of a lifetime, one which set me apart from all the others.
I eventually decided that the best thing I could do was wow the essay readers, stun them with my magnificent charm and humor as they read my long-winded description of just how average I was. I cited national standards and explained how I fit into each one of them, then awkwardly tried to make the point that by accepting me, the school would be appealing to the "average American," and wouldn't they like the opportunity to do that?
Unfortunately, my plan failed dramatically. Of the two colleges to which I sent this essay, both rejected me. I imagined them laughing with mirth as they set my essay on fire, cackling as they watched the average person burn. Though this stung slightly, I knew it had been a gamble from the start. Then, of course, I set myself to the stereotypical task of convincing myself that I never actually wanted to go to those schools anyway; indeed, who would, if they were going to be so cruel?
Luckily, the University of Virginia was kind enough to look past my obvious ordinariness and to let me into the hallowed halls of the beautiful and the beleaguered.
Ah, well. Lesson learned. By the time I apply for graduate school, I hope to have ample stories of incurable diseases and tragic accidents to weave into juicy and alluring accounts which will leave me feeling on top of the world.
Emily's column runs biweekly Fridays. She can be reached at e.churchill@cavalierdaily.com.
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