You have to go to college. You have to get a degree. Why? They tell you it's because you can't get anywhere without anymore. Maybe it's true. I don't know. I'm doing alright as a high school student working.
They press college on you. By they, I mean your parents, schools and even people you don't know. They tell you to keep your grades up in high school, colleges see that. Participate in everything, those will go on your college resume. Play a sport, colleges like athletes with good grades. Volunteer and do community service, that looks great on college applications.
You keep up your grades, you manage a 3.8 for 4 yrs. You are an active member of 3 clubs. You play varsity volleyball or football in the fall, play basketball in the winter, and you are a star on the softball or baseball team. Between all that you manage to have accumulated close to 300 hours of community service. Your resume looks great. But Harvard turns you down. Then Duke. What now? You might go to a local college. Maybe you just get accepted into the university nearest you. Don't you feel let down. Everything you worked for for 4years didn't get you to the places they told you it would. All seems pointless huh?
How about that ACT? Validictorian of your class, and your ACT score is only a 20 or 22. Maybe you are ranked 112 out of a class of 200, your ACT score was a 34. The 22 that was made will stop you from getting into colleges, maybe even stop you from getting some scholarships. A 34 would have gotten you somewhere wouldn't it? But your grades for the past 4 years don't mount up to that 3.5 everyone thinks you need. You have a 3.0. So who is to decide why that score matters so much. It is one test that can determine what you get and where you go.
Here's where we get stuck. Money. One book can cost upwards of $90.00 and then you have to pay tuition. Tuition itself will kill anyones dreams. So we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do we not go to college because it seems financially impossible, or do we take out loans and then end up in debt before we are working. Maybe we should apply for the millions of dollars in scholarships in hope that we get one.
You don't want to let anyone down. You want to go to college. Your parents didn't go, their parents didn't either. They want you to be the first generation to do so. Talk about pressure! Maybe you didn't get into that Ivy League they were hoping. But you do get into a community college. You are able to transfer to a larger university as well. Somehow it doesn't seem like that was good enough. But you are determined to make it through, because you can't do anything without a college education anymore.
We've had great grades since kindergarten, played sports, participated in lots of clubs, have over 300 hours in cummunity service, and we still don't get where they've been promising we will.
Makes me feel like a failure.
College isn't overrated, but the pressure to do everything possible to get in a great one is.
Congratulations to anyone who can make it into any college.
No matter how you did it.
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
I can't afford college. But I am brilliant when it comes to business management (I know because I've done it), politics, etc...Unfortunately, I do not have a piece of paper that promises I have taken IUL (Intro to University Life) which I have, and achieved the 100,000 dollar for an education mark...It ensures we are in debt, and whatever...Even with $18,000 academic scholarships my freshman year, I had $12,000 debt. I am a single mom, that's just not feasible for me.
here I am raising two children on my own, trying to go to school fulltime and work a job and then I had to take out a wonderful student loan that I hope to have paid befor I have to take out theirs. It seems like an endless cycle. But maybe that degree I am getting will pay off in the end. At least they will value an education and I will alway be there hero.