Hello everyone,
My name is USNAgolden2014, and I have been on these boards for about 3 years (I think lol, the last three years have been one crazy hyperactive blur compared to the three that preceded them). I guess I should start with some background info. I go to a ridiculously uncompetitive high school. We don’t have weighted grades, only 50% of the graduating class of 500 goes to a 4-year university, and the average ACT is 22. However, I don’t live in the ghetto, people just really don’t care much about anything. MO is one of those states lost in the middle of the country, we are here, but few outsiders seem to realize it.
So, in the middle of sophomore year I started my college search with absolutely no preconceived notions or ideas, save for one glaring exception. I was set on attending the US Naval Academy (hence the username). Of course I didn’t come to CC for the USNA solely. You see, there is a “back-up” program of sorts in case your academy dreams fall to pieces, and that program is NROTC (Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps). NROTC pays full tuition, fees, books to any one of 150 Universities in America. You attend University X for 4 years and are then commissioned into the Navy as an Officer. Essentially, you get a full-ride to a school of your choice.
After over a year of painstaking USNA research, I switched to college research as I became more interested in NROTC and a non-USNA future. Luckily(?), NROTC units are only found at the 150 Us mentioned above, so while I could attend Harvard, Cornell, UPenn, Duke, and another 146, I could not attend Columbia, UChicago, Dartmouth, Yale, Princeton, Emory, Johns Hopkins, and many more. In effect, my college search had been significantly narrowed before I even had the chance to learn anything about the process. However, at the time it wasn’t a big deal. I barely even knew anything about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, let alone Columbia, Brown, or Rice. With this list of schools in hand, I arrived onto the CC boards, and oh what a world it was.
College Confidential, the source of seemingly everything you could ever need or want to know about college, from roommate selection to what admissions essays worked, this place had it all. I can still remember reading some of the chance me threads and quivering at the thought of someday “competing” (so to speak) with people of this caliber. A caliber that I had never dreamed imaginable. Only on CC can you find a 15 year old doing cancer research at Johns Hopkins and the world’s best teen salsa dancer, both of whom have 36s and 4.6s (of course). I printed off these profiles as a way to see the possibilities open to me if I only aimed for the top and accepted nothing less than the best I could do (note that I say, the best I could do, not get into the best universities, as every veteran CCer knows, the world of college admissions is a world of caprice, hard-work, and luck, nothing is guaranteed).
And so it began. I decided that four years at the academy wouldn’t give me the freedom that I desired, so I switched all of my attention to catching up with all of the nation’s other best and brightest in pursuit of the elusive “dream school” (Georgetown at the time I believe, how things change). I revolutionized my life and my world perspective using CC as my guide. I went to my state’s governor’s school (best 3 weeks of my life), attended leadership conferences, soaked up international relations seminars, took college classes, traveled to Europe, served as only student representative on a school board charged with the rebranding of a district of 13,000 students, served as a tour guide alongside D-Day veterans, formed clubs dedicated to furthering my passions and helping my community, assumed major leadership, and loved every minute of it. I learned that life is not only what you make of it, but how you see it and how you work to change it. I will not lie and say that everything that I have done I have enjoyed, there are many clubs which I wish I could have just quit midstream, but that is another valuable life lesson on commitments which we all have to learn at some point. I found that every time I aimed higher, I achieved my goal and could go even further. I found that life has no true limiters other than doubt and gravity.
My high school itself has not been all that great, but the network of friends that I have formed in my community through all of these extracurricular involvements is one of the greatest groups of people that I could ever imagine. CC is the reason that I aimed for Harvard not Mizzou, Stanford not Truman, and even though Stanford crushed me like no other entity could, I moved on. I survived. And I thrived. I took my Stanford rejection, and through my network of friends, found something inside myself that I thought I could never recover. I found hope.
Hope in the fact that no matter where I end up, I know that I have become something that no college, corporation, or collective can decide the fate of. I make my own destiny and I find my own path to success, and that path is not located in California. That path is located wherever I want it to be, for I am it’s surveyor, constructor, and overseer. CC has taught me not only what magnificent heights one can reach, but also the terrible lows and blows one can endure. CC has shown me that resilience is a trait without equal. It alone can carry you through your darkest days.
I know that CC has helped to make me the person that I am today, and I proudly tell people that I am attending Duke. Practically the only person in a class of 500 leaving the state for a top 50 school, I know that all of my efforts have been worth it. The hours combing the boards for SAT tips, sleepless nights before SAT results where I would wake up every 30 minutes thinking they had (finally) been posted (it was horrible), essay anxiety, admissions countdowns, school comparisons, and, of course, absolutely pointless chance me threads. These trying experiences and blissful conversations helped to illuminate that which was dark and allow me to continue constructing my path.
Along the way, I have also learned that you’ve only got one life to live and a string of accomplishments doesn’t mean anything when the lights are off. It all comes down to how you feel and what you want to do. A desire to succeed is a major part of my personality, but over the last four years, I’ve also learned that I have a lot more to offer society than just my brain. Almost every kid on CC at some point has to deal with the negative stereotypes that accompany academic (effort at my school lol) success. If you are intelligent you must have no social skills, or you must suck at sports, and you definitely have never had a girl/boy friend. And to all of those accusations, you just have to smile and realize that this person’s pettiness cannot get you down. Your world is comprised of whoever and whatever you like. Choose people that make you think, thrive, soar, laugh, dance, sing, and smile. Don’t ever allow someone else to define you. You are whatever you choose to be.
<pre><code>I would like to thank everyone on College Confidential for contributing to this amazing “project” that we loving call CC. I surely would not be going to Duke with my NROTC full-ride next year if it wasn’t for all of you guys. I found a dream school, a school in which every aspect of it meshes with me in a radiant harmony. I love each and every one of you. Continue to help others aim ever higher, for your work here pays huge dividends out there, even if it takes some time.
I have so many more things that I could say, but I have to conclude at some point, and this parting of ways seems appropriate now. Every kid grows up, and I finally feel ready to enter the world and blaze some trails.
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Continue to share the veritas et lux,
Indebted forever,
D
