As Spring unfolds and the college admissions process comes to an end, it becomes clear how competitive Andover students are. My friends and I have spent far too much time stalking our favorite seniors’ Instagram bios trying to figure out what colleges they will be going to, then subsequently searching for the acceptance and graduation rates of those schools. We don’t do this with the intent of being judgemental or overcritical, but out of an innate desire to compare ourselves with others. The truth is, we are so intimidated by the possibility of not getting into our dream schools, and the pressure from our peers, our parents, and especially ourselves, obstructs our ability to appreciate our short lived time at Andover.
From my very first week at Andover, I knew that for the next four years, my life would be dedicated to getting into a top ten university. For the past two years of my Andover career, I have observed that a lot of Andover students desire to fit into this perfect mold we have created of what colleges want us to be. It often feels like our futures are doomed if we are not tri-varsity athletes, on the boards of a million clubs, have 6.0 GPAs, and have too many internships and volunteer hours to count. For this reason, we often find ourselves applying for board positions or even running for leadership positions such as prefect or cluster representative, even if we do not care about them. I believe that to an extent we have become robots who crave validation and are not passionate about any of our commitments.
When we create an environment where we are so concerned with filling up our resumes rather than fulfilling our passions, Andover students begin to ignore the things they genuinely want and even need to do. A lot of us end up disregarding activities that we genuinely love because we have deemed them unimpressive. We are so consumed by this need to be the perfect student that we give no value to ensuring that we are happy or that we are properly taking advantage of our time at this school. So then the question becomes, is it really worth it?
When we look back on our high school experiences, we will regret the fact that we dedicated so much of our time to things that we didn’t care about. At the end of the day some of us will go to schools with a 3% acceptance rate and others will go to a school with an 80% acceptance rate. In the end though, we should not try to quantify our worth in such a way. College is not heaven, nor is it a direct gateway to all of your hopes and dreams. Rather than letting it become our lives, we should instead acknowledge that it is simply one part of our lives and should be treated as such. I think it is fair to say that most of us came to this school to find ourselves and be able to carve out our own paths. Our paths are meant to be unique and embraced. Just the same, the colleges that we look for should cater to our respective desires, regardless of national ranking. There is no college that will fit one mold of the “perfect Andover student” because there is no such thing. In trying to create this singular mold, we lose our individuality and completely disregard the dreams and aspirations of the people we once were.
This widespread mindset of fitting into the Andover mold is simply the norm. No individual at this school can single-handedly fix the system in which our campus culture has become so deeply rooted. However what I think we can do, is stop putting on a front and prioritize the things that will make our time at Andover worthwhile. All that time you spend sitting in a club board meeting for a club that you hate but “looks good on college apps” is time that you could be spending doing your favorite niche hobby like knitting. The time that you spend on a pre-college program that you applied for because you felt like your summer wasn’t going to be productive enough, is time that you could be spending earning money at a job that you want or can learn practical skills from.
Yes, there are positives to the competitive and determined spirits of Andover students. As we go through life we will be beyond disciplined and very hard-workers. All I am saying is that we do not always need to be so hard on ourselves because one day, we will end up at whatever university we are meant to be. As of now we need to motivate ourselves to cherish the short time we have at this one-of-a-kind institution, as well as the short time we have with each other.
