Getting High

It’s not weed. It’s not cocaine and it’s not marijuana either. This is a different kind of high. I might say it’s better than sex but I lack experience in that certain area of topic. It is the high of rising above all rejections, problems, insecurities and coming out on top. My friend Prayag says it’s indescribable and I agree. We cannot describe something that pure and jolly.

This came up when we were discussing our college admissions the other day. Prayag as informed speaker as he is was telling me about a student from Nepal who got accepted to Dartmouth last year. He said and I quote “An acceptance into Dartmouth made it all worth it. All the rejections, the deferrals, the denial and the humiliation all seemed so petty at that moment. That made it all worth it. His meteoric rise from the ashes of denial will be the reason he will be remembered.  If he was accepted in other colleges it wouldn't have been the same but he wasn't and that made it all fruitful.”

As always I nodded with agreement and it got me thinking about it. What kind of feeling could he have felt at the time? Is anything equivalent to that? I don’t think so. All that hard work and pressure surely paid off when he got into an Ivy League school. He got his ultimate high then but what about us? What about the other people here on earth? When will we experience such a high? Well, for now we are still searching.

I for one am thinking that that kind of high will come to me in the short future. I have a hunch about it. It may be similar to the guy above. Since, I am applying to college this year maybe I will get into an Ivy school too. (heheh!) But seriously speaking about the stats of college application to American colleges from Nepal: it’s troubling. Some people get into Ivy’s while some have trouble getting into Community colleges. My school is the Nepal’s top school if we count the number of students studying A-Levels i.e. 200. The disappointing news is only 10% of total students in my batch are applying to US colleges. Only 20 of us out of 200, certainly we are pretty shaken up by admission stats.

The average applicant from Nepal stands with a 3.5 GPA and asks for a financial aid package worth around 2 crores if we quote another friend of mine Pradeep. If that is not an indicator to low success rates of college applications than what is? If we go to SAT scores and ACT scores we are in a better place as it seems we score a tad higher than average Americans. We are especially better at mathematics as students usually cross 650 out of 800. We have more catching up to do with Critical Reading and Writing Sections though.

All this said and done even if we have stellar applications there are only few institutions that provide reasonable financial aid to us Nepalese and our choices narrow down. Consequently the lists of colleges in Nepalese college application are same. At this stage only the best candidates get the prize and it suits the Nepalese model i.e. let the better man win.

Well, all of this came up since its college app season and I have been neck deep in it. Piled with supplements and what not and best of all SATs and TOEFLs. As I said, earlier college application might be my ultimate high. I hope yours might be better.

Until you get that ultimate high, Happy hunting!