College’s First Lesson: Strive to Be Ordinary

A wave of teenage prostitution is sweeping our nation. From the largest cities to the tiniest hamlets, young people are selling themselves. The stakes are high. Their lives hang in the balance. Clutching a day planner and a ballpoint pen, they dangle their resumes as Harvard speeds by, and, oops, there goes Amherst.

Getting into the college of your dreams is truly a gamble. Millions of American teenagers are vying for the same positions at prestigious universities. These coveted spots are generally viewed as evidence of one’s achievement and the ticket to a successful adult existence. Desperate for the big acceptance envelope, students will resort to almost any means to make their fantasy futures a reality.

We are all desperate to crack the code. What do these schools want from us? Unfortunately, the answer is not cut and dried.

The criteria are overwhelming, but even those with a 4.6 GPA, stellar test scores and awesome recommendations tremble at the mention of college admissions. Why? Because admissions officers are impossible to please.

Take the personal essay, for example. One would assume that the schools are hoping for a glance into the student’s true self, a peek at each prospective collegian. Not so. Yes, they want a glance, but they want it their way. They want to be entertained. “Make me laugh,” I once heard an admissions officer say. “I just love to laugh.” I’m sure you do, ma’am -- at us, not with us.

Not only must the essays be humorous, but we must also touch the reader. If you’re lucky, the admissions officer will be so torn between the hilarity of an oh-so-natural anecdote and the depth of your genius -- and then be moved to tears while fighting a chuckle -- that she will amiably toss your application onto the “maybe” stack. Of course, the essay mustn’t be cliched, trite or use any standard phrase or colloquialism. Even though the topics assigned by the universities generally are cliches, 17-year-old writers are expected to transcend the limitations and soar to creative heights.

Wait, that has a catch too. The essayist must not sound as if he or she is attempting to be clever and original. Our prostitution must be subtle, or the classier customers will be driven away.

Extracurricular activities are another major focus of the dreaded admissions committees. It isn’t enough that high school students struggle through Advanced Placement classes and wade knee-high through essays and projects. We are also expected to pack our schedules full of meetings, practices and as many commitments as we can handle without suffering a nervous breakdown.

As an active person, I have never had an issue with this last qualification. Imagine my horror, then, when I was informed that overachievers are equally doomed. Apparently, universities fear that these students spread themselves too thin, and their efforts and activities are discredited on the assumption that they don’t have enough energy to dedicate themselves fully to every commitment.

In addition to finding the perfect balance of extracurricular activities, students are told to ace their SATs. So aim for 1,600? Think again. Colleges love to reject applicants with scores of 1,600; it allows them to tout their exclusivity. If you fall somewhere in the 1,490 to 1,590 range, you might stand a chance.

The mixed messages that colleges send us are as irritating as they are perplexing. It’s hard to walk that tightrope of being involved but not too involved, smart but not brilliant and original but not desperate.

After all this, I have concluded the following: Be the middle ground. You may be applying to the top 10 universities in the United States, but they clearly want you to strive for glorified ordinariness. The irony astounds me.

Emma Cofer is a junior at Rosary High School in Fullerton.