Yale.
If I remember one college I’ve wanted to go to since I found out I can do better than community college, is Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Even when I was barely starting high school, I’d already set my goals. I wanted to study Political Science at Yale. And of course, I was conceited enough to think that since I’d met most of my goals until that time (a.k.a, I’d never been rejected from a school), I could do this one just as easily. It even ranked high above Stanford, which was the school I told most people I wanted to go. (And foolishly thought I could get into.)
Why Yale? Apart from it’s pleasing aesthetics, I felt it was a place I could belong. A school who prioritized learning, I already pictured myself among the students in the bookstacks, studying in a beautiful library that’d been there for a couple hundred years. I was breathing in its history and becoming a part of it. And what’s better, Yale’s great for Political Science. Presidents had gone there, and if you don’t count the fact that they’ve also educated Bin Laden, that’s pretty cool.
I was also conceited enough to think that if I sat back and basked in my prodigious intellectual glory, that I could just sit back and watch myself get into the top school in the nation.
It didn’t help that I got a pretty little postcard in which they told me to consider applying to Yale.
But then application came time and the harsh reality set in. Sure, I was a minority, smart, and low-income, but they still didn’t care for me. Well, it’s really not their fault. It’s mine because I thought that I could work half as hard as my potential could reach and still get in.
I looked over my high school credentials, hoping to find a flaw:
AP French
AP Spanish
AP English Literature
AP English Language
AP Biology
AP U.S. History
AP Calculus
Honors Physics
Honors English
Honors Chemistry
Honors Pre-Cal
Honors Geometry
Honors Alg II/Trig
And believe it or not, that was pretty much most of the Honors and AP classes my school offered, save for AP Art History, AP Studio Art and AP Dance Performance.
I passed all my APs, but the problem wasn’t that.
It was the grades I had in each. Trusting that “weighted” would mean “freebie,” I let all my grades drop to Bs. So really, I had like a 4.17 weighted at best. Not enough for Stanford. Much less Yale.
BUT….
God has always pretty much looked out for me, as much as I refuse to believe it. I gotta give Him some credit though. Although I pretty much act like an atheist pretending to be a Catholic most of the time (don’t get me wrong though. I think God’s there somehow. We just have a different, less formal type of relationship. or whatever), I have to admit that he’s gotten me out of some really bad situations without me even realizing it.
- When I was not admitted into a program called QuestBridge, which basically attempts to match up low-income students with prestigious colleges like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, etc., I blamed God for it. I was angry to see that someone I knew, whom I selfishly but accurately believed to be of less intelligence, had gotten accepted as a semi-finalist in the program, and I hadn’t. I moped for days. I was angry at the fact that if I had gotten into the final round of this program, I could’ve had a full ride to one of these colleges. December was rolling around by this time, so I decided to check out which applications were due. It turns out that one of my colleges had a December early deadline if you wanted to be considered for a scholarship of any sort. I figured, what the hell. Nothing mattered now. There went my best shot at getting into an Ivy League.In February, one rainy day I spent indoors with the flu from hell, I went outside to check the mailbox. I looked through the mail, separating it into what was for my mom, for my dad and for me. I had a few envelopes from random schools telling me to apply–in the middle of nowhere. I finally came across a large envelope. I turned it over. It was from USC. I immediately thought it was from the financial aid office giving us information or something, so I dismissed it as such and threw the envelope on the couch. My mom asked if she should throw it away. I almost said yes.
But curiosity struck me; I took the envelope and decided to read what was inside. And when I did, I almost didn’t believe it.
“Congratulations! You’ve been accepted….”
It took me a while to process it. It honestly didn’t make sense. How could I have an admissions decision so early in the cycle? I read another letter that accompanied it.
“You are being considered for the Presidential Scholarship, which grants half-tuition to students…”
It was a blessing my family needed badly. With a scholarship, it was a lot more possible for me to go to college. All I had to do was do well on my interview.I went back to school and the news spread like wildfire. I was the first person in my class to be admitted to college, and to a top 40 school. Girls whose top choice was USC ran up to me in a panic, wondering if admissions letters were already being sent out this early. Most took it as a bad omen that they hadn’t heard from the school yet. One day, as I walked down the hallway, I ran into the person who had gotten into Questbridge. She told me that only one person from our class had been selected to go to Amherst. And that was it. She wasn’t selected. And what’s worse, the program’s contract had a binding clause:
Any applicants of QuesBridge cannot apply to any other school Early Action, and therefore they must attend whatever school they are accepted into.
Because of this, she wasn’t able to apply early action for any scholarships.
A few weeks later, I went to my interview. I anxiously waited, watching students come in and out until I was the last one left. Then, my interviewer came out. She was the same person, by some workings of fate, who had interviewed me before, so she already knew me well. They asked me more questions about my goals and what I’d done. I told them about my trip to Washington D.C., my dreams of working for the government and going to law school, my plan to further Amnesty International’s goals on campus, etc. She seemed satisfied. She spent the latter half of the interview giving me information about a new minor being introduced:
Critical Approaches to Leadership (which is now one of my two minors.)Weeks later, I received a response.
I wasn’t a Presidential Scholar.
I was a Trustee Scholar with a full ride to college. Somehow, I had been upgraded during the interview. Then it became clear. Had I gotten selected like my classmate, I would’ve not been able to apply for a scholarship. I wouldn’t have gotten my full ride. I wouldn’t have been able to go to college if it wasn’t for that full ride.
(Well, I could’ve, but a low UC or a JC.)
God was looking out for me. - Not only that, but he’s also gotten me out of some pretty bad relationships. There’s this guy I used to have a huge crush on that I felt was unfair because he seemed to like my friend a whole lot more. I thought he was pretty good for me, and resented the fact that he liked her better than me. I spent days groveling over how great he was, good looking, and how unlucky I seemed to be. We had a rocky relationship, on and off and filled with doubt. Still, I felt like it was my fault that I was making him unhappy. I felt responsible for everything that went wrong, and when I’d ask him to hang out (just the two of us), he always insisted on bringing other people. I felt like he didn’t want to just hang out with me alone because I’d be too boring.
It didn’t work out. I eventually graduated, walked it off, and went to college.
Now I find out he’s a guy who spends half his time drunk off his ass. Apart from that, he has psychological issues.
God was looking out for me.
I don’t want to keep ranting, but those are just two instances in which I think it’s been like that passage:
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from anguish,
sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints,
so I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”
The Lord replied,
“The years when you have seen only one set of footprints,
my child, is when I carried you.”
- Footprints in the Sand
But like I said, I’m not a religious fanatic at all. (See future ranting on fakeness of religion and corruption in church.) But that doesn’t stop my belief in how much God has protected me. And if he really is out there, I thank him for it.
(to be continued.)
