Dear Emerson,
On this almost-eve of your ACT, I have so many thoughts and feelings for you. I’m sure you’re getting plenty of those at home, hence why I decided to put mine in a blog post instead.
A lot of people love you. A lot of people want to see you succeed. And, spoiler alert, I am very much one of them.
You’re incredibly smart. You always have been. But sometimes, you’re also a little too laid-back for your own good. So as you walk into that testing room on Saturday, I want you to think about something bigger than a test score.
I want you to think about you.
Right now, it probably feels like choosing a college is some huge, irreversible, pressure-cooker decision. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a list. Everyone has a statistic, a ranking, a “dream school,” or a reason why one place is supposedly better than another.
But here’s something I’ve learned: prestige isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be.
And as someone who has transferred twice in her life, I can tell you something else: it is okay to get it wrong the first time. Life is not a four-year plan you have to perfectly execute at eighteen. Trust me. I’m the #2 child, so I guess it makes sense that I had to test that theory myself.
So, for a second, ignore the noise.
Ignore the people who tell you that you need a perfect score, a perfect résumé, the perfect college, or the perfect plan.
And please ignore the question, “Where can you picture yourself spending the most monumental four years of your life?”
Because seriously—who the fuck knows that as a high school senior?!
I have a different question for you.
Not: Where is the most prestigious place I can get into?
Not: What city sounds the coolest?
Not: Which school will make everyone else the most impressed?
Ask yourself:
What do I actually want to experience?
Open your eyes and look past the name on the sweatshirt. Look past the ranking. Look past the dining hall menu you saw on a campus tour.
Look for the places that have weird, specific, unexpected opportunities that make you think, Wait… I could actually see myself trying that.
Look for the school where you can join eight clubs and quit three and still have five to love. Where you can meet people completely different from you. Where you can stumble into something you never thought you would love. Where there’s a Starbucks to study at, a few shops nearby, some decent restaurants, and enough of a campus community that you actually have a place to belong.
As much as being in the Big Apple sounds like a dream to both of us, maybe save that feeling for grad school.
Because college isn’t just about where you live.
It’s about who you become while you’re there.
And here’s the part I really want you to think about.
People will tell you to figure out where you can picture yourself having the best time. Where you can see yourself making friends. Where you can imagine being happy.
And sure, that matters.
But I have different advice.
Not to be a pessimist, but you are going to be sad sometimes. You’re going to be stressed. You’re going to be angry. You’re going to be frustrated. You’re going to have days when you question everything.
That isn’t a sign that you picked the wrong school.
That’s life.
So instead of only asking yourself, Where will I be happiest?
Ask:
Where will I still want to be when I’m not happy?
Where can you cry and still feel like you belong?
Where can you be frustrated and still have something to look forward to?
Where can you fail at something without feeling like you’ve failed at everything?
Where can you change your mind?
Where can you try a new club, meet a new person, discover a new interest, and completely reinvent what you thought you wanted?
Because I know you. And like me, I don’t think you’re someone who wants to be locked into one version of yourself.
So don’t choose a place that only fits the person you are today.
Choose a place that gives the person you might become room to exist.
And now, you might be asking yourself: How the fuck does any of this relate to the ACT?
Well, like most of my stories, we’ve somehow circled all the way back around.
The ACT is just a test.
It is not a measurement of your worth. It is not a prediction of your future. It is not a definition of how smart you are. And it certainly isn’t a decision about who you are going to become.
If you want to study for it, study because you want to.
If you want to push yourself, push yourself because you want to.
If you want to pour your heart and soul into your college essays, do it because you have something you want to say.
Don’t do something simply because someone told you that you have to if you want to get into Harvard, or anywhere else.
And when you walk into that room on Saturday, I hope you remember that.
For those few hours, forget the college rankings.
Forget the city.
Forget the dining hall.
Forget what Mom and Dad or anyone elese thinks you should do.
Forget what your friends are doing.
Forget what anyone else told you that you should want.
Focus on you.
Because at the end of all of this, I don’t want you to end up at the college that sounded the best to everyone else.
I want you to end up somewhere that feels like yours.
And maybe you’ll get it right the first time.
Maybe you won’t.
Maybe you’ll change your major, join a club you never expected to join, make friends you never expected to meet, hate a semester, love another one, and become someone neither you nor any of us could have predicted.
Good.
That’s the point.
You have so much life ahead of you, Em. Please don’t spend the beginning of it trying to live the version everyone else has already imagined for you.
You’re smart enough to figure it out.
You’re capable enough to change your mind.
And you are loved enough to know that no test score, college acceptance, rejection, or decision could ever change that.
So Saturday, take the test.
Do your best.
And then keep going.
But this time, make sure the person you’re working so hard for is you.
Love you always,
Prequel
