I’ve got a confession to make: I’m terrified of college. 

Okay, that’s a bleak way to start this. College applications are exciting, don’t get me wrong. In a matter of months, if not weeks, avenues leading to whole new lives sit in front of you expectantly. Adulthood. Independence. Freedom. You’ll move away, meet new people, discover new interests and become smarter and happier. 

But what they don’t tell you about the world expanding is how much lonelier it gets. I know a handful of people unsure of which college to commit to, weighing the academics of one against the atmosphere of another. And for those who have an idea of where they want to spend their college years, most have not declared a major. Combine that with the suppressed thoughts that you’re leaving your current world behind… It gets overwhelming at times.

The whole decision process– the most expensive investment in your future– reminds me a whole lot of Sylvia Plath’s fig tree analogy.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the excerpt I’ve linked, I’ll try my very best to summarize it:

Each fig on a giant tree is a different life. In one, you could be a psychologist. In another, a musician. A third holds hopes of being a surgeon, the fourth a professional snowboarder, the fifth and the sixth and… you get the point. But as you sit at the bottom of that tree, unable to cement your future and pick just one fig when life is so vast and exciting, you’re losing time.

I think applying to college feels a little something like that.

You have your whole life ahead of you, and it’s terrifying and exciting and dreadful and liberating.

After all, you’re not just choosing your major or college, you’re choosing your new home. One so deeply different from the life you’ve built.

In my experience, applying to college feels like committing yourself to one future forever. No second-guessing. No take backs.

But I’m here to challenge that thought. Does it matter where I get my degree? What I study?

The most important thing college, and any life experience for that matter, teaches you is to examine who you are.

I feel there’s a class system in the college world, one that glamorizes schools with extremely low acceptance rates. For instance, more than half the people I know took the SAT more than once, most are in clubs simply to beef up their college application, and nearly everyone I know has taken an AP class at some point in their high school career. 

You’d think they’d be set for any college they want, yet every senior I’ve spoken to has at least one school they’re certain they won’t get into. They’ve done so much preparation, yet have so little confidence in their abilities.

What about the most expensive investment in your future is a competition? What makes college applications feel so all or nothing? 

Growing up, my parents often stressed that the colleges they attended had virtually no impact on their careers. In fact, one of their most successful friends never graduated from a university.

Now, I’m not saying Ivy League schools aren’t impressive. Getting into places like CalTech or Harvard is extremely hard. And if you’re thinking of an Ivy League or something just as hard to get into, you should be extremely proud of yourself.

I’m simply saying that this pressure to make college applications into a competition is too great.

College is not an identity and yet we treat it so often as though it is. I think your merit matters more. I think your character matters more. I think committing yourself to your future, no matter what that looks like, matters more.