Do You Regret Not Applying to Harvard?

"What if you got in? You would be at Harvard."

Not once did I regret not applying to Harvard. Or any of the Ivies. I was rejected from Columbia, regular admission, after pulling my early admission application from the early admission pool (however I'd like to assume those two occurrences are mutually exclusive).

I don't regret the lack of grade inflation I deal with now. I don't regret the lack of immediate "wow's" and "ah's" and prejudgements based on me saying where I attend.

I learned two things from being in college so far; two things tightly related to this.

First and foremost, grade inflation is rampant in the Ivies. Students who go there know that, faculty there know that, students who don't go there know that, faculty at other universities know that, my mom knows that, the media knows that, my deli sandwich maker knows that. It absolutely makes me think, "wow, I could've just worked my ass off in high school, easy ass high school, gotten that weighted 4.3 GPA instead of my lousy 4.1 and gone to Harvard, then just be set for the rest of my life". You know why that mindset exists? Harvard, like the Ivies, is a name game. That name will follow you for the rest of your life and define who you are as a person because of what everyone else in the world associates it with. Which gets me to further thinking. What if I never knew what it was like to get a bad grade? In high school, I never got a bad grade. Like ever. I have this conspiracy theory that high school teachers pin "A students" and "B students" and "C students" etc. and then give those grades to each appropriated student. But then again, who am I to diminish my own hard work and intellect? Just a theory.

Anyways, my high school thrived off of grade inflation. How else would we be nationally ranked as one of the best public high schools? I never learned the sting of defeat, of failure. There's this quote, one of my favorite quotes in existence from Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, but this is not exact: If one is denied the emotional sting of failure, how do you expect to ever learn how to win?

That resonated with me so. fucking hard. I read that book over the summer before junior year of high school. And that is exactly why I will never regret grade inflation. Struggling to keep my grades up - and let me tell you, when I say struggling I mean that I'm literally fighting Satan's grasp dragging my grades to Hell right now- is what is shaping me into the person I want to become. I'm becoming a fighter, not so much as I was back in the days as a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I feel a sense of pride when I get back a C+ or B+ for a test I studied my ass off for instead of waking up one morning, cramming for 20 minutes, and getting an A. I remember more things now. Failure brings such a sting that it engraves mistakes into your mind. When you correct these mistakes, you not only remember them, but you remember what it was about it that you did wrong and how you fixed it. More importantly, you remember the right way now, because you remember the mistake. It's ironic how that works, isn't it? But think about it. It works.

Zero grade inflation is teaching me hard work. It's teaching me anxiety. Depression. Stress. Discomfort. And it's teaching me how to cope with those. How to move on. How to turn my negativities around. I needed this school to take me off my silk pillow. It's funny because people complain that BC is all about not giving out A's, curving downwards, meeting "C" quotas, especially in the sciences (and physics for that matter). I used to complain about it. Used to.

Second thing, but definitely not any less important than my first point- The Name Game. BC is acclaimed, on the rise, a "new Ivy" as they say. At first, I was excited by this, by it's extensive alumni base, by it's quickly rising prestige. Good for you Harvard, Columbia, Princeton, Yale, BC. Applause. However not once will my own, birth given name be listed amongst "Prestigious Universities"...because I am not a university, I am a person. So please, humble me, and tell me, WHY THE FUCK DO I CARE WHAT THE NAME OF MY UNIVERSITY IS?

Like I mentioned briefly above, it's because of what society, you, have mentally linked to those names. Damned connotations. So unarguable in fact, so undeniably true that I cannot change those connotations alone. Someone one day will try to hire me and look at my resume and be like "Oh wow, she went to BC. She's smart. Oh wow she's a biochemistry major. And a studio art minor? Does she do it all?"

And after that, I'll be hired. Maybe they're a BC alum, maybe they thought I was good looking in the interview, maybe they were impressed by my grades or resume. I'll be hired, I'll work there for a bit, maybe a while, maybe move up a few positions or move around to a different department. I don't know, I can't say. However one day, I'll decide to leave...maybe for better opportunities or a high position or pay. I don't know.

However, what I can promise you is that after that, the name of my university will be useless to me. I'd already have job experience, maybe I'll have a grad school name somewhere in there, maybe two, maybe some research experience too. But that resume isn't going to be "oh look a BC grad", it's gonna be "Oh fucking shit look, it's Her. It's Her. She wants to work here. And that portfolio she put together all by herself too, damn it's flawless."

And then, I'm hired.