Other Things Worthy of Your Time
Letter to Boston College
1/23/04
To the Boston College Office of Undergraduate Admissions,
I apologize for the delay in your receiving my Supplemental Application. The reason was that I had believed to have submitted the form online, months ago actually. Obviously, as I’ve found out from the letter I received, this wasn’t the case.
I’m not sure if my apparent regard of deadlines, or should I say, the apparent lack of, is considered by whomever is reviewing my application, but if so, then it should only add to my already lackluster attempt at being accepted to an institution that I’ve placed at the top of my list of prospective colleges (which has now actually become the only college on that list), because of the fact this school—BC—isn’t known for lacking in anything.
Whatever experiences and successes I’ve had in high school have always been interpreted to me as being at the highest level of my age potential. I’d always been told I was working hard enough and would be rewarded for it. The problem was, I was being judged by the standards of the people around me, and by the criteria for what their idea of ‘success’ was. There was truth in the notion I was at the top of my class, and would have worked my way up whatever ladder I found in whatever college I would attend—the likes of the University of Montana, Montana State, and yes, even the great Carroll College in the bustling metropolis of Helena, Montana. Oh, what esteemed institutions indeed!
These were what I was being prepared for, and what I was being made to believe was my niche in the country. That’s the problem with small-town life in the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t born to be naively hidden and accept ‘success’ in the ranks of insignificance. I mean no offense to these schools but when compared to the likes of many institutions of higher learning in the country—such as Boston College—the offense is evident without anyone needing to expose it.
BC, in particular, caught my eye Junior Year, as I was originally from New England. I always had a place in my heart for the city of Boston above any other (something about a certain baseball team there), and saw BC’s Theology/Philosophy course lineup as one of the most impressive in the country, easily. Still in the confinements of small-town ignorance though, it wasn’t until a good part of the year had gone by that I attempted to raise my goals to the next level—a more appropriate one—and it wasn’t until this year and the actual move to a bigger school with higher standards that I realized how petty my experiences and successes had been.
This is why my application has plagued me, with the lacking grades and course lineup of my first few years of high school, with my less than satisfactory test scores—compared to those of the students BC seems to be looking for—and with my rocky application process because of my unknowingly late supplemental application. On paper, which is the only depiction the admissions people will have of me, I look more like a charity case than the potential benefit to the Boston College community I intend to be, and far from the ‘success’ I aim for.
I’m not a charity case though, nor am I the lacking prospective student some of my first- and second-year grades or the recent application blunder might possibly portray me as. What I am is a formerly misinformed mind that now is beginning to understand what real success is, and that attending Boston College will be an integral part of it for me.
Thank You
NOTES
22,000 people applied. 2,000 got in. I wasn't one of them.