The College Experience

By Jordan Figueredo '13

Every student, from their first day as a high school freshman, dreams of being a senior: the “kings and queens” of campus. 

When the seniors at Palmer Trinity get their senior polos, it is a surreal moment. 

With all the luxuries that come along with being a senior, such as the shirts, the senior chickee, personalized parking spots, and more, there are also several disadvantages to this monumental year.

Everyone always says junior year is the worst year of high school, and that is believable…until you are a senior. 

You have finally reached your goal of controlling campus but as soon as you begin filling out applications ,you realize you may never see very familiar faces ever again. 

Along with this melancholy feeling that is in the back of your mind at all times, you also become consumed with stress. 

Between applications, supplemental essays, college interviews, pressure from teachers, parents, and college counselors, along with re-taking the dreadful SAT and ACT exams a few more times to get the most impressive score possible, every senior wishes they were again an underclassman.  

A very opinionated senior Roberto Morean said “the juniors have it easy, it may be hard to believe at the time but, when you’re stuck with school work, applications, extracurricular activities, scholarship essays, and auditions, you barely want to even wake up in the morning.” 

My personal experience has been similar to the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This film is about invaders replacing human beings with duplicates that appear identical on the surface but are devoid of any emotion. 

I’m sure this has occurred for many other Palmer Trinity seniors. We aren’t ourselves; we have been taken over and are unrecognizable. The college process has consumed our beings and made us into monsters.

Every morning there are at least ten seniors with Starbucks coffee recovering from a all-nighter, trying to submit an application last minute, or catching up on homework.  

There is also a competition factor that for some consumes them. You want to go to school with your friends but you don’t want them taking your spot, and some people go to great lengths to ensure they get accepted. 

I constantly compete with friend and peer Preston Michelson, since we are applying to the same schools for the same major. There is friendliness to the competition, but in the end the college process has made us all self-absorbed and selfish. Some people thrive with competition while other simply fall apart. 

Now that it is second semester, the stress has eased up but now the waiting game has begun. Everyone wants to get an acceptance letter from his or her top school but that is not everyone’s reality. 

There are many days when I am overjoyed, but then moments later I am overwhelmed with tears. We try to keep in mind that there are other schools out there, but getting that letter that says “we’re sorry” is like a bullet to the head. 

We, as students, put too much importance on what college we go to, when in fact it won’t define us later in life, what we accomplish will define us. 

Seniors need to enjoy this incredible time in their lives and live in the moment because next year, it will only be a memory.