How the best can be better

Point of view: you are a senior in high school drowning in a plethora of Advanced Placement courses, serve on leadership for varying extracurriculars, and train for your varsity sports team with whatever little time and energy you have left. Yet, you know somehow that all of this dedication and hard work is the bare minimum to get into one of the highly acclaimed University of California institutions.

This viewpoint is my own high school experience. I worked very hard during that time and it drained me. Yet, I did not feel like I did enough. At the time, I knew that my grades and my accomplishments were good, but they weren't unique enough to stand out amongst thousands of other applicants. Additionally, my standardized test scores were average and barely enough to get into most UCs.

A picture of me (bottom left) at the California Speech and Debate State Qualifiers. This was one of the activities I was heavily involved in during high school.

Due to my circumstances and the competitive public university system in California, I felt that I needed to highlight my adversities and trauma to prove that I was deserving of a spot in the incoming freshman class at one of the campuses. The only issue was that I don't really linger on traumatic experiences in my life or let them define me. I felt frustrated that I had to share these personal experiences with unknown university officials who would judge if my experience was "traumatic" enough to justify my admission. I did not feel like the application process for these campuses accurately reflected the type of student I was and had the potential to be. However, I do feel that I got lucky and ended up at the perfect school for my situation, which was the University of California, Davis.

Regardless, thousands of students apply to California universities under the same rigid standards. Many applicants like first generation students and ones with fewer educational and financial resources don't know the tips and tricks into submitting a good application. Additionally, not all of these students end up at a school that is accommodating to their situations. The college journeys of three close friends from a rural town in Texas, displayed how even the brightest of students who overcame many hurdles in their path to a higher education, struggled to graduate once they made it to college.

It is important to submit application to not only the right schools, but to make them competitive as well. These admission results have a significant effect on defining an individual's self-worth. It is no wonder that schools like Downtown Magnets in Los Angeles have to hold "rejection parties" to try to shift the negative tone and high stress associated with college rejection letters.

The college admission process at varying institutions may be able to better the education of students by implementing more holistic admission processes. These processes should consider more than just grades and test scores. For the University of California, applicants submit the same application for each UC even though every institution is vastly different from the others in location, campus cultures, and specialties. Additionally, the stigma and obsession associated with college rankings by varying news reports does not help in placing students at campuses that are best suited for their circumstances. It may be beneficial for universities to care less about their ranking and shift their focus towards creating admission processes that recruit suitable students for their institution.

Many individuals feel compelled to go to certain institutions because they're ranked higher than others. Judgement for not choosing to attend a higher ranked institution can come from strangers, friends, and even family members. My younger brother experienced this judgement firsthand while choosing to attend between UC Irvine and higher ranked UC Berkeley. Additionally, some Hispanic students feel more of a sense of belonging at UC Merced versus other UCs because the student body consists of students who share similar backgrounds and this reduces the stress of a shocking academic chapter for many first generation students.

UC Davis highlighting the school's ranking on it's official Instagram page.

It may be beneficial for colleges to incorporate more "fun" questions in their admission applications. Since actual interviews with every applicant would be unfeasible for many colleges, questions on applications could serve an interview or survey-type energy. These types of questions may be able to better gage what student would fit best at an institution. These questions could even be presented in a Buzzfeed quiz type of format that would help the applicants see what school is best for their situation as well. Processes like this incorporated with other procedural aspects of the application process may help students find the school best-suited for them.

Screenshot of quiz question from Brainfall's "Which University of California Campus Do You Belong At?"