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?"

Celebrate nothing

I was sort of taught to never celebrate my accomplishments. It was never an explicit teaching, but somewhere in my childhood, I was taught not to celebrate myself. I was told that it could be like bragging or showing off. For some reason, I have always been concerned with this attitude about what other people thought of me or how I presented myself. But there was also another side to it. There was always another thing to achieve or that I needed to sustain that success. For example, when I would get an A in class, my parents would ask why I didn't get an A in all my classes.

I mentioned this story in class a couple weeks back. It is about when I got my first acceptance to a law school. It was about a week after Thanksgiving, and I was a couple hours into my work day. We did not have that many clients scheduled for the morning, so I took that opportunity to do some prep work at my desk. A couple minutes later, I got an email from Santa Clara University stating that I've been accepted to their J.D. program. I spent about another 10 minutes re-reading the later. I felt like I made a mistake reading it or just some mistake in general because I did it. I made it to law school, after working towards it for the past several years. I quickly told my co-workers and my supervisors (they were the ones who wrote me my letters of recommendation) and they expressed congratulations and excitement for me. 

When I told my parents, their first response was to ask whether I had heard from the UCs yet. That kind of brought me down to Earth a little bit. It served as a reminder that I should not get too excited about my accomplishments. 

There has always been a certain expectation of academic excellence within my family and even community. Amy Chua reached national attention when she published her book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, coining the phrase "tiger mother". In her article, What is Tiger Parenting?, Marisa Lascala defines a tiger parent as someone who sets extremely high academic goals for their child and drive their child relentlessly to achieve. One of the things that stood out to me in this article is she noted that "once each goal is reached, another is immediately set, so there is no break from the parent's demands." That single line really summarized how I felt with my grades and getting into law school. It was not enough that I got an A in a class or that I got into a law school. There was always something more to strive for.

That's kind of a habit I maintained throughout law school. I never really celebrated my accomplishments or even recognized that I had any accomplishments. In retrospect, I wish I had celebrated a bit more. Law school is difficult enough, both mentally and emotionally. I think we need to find the bright spots in this journey as often as we can to help get through the challenging and low points. 

In retrospect, getting into law school was a pretty major accomplishment for me. It was a big decision that I made on my own and I was the one who got me to law school. Of course, I had help along the way, but for the most part, I did all the heavy lifting to get myself there. I went to college because everyone else went and other parents would just tell my parents what to do and how to do it.

Law school was different because I did not really know anyone else who wanted to go to law school. I had to figure that out on my own. There was no support or someone I can turn to for help. I did my own research. Law school was not something I had to do. It was something I set my sights on without any outside influence. In fact, my parents felt that I should have become a teacher because they saw it as a less stressful profession. But I did it anyways. For the first time in my life, I had a goal that I set out for myself. It kind of felt like my first big decision of my life. When it came to college, it was not really a question of if I was going to go. It was where I was going to go. 

When it came to picking a  college to apply to, I did not really know what I was doing. I was just doing what my friends were doing, what my parents told me to do, and what I was told to do by teachers and administrators. I was doing all of this because I was supposed to, not because I strove to do so. That is why I kind of regret, not celebrating getting into law school a little more. I resent the expectation not to celebrate cause it seems like bragging or that I always compare myself to others who I may see have achieved a bit more than me, so they are more deserving of celebration.