This week, I have written a combined total of six hundred and fifty + five hundred and fifty + three hundred + two hundred and fifty + four hundred + fifty + fifty + one hundred and fifty + one hundred and fifty + one hundred and fifty + one hundred and fifty + fifty + fifty words for college applications. I still have to write six hundred and fifty + five hundred + three hundred + three hundred + three hundred + three hundred + seven hundred + five hundred words. Equivalent to six thousand three hundred and fifty words.
I decided the most fitting thing to write about this week was how many times I have cried, with photographic evidence for a few of them, and the reason behind each time. This last week, my parents have probably seen me for a grand total of 45 minutes. I leave the house every morning before they wake up and come home after around the time they go to sleep. This is because I have basically been living in Nichols Library’s Huddle Room 1. That huddle room has seen quite a few people cry (not name dropping me, Isabella Chew, Ria Pande, Ashley Chen, and Jessica Huang). I think I have developed a newfound hate for writing and word counts. As of this moment, I am sitting in a room at my mom’s office instead of my WIN session, hoping to crank out the rest of my supplements so I can submit my applications before the Common App starts crashing.
I miss school and I miss my friends; maybe I will start crying again today because of that. If I do, I will make sure I update the blog. Now, let’s take a journey through the month of October.
October 1st. I started the first morning of the first day of the month with an absolute banger crying session. I had to take the SAT that day, my birthday was the day before and I was so stressed the whole day because all I could think about was how I would have the worst three hours of my life the next day. I was emotional the whole day at school, I was thinking about reading section tips through the Crosstown game, and was silent at my birthday dinner with my dad and my sister. I also missed my mom. After I took the SAT, my friends and I went to Olive Garden where I had what was probably the most depressing meal of my life. Overall, it was the most mid day of my life and it foreshadowed the vibes for the rest of the month.
October 5th. I was so stressed that week that I popped a blood vessel in my eye. I do not remember why I was stressed but I think it was something to do with calculus and not being able to think of any ideas for my personal essay. It was a very short yet crucial crying session because it was from that day I realized that I needed to get grinding on college apps.
October 7th-8th. I cried in the break room at 11pm after my shift ended on Facetime with Soohyun and Izzy (reason: secret). Later at 2 am, my friend Facetimed me upset and I started crying because she was crying (this exact thing also happened on the morning of October 2nd).
In the middle half of the month, I do not recollect any huge crying sessions. Maybe I had some mini ones. If so, they were probably irrelevant since I didn’t document them in my snap memories.
October 21st. I cried to my manager at work in front of Mia because there was no way I would could come in for a six hour shift on Saturday and stick with my college app timeline.
October 22. I cried in the car with my dad while he drove me to Mock Trial practice. He told me to stop being stressed because even if I get in nowhere, I can still go to College of DuPage or Benedictine University. I almost cried at the nail salon with Ivy because I really just wanted to get my acrylics removed as quickly as possible so we could go to the library and write our supplements. But, they decided to give us the longest spa experience they could possibly think of. Later that day, I was sitting at a cafe with Louisa and I started crying because I was overwhelmed about my Michigan supplement. I was kind of expecting that one.
October 26. A few friends and I left school after 4th period so we could work on apps at the library. A few hours in, the combination of Zach telling me applying early action to Michigan can hurt my chances + Daniel telling me he doesn’t trust my edits, my BeReal caption is more eloquent than my personal essay, and that I should put a pin on any halloween parties I was planning on going to go because my supplementals were just the bad led me to have a solid five minute breakdown in Huddle Room 1.
October 27. I realized I had to write another essay for Lit.
—
Just realized I met the word count. Goodbye. My UVA supplemental is waiting for me.
Thanks for spending 700 words with me this week!
I wonder when the pendulum will swing back–maybe not all the way back as this isn’t a world without air and friction–but back to normalcy when it comes to college applications and admissions. I was thinking about how many schools require additional statements/essays/extra stuff and I thought–why? And then it dawned on me. Schools require more because more students are applying. I imagine that of the countless schools students apply for they have ZERO desire to go almost 1/2 of them! Even though Iḷisaġvik College has a business admin degree, do I really want to go to a college in a remote part of Alaska that becomes impassible on the roads during the winter? I long for the ‘good ole’ days’ when students applied to 5-7 schools. When they do, colleges won’t need to create as many hoops for students to jump through. And… if they do, it will be easier to respond to only a few prompts. For now, grab some tissues, grab some coffee, and maybe on November 1st, grab some sleep.
Hi Meg! I loved your blog this week. It was super realistic and I enjoyed (not sure if that’s the right word) hearing how much you actually cried. Maybe a better way to put it is sympathized – I would consider myself a person that cries a lot. I tend to process my emotions, big strong, good or bad emotions by crying. I liked how open you were about it, and how transparent you were when talking about crying. I know that’s something that can be really hard for someone to talk about to others, and the fact that you are so open and… maybe not proud, but outspoken about it, it’s really nice to hear someone else talk about and be unafraid to talk about it. I am really proud of you for that confidence on a topic that most people will try to hide and shy away from. Personally, this past October has been one of the worst – slash – most “mid” Octobers of my life. With United States college applications, as well as every teacher seeming to give out giant projects two weeks before they were due, it’s been a really stressful time. But I’m glad we were both able to push through it. Thank you so much Meg, and I can’t wait to read from you again!
– the other Meg
Hi Meg! I am so sorry you have experienced such an emotional month! Congrats though becuase you did it, and hopefully things will start to return back to normal for you! If I am being honest though, this is the most real blog post I have read because simply I can relate to it. I too have cried more in the past two moths than I probably have in years prior. But that is ok because we have gotten through it. It especially doesn’t help thorough when parents or outsiders share things like “Everyone is going through the same thing, so why should it be different for you” or something like, “don’t stress about college, it doesn’t define you”. As you can tell, when someone tells me this I cringe and have the urge to punch them in the face (I don’t ever do that though). For people like us, college means a lot and where we go means even more. So because our care is higher the more stress we put on ourself. I hope you are beginning to relax though and go back to the things you enjoy doing. The first thing I did after I submitted my college application was cleaned my room because I simply haven’t had enough time to do so, and boy it felt so good to have a clean room. I hope things work out for you in the long run with college!
Meg, I completely relate to the amount of stress you’ve had over this month (I’m sure all seniors have cried an unusual amount this October). First of all, I sincerely apologize that you had to take the SAT this fall because that must have made things 100 times more stressful on top of work, school, essays, and social events. No matter how it went, at least it’s over with and you hopefully never have to take another official SAT again. I hope you’re more relaxed now that early applications are over. I’ve also been a mess this past month and have had horrible sleep and habits because I stressed way too much over my personal essay. I feel like there’s so much pressure over it and it’s so hard to come up with a satisfying idea. What you said about writing a better BeReal caption than supplementals was so true; I constantly feel like I’m capable of writing, but when I start my essays and read them, everything seems so weirdly worded. I think having a breakdown every now and then isn’t a bad thing. It’s good to get it out of our systems since pent-up stress doesn’t do wonders. If it’s reassuring, I love the way you wrote your blog post and you seem to have a good hold on language and writing, so I’m sure your applications went well.
Hi Meg! I resonate with this way more than I would like to admit. I really took advantage of the ditch day tuesday and I wrote 1 eight hundred word essay, 1 three hundred and fifty word essays and 2 two hundred and fifty word essays, all before 11:59 struck. I am also a ridiculously emotionally person and rarely go a week without crying over something minuscule. I can relate to your hatred for word counts. I usually find myself over by a minimum of 50 words and the time I spend trying to cut back om my work is fairly comparable to the time I spend actually writing the essay! On another note, happy belated birthday! I do not remember the last time I went to Olive Garden but I could really go for some unlimited breadsticks at the moment. I think I am going start taking note of every time I cry, this is definitely something I would do so I am not sure how I haven’t thought of this before. That said, I will very likely start crying again when I reread past breakdown journal entries because I would get flashbacks and become upset all over again. I know so many people applying to UVA; my friend Samuel has that’s his top University so while I know absolutely nothing about the school, I know you will get in and even if that is not where you end up going, you will do great things wherever you end up!
I like your introduction! The repetition of numbers really gives a dire tone to your story. I also like that you’re including photographic evidence, it makes your narrative very silly. I remember during that week I was in the same situation as you. I was practically living in my room just writing or thinking about what to write. Word count tracker on the side of my google docs, it was all very tiring. But at least after all of this we’ll be free. I also took the SAT in October and it was a pretty mid SAT, I didn’t go anywhere after though, I just stayed home. I like how most of your paragraphs include you crying, as well as people that you have cried in front of, it’s a very silly way of showing your pain. I also remember being really stressed about my shift while doing college apps, but also I realized it was my fault for not trying to take the time off. I think on that day I tried to faint during work so they’d let me go home which didn’t go as planned. My boss literally did not even ask me if I was okay; he just ignored me.