By George Minkowski
With early-decision deadlines for college applications approaching fast, DHS seniors are clamoring to finish the application process. One might think this is an easy feat. Just apply to 5 or 6 schools you would be happy at and could probably get into. But for many seniors, the college application process means filling out dozens of applications to schools with prestigious names and hoping the more impressive ones on the list send you an acceptance letter.
There are three types of schools one applies to; match, safety, and reach. The distribution should be one where the majority of schools an individual applies to are ones where the applicant fits in with regards to GPA and standardized test scores. These are match schools. In recent years, people have been cutting down on applying to these schools for the reason that they wouldn’t be excited to tell their friends they just got into a school that is filled with people with similar academic achievements.
Deerfield students always want their friends to think they are smarter than they actually are. Furthermore, they want their friends to think that they are smarter than them. The list of schools one applies to is the best measure of this. Filling your list with schools with prestigious names is a great way to assert your intelligence and hopefully make others feel inadequate.
“I’m applying to Duke, Stanford, [the entire Ivy League], Vanderbilt, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa… oh, and Pomona.” said Senior Samantha Barr, becoming quieter as she named the schools the college counselor actually recommended she apply to. For individuals like Samantha, her greatest expense in college will not be tuition, but instead application fees. “It’s worth it,” she says, “to have everyone know how well I did in high school and on the ACT without me directly telling them.”
Most of the talk among seniors during these few weeks is comparing the list of schools you are applying to. A standard conversation starter is “UCLA, MIT, Wash U…”
In the event someone names someone else’s safety school, it is commonplace for that individual to interrupt their friend and tell them they just listed one of their safety schools. Then, that person pretends they didn’t mean to say that and halfheartedly apologize.
