Late Night College Essay Party

Hey guys.

I will spare you the details, but between being exhausted from losing an hour of sleep this weekend, being stood up by a cadaver lab instructor, and figuring out that the honors college application due Friday was FAR more extensive than I previously thought, Monday wasn't the best of all days.

However, as a result of the aforementioned realization about the college application, I cranked out a college essay in the last hour or so that turned out pretty well and I thought it was blogworthy. The prompt was to write about the importance of academic excellence in 300 to 500 words, and this is what I came up with. (It's 500 words exactly. I was proud.)

Academia Nut

I failed my first AP Calculus test.

The red score at the top of the page might as well have been a stab in the heart as I, the hardcore intellectual, the straight-A student, the never-less-than-a-B-in-the-class academic, stared in bewilderment at the tear-jerking failure in front of me. My specialty had always been English, but I normally excelled at everything, whether it be poetry or trigonometry. But there it was at the top of the page, a blazing twenty-three out of fifty, a sobering reminder of my inevitable fall from perfection.

Test corrections were available, and I managed to bring my grade up to a C— small comfort for a girl accustomed to acing exams. Nevertheless, I maintained a positive attitude and a B in the class. Everyone has bad days, I thought. Mine had to come eventually. It won’t happen again. Blessed with a wonderful memory, I had never had to study for tests, particularly not math tests, but in fear that the devil grade had been a result of my neglect, I practiced several problems prior to the next test. I would not have my near-perfect grade point average ruined by something so petty as an inability to integrate differential equations.

I got a D.

One sub-C grade in a person’s lifetime is permissible, even if that grade does happen to be less than a fifty percent. However, two scores on the wrong side of the Bell curve is enough to threaten your status as a nerd for life.

The next assessment arrived shortly after in the form of a low point-value quiz. While I managed to scrape a B, the elusive A, the mark I truly craved, evaded me still, despite much practice and study. Test corrections and routine homework assignments kept my grade in the class tottering on the edge of a B and a C, but I might as well have been tottering on the edge of a cliff overlooking a pool full of piranhas. I was ashamed of the few B’s I had received in my high school career, and one C would surely jeopardize my chances of ever gaining admittance to the college of my choice. In my distress, I did what every tough go-getter does— I talked to Mom.

She said she wasn’t worried about it.

I eyed her with disbelief. This woman who got A’s all her life, the valedictorian of her graduating class, doesn’t care that I might have a C in the class?!?

“Are you doing your best?” she asked.

I nodded.

“That’s good enough for me.”

I was awestruck. Never in my life had my best been anything less than an A, but maybe, just maybe, this time it was all right.

What is academic excellence, anyway? Is it getting A’s, or is it throwing yourself wholeheartedly into your work, learning everything you can, and accepting whatever grade comes with your effort?

I still haven’t gotten an A on a calculus test.

Somehow I’ll go on.