Easily.
So the time to start looking at colleges has come around, and I've been dreading it for the past year. It's time to kick our fears of commitment in the shins,bust out the dusty transcripts, and find a single defining moment in each of our lives that we can embellish just enough to make it a riveting college essay. However, the most daunting task of all, the one that parents and guidance counselors and Collegeboard relentlessly beat into our heads, is that we need to dissolve all the misconceptions and silly fantasies we may have about the future and settle on a practical major, at a reputable school not too far away from home. The distance from home thing really isn't a huge issue for me-- it's not like I want desperately to flee from my lovely, but tragically boring hometown or anything, but I've got another bone to pick with all those grown-ups out there who feel they know "what's best" for their kids' futures. Lets start with a question:
What happened to your sense of ambition? If you answer that it's been trampled by the recent economic deficit or some other tragic incident in your life, I feel bad for you. On the other hand, if you say its still alive and kicking, I have one of three responses: 1) You're a filthy liar 2) You are a hypocrite or 3) You're in denial. If you really have aspirations, and believe in the power of optimism and dreaming, you would never stifle that very same spark in your children by advising them to "play it safe" in the game of life. You would never tell them that their chances of succeeding in life are far lower if they go to a slightly less famous, but still prestigious college than if they went to the college of YOUR dreams. You would NEVER kill the joy of learning withing your kid by telling them that they don't know enough about what they want in life, and so they should just follow your master plan.
I'm sorry if going to Harvard isn't your child's dream, and I'm sorry if you have some delusion about said dream-college being perfect and every kid coming out of it being set for life. Truth is, it doesn't matter where you go to college; whether or not you succeed in life relies solely on the person and his or her abilities. Believe it or not, there have been people who graduated from Harvard and didn't achieve all their life goals. That doesn't make them any dumber than anyone else who graduated, nor does it make them any smarter than people who didn't graduate from Harvard, but are doing what they love. All that matters is that in the end, you succeed, and that's on YOU. Like the greatest antagonist in literature's history (Iago from Shakespeare's Othello) once said, "Reputation Reputation Reputation is the most idle and FALSE implication".
So every statistic and article that has said otherwise can take my words and shove it u--I mean... can graciously take them into account.
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