My Entry into the Boarding School World
I started my application process quite near the deadline. A pile of inquiry booklets lay before me, none of which I ended up reading, to schools about which I very little other than their reputation. I was applying out of necessity and, at the time, I felt my chances at acceptance to schools of such prestige were minimal. I thought of them as places only for those who had won innumerable international awards in academia and athletic competitions and had debated with world leaders on modern issues with which our various nations are confronted. After all, I had only heard a few comments about them, each concerning their grandeur and place at the top of the secondary school pedestal. Presidents had gone to one, Nobel Prize Winners to another. These were the nations top schools. One even took up an expansive amount of text real estate in a major US newspaper.
"Why," I thought, "should a high school have such recognition?"
The answer came simply, "They are places for the children of gods." I had no faith in my intelligence and ability to thrive in an academic environment and I cannot help now but to chortle at the analysis I developed about my chances of admittance based simply on offhand comments by unaccredited sources (and I cannot help to use that word without sounding elitist). Throughout the year I continued to deceive myself, often proclaiming to my mother that I would never get in. I'm sure others believe that their chances of gaining an acceptance and later garnering a diploma to be small, but don't let the prodigious names or low acceptance rates fool you. Looking back I can give the applicants of 2010 some useful information about how to maximize their abilities and capitalize on their experiences.
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