Favorite Teen Problems
Jun. 26th, 2006 04:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricevermicelliThe kids, today, are having trouble with colleges. They can't figure out what they want or where to apply.
I selected the colleges I applied to by aiming darts at my hometown on a map of the U.S., and then applying to colleges near where my darts landed. Since I have terrible aim, after I wrote off the darts that landed in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I was pretty much applying to colleges in California.
Someone recommended the Princeton Review's Counselor-o-Matic, and being a responsible adult, I went to check it out. I fed the dang thing my information from back when I had information (I used my actual SAT scores where possible, my actual high school, my actual major and actual talents - what talents there were, which is to say, not many). The thing spat back three lists of colleges. For some strange reason, Harvey Mudd was on the "good fit" list.
Which makes me think that the Princeton Review is broken. Me, with my grades, my interests, and my talents, could maybe have gotten in to Harvey Mudd if the dean had been interested in blowjobs from applicants. And even then, I'd have had to fight my way through the crowd of applicants willing to give blowjobs who were actually interested in majors that Harvey Mudd offers. And then I'd have flunked out.
The Princeton Review's recommendations didn't get a whole lot better. They suggested that I could, perhaps, apply to MIT, or RPI. Scripps did show up on the list somewhere or other. It was way far down though.
So in case anyone's wondering - Counselor-O-Matic is fucked in the head. That is all.
I selected the colleges I applied to by aiming darts at my hometown on a map of the U.S., and then applying to colleges near where my darts landed. Since I have terrible aim, after I wrote off the darts that landed in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, I was pretty much applying to colleges in California.
Someone recommended the Princeton Review's Counselor-o-Matic, and being a responsible adult, I went to check it out. I fed the dang thing my information from back when I had information (I used my actual SAT scores where possible, my actual high school, my actual major and actual talents - what talents there were, which is to say, not many). The thing spat back three lists of colleges. For some strange reason, Harvey Mudd was on the "good fit" list.
Which makes me think that the Princeton Review is broken. Me, with my grades, my interests, and my talents, could maybe have gotten in to Harvey Mudd if the dean had been interested in blowjobs from applicants. And even then, I'd have had to fight my way through the crowd of applicants willing to give blowjobs who were actually interested in majors that Harvey Mudd offers. And then I'd have flunked out.
The Princeton Review's recommendations didn't get a whole lot better. They suggested that I could, perhaps, apply to MIT, or RPI. Scripps did show up on the list somewhere or other. It was way far down though.
So in case anyone's wondering - Counselor-O-Matic is fucked in the head. That is all.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Meh...
Date: 2006-06-28 04:24 pm (UTC)Went I went to Jen Baylor's wedding last year, all of her Scripsie cadre had trophy husbands who sat there like lumps. They were married yet they didn't dance together, talk to each other, nor did the husbands mingle with any unknown people. If you weren't actually TOLD they were married, you wouldn't have been able to guess they had even come together. It was like they all got taken out of storage, spruced up for the occasion and then promptly placed in the corner and ignored the rest of the evening, totally creepy.
Children are simply the most acceptable renunciation of all that pesky selfhood, but husbands and careers rank up there as well. I don't actually mean to impugne marriage, I've simply had too many classes about marriage, family, and divorce. It's scary.
Re: Meh...
Date: 2006-06-28 06:58 pm (UTC)So what are the available self-affirming activities?
Re: Meh...
Date: 2006-06-28 09:10 pm (UTC)Self-affirmation is a state of being, in my opinion, and any activity that one does or any part of one's life can be self-affirming. This includes marriage, children, and career. It can also disclude those things. Self-sacrifice can be self-affirming. The difference is perhaps in boundaries. Being a social worker is who I am, it's the most self-affirming part of my life. Giving that part of myself up for something less affirming would be unacceptable to me.
I've known people whose highest affirmation of self in their role as a parent or spouse. I've also known those who removed, subsumed, or killed a part of themselves to fit into a role someone else prescribed for them. Both have the potential for harm. I prefer to believe that we're all trying to live our lives in the best way we know how and that even maladaptive behavior can have its strength.
I'm no paragon of absolute selfhood. I'm still trying to figure out parts of who I am and I feel like I'm so far behind in a some areas that I have to find those parts without any tools or supports. I'm not comfortable with making decisions without knowing the outcome first and I'm even more uncomfortable realizing that about myself.
It always seemed to me that the Scripps ideal (or whatever it was I thought the Scripps ideal to be) was something I could never aspire to without giving up essential parts of myself, so I suppose I assumed no one else could and still be happy. Of course statistically speaking, that must be untrue.