As mid-December nears, the specter of EA/ED admissions decisions nears with it. After we seniors have written essay upon essay about ourselves, our accomplishments, our inspirations, and our favorite schools, the drawn-out, torturous time of anticipation now slowly—and oh-so-painfully—nears its end.

It’s not that admissions decisions are all we care about, but we have been…how shall I say this? Freaking out. To be fair, this is not a perpetual, all-consuming freak-out. At least, not on most days and not for most people. But when we do freak out, it’s not the best feeling.

Recently, an overwhelmingly intelligent and confident friend of mine was participating in the aforementioned freak-out. Let’s call her UnnamedShortFriend. To reassure UnnamedShortFriend, I told her something like this: you will be fine wherever you go.

UnnamedShortFriend is extremely bright, takes initiative, challenges herself, and although she jokes about being mean sometimes, is kind and clearly cares about other people. She is one of the hardest workers I know.

I told UnnamedShortFriend that I know the applicant pool from Ridge is especially strong this year—shout-out to Ridge Class of 2016 for having the highest average GPA in school history!—

but that she is just as formidable a candidate as many other people. I told UnnamedShortFriend that just the fact that she’s good enough to be seriously considered at her top choice colleges says something about her. I told her that I think she’s very likely to get into one of her top choices, but that she would still be successful without a degree from an elite school.

As Clare Halsey ‘16 notes, although we all want the best education possible, attending a top school doesn’t guarantee anything: “A lot of kids and parents in a super competitive district like ours get caught up in the prestige associated with the name recognition of certain schools, but you don’t need to go to one specific school in order to be successful.”

I went on to tell UnnamedShortFriend that if she really feels that awful about going somewhere a little less prestigious, she should think about this: she is such a strong student coming from such a strong school that she’d be at the top of the class at most of her safeties and targets. That means good job prospects.

And besides, as Clare goes on to elaborate, “College and then post-college work-related adventures are humbling experiences. If you are a bright and tenacious person, you will be successful wherever you go doing whatever you love to do.”

And UnnamedShortFriend is all at once a bright, a tenacious, and an adventurous person. I believe people like her will prove Clare’s hypothesis correct.

Of course, there is yet another factor: “I’ve worked so hard, I just want it to have been worth it.” And to that, I told UnnamedShortFriend to keep being herself, because that’s what made her so awesome and so proud of herself in the first place. And there is also still the factor of “But I think I’d be happier/a better fit at School A.” And to that, I told UnnamedShortFriend that she is the constant variable in her future, and that she is resilient and likeable enough that she will find the happiness wherever she goes.

UnnamedShortFriend, I think, is the prime example of a student who really made the most of high school, and she does not have to go to an elite school in order to prove that. What’s to prove? Why do we so often insist upon using admissions decisions as standards by which we measure the potential or value of a teenager?

As Mary Zhang ‘17 puts it, “Who cares about the definition of a successful high school student? If you’re happy with what you’ve achieved in high school, that should be enough. If not, then you have some stuff to do. You could get into the college of your dreams and still feel empty. Success is whatever you want it to be—limiting that definition to high school is silly.”

Srinivas Mandyam ‘16, also reluctant to define a high schooler’s success, instead lauded the outlook of some of the most impressive people he knew. Come admissions decision season, many high schoolers become wrought with regret, believing that oh, if only, if only they’d just done Extracurricular A or applied for Award C, then maybe, oh maybe the admissions committee would have loved them just that small, necessary bit more. Srinivas denounces such toxic thinking, stating that “what separates the most successful people I know from so many high schoolers is that they don’t feel the pressing need to do for the sake of doing, to struggle for the sake of struggling.” Why?

Because they realize that what’s most important about high school is becoming someone they are proud of, someone who worked hard and who learned as much as possible and who pushed himself or herself to do better, someone who committed to something, someone who grew, someone who was kind and conscientious and who didn’t give in to the monotonous minutiae, but instead was someone who, come college essay draft time, they were kind of proud to write about.