Getting accepted into college is the equivalent of having thousands of weights lifted off your shoulders. All the work you have done for the past 12 years has paid off. I didn't just get accepted into a college, I got accepted into my top college with a huge scholarship each year. I was never in an honor society, I never crammed in AP classes that would be useless to me later on, and most of all, I never conformed to the people telling me that I need to do these things to get into college.

Everyone always told me “Do honor society, it will look good on your resume!” and “Make sure you take four years of math and science, colleges look for that on your transcript.” I refused to listen to these people trying to get me to do these classes and programs because I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do. Why would I want to join a group of “honorable” kids who don't actually care about helping, but care about just getting pointless credits instead? National Honor Society is a fascist system of education that makes children believe that they are somehow better than others. If it is your thing, good for you. I hope you enjoy it. But I didn't need that in my life and I especially didn't need it to get into college.

My philosophy when it came to school was to try my best and take the classes that I am interested in. Of course, I was forced through the core classes I had to take to graduate. Once those were out of the way, I took classes that I personally felt would help me later in life and in college. Getting my letter of acceptance clarified that I did the right thing.

High school guidance counselors don't know what colleges want. For example, my sister was bound to go to an art college. When she was making her schedule for senior year, her guidance counselor basically tried to pressure her into taking a fourth math class, saying that is what colleges look for, regardless of her major. A few weeks later she went to a pre-college program at an art college up in Maine. She told one of her professors what her guidance counselor said to her and he straight up laughed in her face. “You most definitely do not need math if you want to pursue art.” Her professor told her. From this moment on, I always knew to not necessarily listen to what others tell me to do, but rather do what I think is right.