Dear High Schoolers, Time Is Precious

I'm a second-year undergrad at the Colorado School of Mines, and I haven't thought about my SAT score for ages. In fact, I've forgotten what it was. I also couldn't tell you how many AP classes I took, or how many 5s I earned from them. My high school academic endeavors saved me credits, and therefore money, but they don't affect my day-to-day life. Despite this, during the month before I published this essay, millions of high school students reached their highest stress levels of the year taking AP exams and turning in IB papers. For many of these students, there's an immense discrepancy between how much we prioritize academics in high school and how much they actually matter. Why are we doing this to ourselves?

In 11th or 12th grade—I can't remember which—I found myself sitting in an unfamiliar high school with truly impressive amounts of mucus cascading from my nostrils. This circumstance was especially awkward because I was in a room full of other students taking the SAT. I'd already taken it, but I was trying again, unsatisfied with my previous score, and no mere cold was going to prevent me from improving. Unsure how to discreetly extract the snot with an already-soaked tissue, I attempted to use the tissue as a glove while pinching the albumen-like liquid and pulling away from my face. This was comically ineffective. A proctor noticed and offered me more tissues.

Gross, right? But not nearly as disgusting as the inane grindset imposed on high school students by corporate entities like the College Board and reinforced by society's obsessive veneration for the top 1% of postsecondary education institutions. Many of my classmates spent their high school years overemphasizing the idea of getting into a "good college." Anything less than an A was a calamity. Some extracurriculars were taken up for enjoyment; others were chosen to lengthen the lists in our Common App accounts. On Reddit, we could find more extreme versions of ourselves jokingly offering to exchange their firstborn children for 5s on their AP exams. Our main focus should be acceptance into an elite university, we subconsciously assured ourselves. After that, our path to wealth and happiness is secured.

Wealth and success stem from attitude, ideals, and unfortunately, other factors outside your control. However, those factors are mostly independent of which university you attend. Life is not measured by test scores, grades, or some other numerical proxy for worthiness, but is rather guided by intangibles like discovering what brings you fulfillment, spending time with people close to you, practicing skills you'll need for your career, and enjoying opportunities that won't come again. High school develops those intangibles; allowing college worries to overshadow them oversimplifies the purpose of high school.

The misunderstanding of purpose extends to college, too. In high school, it's easy to become so focused on college apps that you forget why you are applying in the first place. Most people, once they understand their motivations clearly enough to articulate them, will find that a lesser-known local school can meet their needs just as well as a prestigious one. Both enable you to enter a field that requires a degree, to discover the joy of spending four years with other young people, or simply to act on your belief that education is intrinsically valuable. All these universal rewards are more important than the university-specific ones.

Of course, some universities are undoubtedly better than others. Compared to me at Mines, an undergraduate with the same major at MIT will enjoy a much-improved networking profile which will probably lead to a higher-paying job. They'll also have more research opportunities, sponsored by a larger endowment. I confess that I'd be going to an elite university now if I had been accepted to one. But if earning these benefits equates to spending class time and free time on increasing numbers rather than learning, it all becomes very difficult to justify.

This doesn't mean things like grades or the SAT are unimportant. I'm only stressing that they instantly lose their importance the moment you submit your enrollment deposit. In contrast, other high school pursuits cultivate personal growth, an asset whose importance never fades.

So, if any overachieving high school students have happened upon this little essay, I ask you to use your last pre-college years well. You'll never get to go to high school again. You'll never get to be a teenager again. Don't burden yourself with relatively short-term concerns. Go do stuff. Make the most of it.