As college decisions arrive, my dreams of a successful life have begun to crumble. My only college decisions are a couple of pathetic Regents invites from mediocre UC schools and a rejection from Brown University. This often makes me contemplate on what I could have done to bolster my flawless early application to Brown, a decision I made after ten minutes of research on their website. 

But I want to know what my rejection was premised upon. Did my painstaking efforts in spewing countless high school clubs onto my application not suffice? Do admissions officers hate my extracurricular activities? Was I not genuine or original enough with my supplemental essays, which I modeled after online samples?

At this point, I’m going through a midlife crisis wondering why I didn’t get into the school. Of course, being an Asian male and all, maybe affirmative action blindsided admissions officers to throw my application into the rejects pile. Regardless, my parents have already disowned me and shed tears of emptiness and pain when pondering about my future. 

I often see acceptance reaction videos on YouTube, looking at inferior candidates having their melodramatic moment while they see confetti showering down on their screens. Turns out, their statistics barely surpass mine, since there’s practically no difference between their 4.4 GPA and my 3.78 GPA. I mean, they both round to a 4.0. I’m pretty sure the seven Bs I received out of the useless AP classes I took would’ve counted for higher marks if Diamond Bar High School used a weighted scale. 

Moreover, they only scored 40 points higher on the SAT than I did and got 800s on two SAT subject exams, useless tests that people spend hours and hours studying for. I scoff at people who excessively waste their time studying—time that could’ve been spent doing something infinitely more valuable: researching for college.

Looking at clubs and activities, my rival seems to have the same, if not fewer, extracurriculars than I do. I guess the admissions officers considered clubs outside of school as more meaningful and heartfelt, placing their value higher than my extensive club work: checking in members for hours at events and picking up minuscule pieces of trash off the floors of recreational parks after children’s parties. 

I always thought high school internships were useless since you never fully decide what your future goals are this early in life. Kissing up to people with established jobs simply destroys my self-esteem and doesn’t foster my occupational skills anyways, since you basically do busy work the company is too lazy to address. Admissions officers seemingly disagree, but I honestly don’t know why. 

 OK, maybe I should be less bitter. The student was a star varsity athlete, gained academic awards for their excellence in class, and was the class president for four years.

Sure, these are grand accomplishments, but aren’t they pointless in the future? Who’s going to ask whether you were an athlete in the past or got useless pieces of paper for being a teacher’s pet anyway?

Now that I think about it, there’s really no use in complaining about this issue further; it’s not like my rants would change the admissions decision. Let’s be honest, I deserve that spot more than the sorry candidate who got admitted instead of me.