Issue 6-Final

12 back page
How to Find
a New Dream
By AVA OLSON ‘21
If there’s anything senior year has
taught me, it’s that dreams don’t always
come true. I don’t mean to
sound melodramatic, but that’s reality.
The college application process
brings out the best and worst in people.
The best being the happy smiles of students
who get accepted into their dream school,
the worst being the gossip and competition
that emerge among those whose
wishes weren’t fulfilled on the first try.
In September 2020, I had lots of
dreams. I dreamt of owning a lakehouse
in Maine with two dogs and a
tabby cat. I dreamt of swimming off
the coast of a small European village. I
dreamt of attending Brown University,
majoring in Architecture, and becoming
a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.
I visited Brown in October 2019. I
Be sure to
check us out online at
follow us on instagram
took a campus tour, talked to students, and
absolutely loved it all. I knew in my gut
this was the place where I truly belonged;
I saw myself standing there at the age of
twenty, walking around the main quad.
But dreams, aspirations, and projections
into the future aren’t realities.
I applied Early Decision and was deferred
and then ultimately rejected from
what I was convinced was the only university
that checked off all my boxes.
For months I had people telling me,
“Everything works out in the end!” or
“The universe is on your side, and what
is meant to be is meant to be!” At first, I
believed all those silly mantras, but after
a certain number of rejections, I lost faith
in the whole “trust the process” mentality.
I still don’t necessarily believe that the
universe works out the way it’s supposed
www.hourglassnewspaper.com
@hourglassnewspaper
to in the end; there are situations in life that
will always feel unfair or “not supposed to
be this way.” However, I think that the obstacles
life presents us with should be seen
as new opportunities for accomplishing our
goals and not hurdles that would limit us.
Looking back, I realize that I was
far too closed-minded. I clung to a dream
from sophomore year; I clung to this dream
so tightly that I couldn’t even fathom another
dream existing alongside it. But
I now know there aren’t only one, two,
or even three specific “dream schools”
that exist in the entire country for an individual;
there are infinite opportunities.
I write this piece not to crush the spirits
or college aspirations of younger students.
Instead, I want to emphasize that dreams
can change. Not everything in life will work
out as planned, but there is a choice in how
you react. You can always find a new dream.
Photography by Megan Cooper ‘21
Design and graphics by Sophie Cai ‘22
First, most students today
are capable of accessing countless
credible sources for college information.
There’s information available
for school rankings, comparisons,
and student experiences. The
self-advertisements that colleges
send out are utterly ineffective and
useless, as they only highlight the
positive aspects of a school instead
of being objective measurelavender’s
lens
College Mail Sucks
By LAVENDER HUANG ‘22
In the spring of junior year,
college is on all of our minds––
and the endless college solicitations
hardly relieve the stress.
These constant emails from colleges,
along with brochures in
the mailbox each day, make up a
pointless advertising campaign
that treats high-schoolers like
commodities, not future students.
Sure, you can argue that I
don’t like a lot of things; I have a
whole column of things I don’t like.
This influx of college mail, however,
has been seriously annoying. I
can’t tell you how many important
emails I’ve missed because
I failed to spot them in pages full
of unwanted college solicitation.
In the past, when information
about a school was not so readily
available, mail from colleges may
have been more helpful. The ease of
current resources, however, makes
all of this extra mail unnecessary.
[ CONTINUED on the WEBSITE ]