By Frankie Mananzan Like many other students in the United States, I grew up with the understanding that one day I would journey into adulthood by applying to colleges. The names of top universities — Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Duke — trickled down even to elementary school students. I knew better than to spend my entire educational career setting myself up to be considered by those schools, but now that I'm 16 and a junior in high school, the prospect of college applications has created a desperate scramble to turn myself into the best candidate possible. For competitive schools, a student usually needs the perfect essay, the best SAT score, the best ACT scores, the best GPA and the best extracurricular activities. Even so, there have been students with nearly perfect scores and GPAs who are rejected by schools that admit less than 10 percent of applicants. Of course, not everyone is looking at highly competitive schools. Seventy-nine percent of schools accept over half of their applicants. This is a very promising figure for many high school students. So why do stress levels remain so high for students? Much of it is the environment. “So many people go to so many good schools from here,” says Liz, a junior at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia. “The pressure just gets higher and higher.” It's not unheard of for a student in our school to be taking seven AP courses out of seven class periods each day. That's a huge amount of pressure on top of the already considerable coursework the average student struggles to keep up with. Even away from school, pressures can mount at home. Luciana, another West Potomac junior, has had multiple “college talks” with her parents over the past year. “One of the only things [my dad] will ever ask me at dinner is ‘do you know where you want to go to college?’" Luciana said. "A lot of people have top schools whereas I just want a school.” A major worry for both parents and students is, of course, the cost of college. It’s a long-term investment. We have to make decisions that may financially affect us years after graduating from college. When tens of thousands of dollars are spent on an education, it has to be worth it. Finally, a lot of anxiety comes from the mind itself. One of the biggest reasons why I myself have been obsessed with college admissions is not knowing if I’m “good enough.” What can I do to get these colleges to want me? What can I do to make myself stand out? These are the questions that students have been asking themselves. These are the questions that are leading to an unhealthy mentality. These are the questions that make the entire college application experience a nightmare for high school students. During my restless phase of figuring out what I should do to appeal to colleges, I approached some of my teachers with questions about admissions. One of my teachers — a Stanford University graduate — knows me especially since I have been his student for two consecutive years. The advice he gave me changed my entire outlook on the college process. While it is good to try to work toward a goal, exhausting all of your time and energy into shaping yourself according to how a school may see you is a waste of life, he told me. Choose to do things that you want to do for yourself. Choose to do things that make you a better person, not things that make you “good enough.” Don’t compare your successes to others, and don’t let anyone else rate your achievements. Your best self is not determined by how an admissions board looks at you. Colleges are wonderful because they are doors of opportunities and there are thousands of higher education institutions in the United States to choose from. There are also countless doors of opportunities found without a degree as well, and that's important to remember as well. Wasting my time being stressed and trying to be someone I'm not won't make me happy, and that should be the real goal. Frankie Mananzan is a junior at West Potomac High School in Alexandria, Virginia.