(For Squeezie: What should have been my college entrance essay if I were smart. For ideas, not for taking.)
I'm sorry, but I can't sell myself to you.
I'm eighteen years old. I spent the last four years as the only kid in my class who cared more about what my teachers thought than what my classmates did, and I was ridiculed for it. I know I know things; I have absolutely no idea who I am. That's what the next four years are for.
I'm probably going to spend the next four years, maybe five, drinking beer, smoking pot and getting laid. I'm going to go to classes when I can, probably get a job, get my heart broke and figure out what, exactly, my tolerances are for practically everything I can absorb. I'm going to spend most of my time writing, and your professors will never see most of it.
If I'm very lucky, I'll discover exactly how transient my time with you will be when I'm twenty credits away from my degree and I'll probably finish it because that piece of paper will be absolutely fundamental to me being able to support a family.
I'll realize that college isn't for learning, it's for learning how to learn and that it's what I read that I don't have to will be the defining characteristic of my education.
I'll do some math and figure out that I'll be giving your school money until I'm 30, and I'll realize that I could have spent the last four years absolutely anywhere that wasn't home.
This is wrong. You should be selling yourself to me - All I can offer you is preconceptions and voice.
Make me an offer.
Man, I could've gone anywhere.