11
Expectation: Ask your trusted teachers and mentors for letters of recommendation.
Reality: But, because you had early deadlines, you asked for your rec letters in the spring, so you had to ask over email. While writing these emails, you had debated internally with yourself: does the use of a smiley face :) make an email unprofessional or add a touch of much-needed human emotion to the writing? As a compromise, you sprinkled one in for good luck and continued to overthink that decision for the next three months.
Expectation: Visit different schools and create a list of schools you’d like to apply to.
Reality: Oh wait, every school is closed and not offering in-person admissions tours. Some schools have virtual tours, which are essentially glamorized video collages with statistics being fed through voiceover at rapid pace. However, you and your friends will choose your schools based on feelings of belonging, not statistics, so these do nothing for you. You will try to help your friends and arrange a tour for them. Your friends live in Los Angeles and St. Paul, so you - as a good friend - volunteer to act as a tour guide of Princeton University. You’ll drive down to Princeton (with no traffic, because, you know, pandemic) and walk around campus while FaceTiming them to “narrate the vibe,” even though the “vibe” is hardly traceable because there’s not a soul on campus. Neither of your friends will apply to Princeton. As for your list, you’ll apply just about everywhere and realize how poor of a choice that was sometime in November.