How to Try to Write a Story of Your Life

“What should I do with my life?”

I think this is the question most students start thinking about when they enter high school—when college admissions become a daunting reality. However, it is most common for students to procrastinate on that question, thinking “I’ll think about it when I’m older,” or “I’ll think about it in college.” With this thought in mind, most just dive right into standardized tests and countless clubs without the clear purpose for doing so. In my experience, I went through an existential crisis during my sophomore and junior years thinking “why am I doing this s**t in the first place?” As I look back on the countless contemplations and experiences with college admissions, the core problem I came to identify was the lack of true ‘meaning’ in the whole perspective of college admissions.

If we look at how most American top tier colleges evaluate the applicants, one of the most important aspect they look at is the extracurricular activities. Of course, I know that most of you know that, but most of you stop there. Consequently, most students just conclude that “ECs are important so I should do a lot of things to impress them” without ever thinking deeply about WHY colleges look at extracurricular activities IN THE FIRST PLACE! ECs just turn into one more item in those meaningless to-do lists.

Then why do colleges care about ECs? Almost every consulting agency will give the same answer: because they want to know your story. The stories show what kind of person a student is and whether that student has the potential to become a world-changing leader, given the resources the university can offer. Then how do stories correlate with success? Let’s take Elon Musk, for example. When he was a kid, around twelve, he also went through an existential crisis contemplating the meaning of life. He would read books by very nihilistic philosophers, such as Arthur Schopenhauer, searching for the meaning of life. However, he said that he found ‘meaning’ in Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s quote "A planet is the cradle of mind, but one cannot live in a cradle forever." He dreamed of space and expanding beyond Earth; he was so excited by the idea that he built SpaceX, which is one of the most prominent rocket companies today.

As just a high school senior, I cannot say what the meaning of life is. However, in terms of college admissions, I think that it’s most crucial to find something that makes you excited every day when you wake up, because it can make you live out the best story of your high school years, one that not only college admissions officers but also YOU want to see.