The clock reads 12:25a.m. I can feel my heartbeats racing as my mind begins to comprehend the situation. At last, it was decision day. “Why do I even care? It’s a sure rejection either way,” I think to myself in a desperate attempt to calm down. But that doesn’t help…because the reality is that I DID care. I did care about the sleepless and caffeinated nights I spent preparing for this day. I did care about my parents’ hopes for me, and their sacrifices. I did care about the results of my efforts, and everything an admission would mean for my future. My last two years of grinding culminated into this one instant.
Léo
“12:27a.m.” One minute to the decision release time. I pause the Anime I’m watching (Undead Unluck- great Anime by the way), pre-load the decision release website, and whisper a few words to God in hopes He’d be by my side.
“12:28a.m.” It’s time. I hear the annoying sound of a new email notification labelled “Admission Decision.” I feel terrified, but comforted in a way, because the wait is finally over. “Okay Léo, you can do this!” I say to myself after about 5mins of delaying to view my decision- understandable, right? But I did finally realize this was useless: “Either way my decision is fixed, so I might as well just open the damn decision letter.”
I close my eyes and click hesitantly clicked on “View Decision.”
3…2…1…
“'Dear Léo Keran, …it is my pleasure to offer you admission to…MIT!'”
"Opening my eyes to these words yielded a feeling that I just can’t describe in words; A bliss and excitedness like I hadn’t felt in a long while. Did I just get into f***ing MIT??!!!!!!! I screamed and informed everyone in my house, and we shared the joy. Finally…"
MIT
***
Whenever someone hears I go to MIT, their mind immediately fills with assumptions of some sort of innate “genius” within me. Just to be clear: I am nothing remotely close to a “genius” (whatever that means). Everything I have achieved is out of passion and dedication. And as a student at MIT, I can tell you that few MIT students are actually the types of genius you imagine (You know, those who can graph any cubic polynomial in their mind and have never received anything less than an A+). But the one thing we all seem to share is a passion. It can really be anything, from Mathematics through Tennis to Origamis. And MIT students have typically pushed their passion to great limits and done amazing things with their interest/passion. “Amazing” can mean a lot of things here: it can be as fancy as founding a non-profit or as simple as volunteering to teach.
Program Facilitators, Open Dreams Yaoundé Hub, Cameroon
Ever since I was a kid, purely out of passion, I too had started working on some pretty cool coding projects. I had the drive and determination, but my life only took a turn when I learnt about the organization called Open Dreams. Open Dreams is an NGO that strives to equalize access to educational opportunities by accompanying talented low-income students in the process of applying to scholarships around the world. With their help, network and support - especially financial - I got the last push I needed to reach the stars. The application process is draining, and a lot of times you will feel hopeless, but the reward is worth the pain. Like always, I put in the work I needed to reach my goals; pondering over essays and writing drafts after drafts; improving my activities list descriptions and checking the wording of my awards. All these with one goal in mind: getting a scholarship abroad. Now, lucky me, the results were even better than I expected: I didn’t get “a” scholarship, but 4 of them, including schools like MIT and Stanford. These two schools ended up being the ones I ultimately considered for enrollment. I had to withdraw my application from other universities before they could finalize and release their decisions.
Open Dreams Scholars 2023 - Batch of Gratitude; Yaoundé Hub, Cameroon
I recognize the privilege associated with having the “embarrassment” of having to choose between two equally amazing universities, but I’d like to say: YOUR DREAM IS POSSIBLE. The only way to guarantee you will never get into a school is by not applying. So, shoot your shot! Be bold! Harvard, Yale or MIT may or may not be the types of schools you get into, but I am confident you will be happy wherever you end up going! Your profile is not too weak. Your essays are not too bad. So long as you put best efforts in what you do, I trust that you will end up exactly where you belong. Everyone’s path is different. It might take 1, 2, 3 or even more years, but with the right amount of determination and hard work, I know everything will pay off.
Trust the process.
Love, Léo
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