<p>It's kind of long, but the basic story is about the pressure high schoolers, especially girls, face to be good at everything they do. My class split: roughly half the people saw themselves in Esther, and were extremely sympathetic. The other half thought she was full of it, and thought she was the most artificial person they had ever seen.</p>
<p>Here is her college essay to Smith, where she got rejected.</p>
<p>I'm not sure what I think about it. I agree that we face all kinds of pressure, but on the other hand, I really have nothing to complain about...</p>
<p>So, what do you guys think? Does the article have a point, or is it completely off the mark?</p>
<p>“Esther learned last week that she had gotten into Smith.”</p>
<p>She didn’t get rejected from Smith.</p>
<p>But yeah… I agree that there is a lot of pressure, but It’s just how things work unfortunately. I think our best is enough. People don’t seem to realize that because of what someone else is telling them or what their college admittance responses are. That shouldn’t define a person, male or female.</p>
<p>heh…so true…
nothing we can really do about it though. who’s going to be the one who’s <em>brave</em> enough to rebel and say, forget this package of propaganda that’s been drilled into me all my life, i’m going to go be a hobo? :P</p>
<p>Yeah OP, in fact she actually goes to Smith right now. But yeah those super competitive, affluent suburbs really scare me with how much they care about the names of colleges. I should know, I’m growing up in one. I’m going to raise my kids far, far away from places like that.</p>
<p>I didn’t like how she used her home town as a representation for ALL of kentucky. It made her seem really close-minded to me. She’s one odd liberal.</p>
<p>I didn’t like the essay either. The word choice seemed forced in the beginning and she was pretty insulting about Kentucky. What if one of the deans was from Kentucky?</p>
<p>Same. I thought the essay was bashing Kentucky a little too much but more importantly, I didn’t learn anything new about her as a person, only that she wants a nice collegetown at whichever school she plans to attend, which is not what the college admission officers want to learn from a college essay. The whole point of the essay is for the admission officers to see another dimension of the applicant which this essay really didn’t provide. But I hope that she likes it at Smith College and enjoys the whole college experience there.</p>
<p>I really liked her essay. I don’t think she’s putting her hometown down. Her observations are honest and insightful–she makes note of the negative things about her hometown, its quaintness and refusal to change, but she expresses quite well the what is valuable in it and what is lost when one leaves it behind. We’re unremorsefully logical and we throw out whatever traditions that are unnecessary, we’re mobile and we go wherever career, education, and money demand. There’s a sense of loss and a sense of wanting to attach oneself to something, to “ancestors” and “traditions,” and to a place; I felt it was something I could really relate to.</p>
<p>It reminds me of a passage about family and tribal Kenya from Obama’s autobiography.</p>
<p>So, I was reading some of the comments other readers left on the article. A lot of people were horribly mean to this girl, bashing her upper-middle class existence, and basically calling her a whiner. To some extent, I agree that people like her (and like me!) have substantially smaller problems then sooo many other people with real problems.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I can definitely relate to the pressure to be gorgeous, intelligent, athletic, engaging, genuine, and in general ‘amazing’. And school can be extremely stressful, I understand that too (and judging by the number of ‘i’m overwhelmed with school/college/expectations’ posts on here, other people can too). I guess I just think that people should cut her some slack, and maybe be a little bit nicer…</p>
<p>Haha, the section where that kid talks about his favorite philosophers is hilarious. Sounds like he’s about to swap some Pokemon cards. Nietzsche, I choose you!</p>
<p>she was whiny
she has been given EVERYTHING…she goes to an amazing school, has incredbily supportive and educated parents
how are girls like me, girls who are motivated on their own-who pay for their own ACTs and couldn’t afford prep, girls who find rides so they can do every club and not bug their parents, girls who are SELF motivated, supposed to compete</p>
<p>It’s amazing how this article tries makes the “Amazing girl” phenomena described here as something that is universal in this country. It really only applies to a small spectrum of girls, predominantly in competitive schools in upper middle class families. The world they describe, and live in seem to be several dimensions apart from the world I seem to see. However, I do understand and sympathize with the pressure and social expectations these girls have to live with. Poor us… we face anxieties to things unimaginable to our ancient ancestors.</p>