So, I’m a senior in high school and I’ve had this question in my head for a while now: “If I had the choice to go back in time to the beginning of 9th grade with all the knowledge I have now, would I choose to do it”. I know that many of you will say yes, but to be honest, there is no way I would go back. I did well academically, but I did NOT get into good schools. just found out i got waitlisted at davis and sd today. although im disappointed in my decisions, I still wouldnt go back in time because I just hated high school (partly due to my ADD), even though I probably could have gotten into a top tier school with all my knowledge now. It just feels painful to spend another 4 years going through all that.
I urge you to post your opinion on this question. Would you go back to the beg of 9th grade?
No way. I graduated high school more than 20 years ago. It wasn’t horrible but no way would I go back and do it again. The only people I can think of who would are the popular high school stars that achieved their peaks in high school. Now college is a different story. I picked a college I loved and I still have happy dreams sometimes that I am back for another degree. And my college isn’t a selective college, known around the world, with high rankings. It isn’t even in the Fiske Guide! But it’s a beautiful campus with the friendliest people ever. It’s got wonderful, caring, supportive professors who still remember my husband and I all of these years later. (Seriously, we went back last fall and dropped in and some remembered us. Not only that, two who came after we left college spent at least an hour each giving us tours of their departments, explaining the changes and updating us on professors we had that weren’t there that day). And even with our low ranking and selectivity and whatever else everyone on a site like CC values so highly, my college prepared people well to be happy and successful. I’m trying to say, keep looking for your place and you will find it. You can be very happy with whatever adventure comes next if you make the most of it.
As a current high school senior, heck no I wouldn’t go back. I hated high school, and especially the people I went to school with. I did make a boatload of mistakes in high school, but going through the ENTIRE process for another four years would be incredibly painstaking.
I’m also a senior, and I personally would repeat the whole process if I could! I would have taken different classes, immediately started the EC’s that I now realize I love, and would have started test preparation a lot earlier.
Also, I too have ADD, so I was kind of all over the place in the early years highschool - knowing all that I do now about the college process, it would have saved me so much trouble!
But overall I’m happy with my high school experience. With the knowledge I did have, I truly believe I made the best of it, and that’s all that matters.
No. I worked my tail off all through high school. I was shy and had little social life. But my hard work got me an engineering scholarship, and I had a great time in college! And when I went back for my 30th HS reunion, people who teased/bullied me back then told me how much they respected me. That blew me away.
Nope, I’m happy with the way my life has turned out and wouldn’t change it.
I have a wonderful husband, 3 fabulous kids, a job I love. My sisters and brother and their families and my mom are all within a 45 minute drive, and everyone is happy and healthy.
Great topic, and I am sorry that you did not get the replies you wanted from those colleges. Please know that while this may be a setback, if that, it is certainly not the end of your story.
I graduated over 25 years ago (eek!), and I often have the conversation with my kids and others that I feel HS was a completely different ball game back when I went through. I, and my contemporaries, seemed to have had a lot more fun.
Along with the “we had more fun” conversations comes the “I would never get into the school I did if I were to apply today” ones. Not a day went by when we were at the height of applications with our senior that I didn’t shake my head and think, “This is just crazy!”. So, perhaps I would flirt with the idea of a repeat of HS in my day, but no way in Hades would I do a high school run in today’s climate. I am often amazed at the grace and poise exhibited by many of you under these conditions. It seems to be all about the chase and where your little dot will fall on the scatterplot. Seems almost dehumanizing at times.
Outside of serious, life altering mistakes, there is no point in playing “Coulda, Shoulda, Woulda”. Clearly, as older folks, we have the luxury of seeing the end results of our many of our choices, but also the wisdom that there are no guarantees in life.
You read a lot of comments here from people along the lines of “make the most of it”, “so and so was wildly successful and happy going to not top tier school” etc, etc. They are not pulling that out of their rear ends. It is because it is true.
Would not do it again. I didn’t make all the right choices or take the hardest classes. I didn’t know any better and neither did my parents. I didn’t make all the bad ones either though. It all worked out. With no internet, I had so much less information about the process and frankly, it may have been better that way. I was National Merit and got a full tuition scholarship to a great state school. My parents were thrilled I was going to college. I like other parents on this board think things were easier then than now.
I try to encourage my kids to do the things that we all know they should do, because I know better now. The message is not “If you don’t do this, your life is ruined” though. It is, “if you want X, this is the best way to get it, but not the only way.”
wow, thanks for the responses everyone (although I imagined that most people on collegeconfidential would have enjoyed going through the funs of high school). i guess not.
Life gets better, as it should. Life should not peak “At Seventeen”. You find joys you’d never have imagined at 17, skills, both practical and coping, that you don’t have at 17. Not in a million years would I repeat my HS years, and I think there aren’t many who would consider it. Most of us have found that if you’re George McFly, and can write novels, you will, without having to punch a bully in the face in HS. There are critical points in ones life, but there are also lots of paths.