Balan Selvamuthukumaran ’27
It’s weird to say this but I am a junior now, something I could scarcely imagine when I was an anxious senior in high school, wondering if I would get into any of the colleges I dreamed about going to. As a student then, I had no idea whether I would get into Pomona, but even more so I had no idea what my life would actually be like when at Pomona. This probably led me to apply to a lot of colleges that I wouldn’t fit very well at—I applied to those places simply because they sounded nice, or they were prestigious, or what have you. I applied to Pomona in fact on a whim mostly just because my dad told me about the school and said I should.
Recently some kids that I know through family friends have gotten to the stage where they are gearing up for the college admissions process. So I am in the awkward position of trying to provide advice to students who, like I was, are probably skeptical of generic advice like “be yourself” or “where you go is not what you will become”. I thought those things were silly then, and wished that someone would give me some real, decent advice.
Now that I am here at Pomona, I think I have that advice—firstly, if you are passionate about something, do it and do it well. As a high school student I was passionate about Japanese literature and spent ages and ages studying classical Japanese and attempting to read ancient poetry. Though I was a novice by any standard, I think the fact that I tried and did it with conviction was something that helped me become a more well-rounded person and the kind that admissions officers like to see.
Second, don’t apply to a college if you cannot seriously imagine yourself going there. Visit the school if you can, or at least read up on it through websites like this—most schools have some outlet for students to share their thoughts and feelings, and reading that sort of page is a great way to understand a school better. If you can really truly understand the ethos of a school, and you can imagine yourself in that place, that is when you should actually sit down and start thinking up essay topics. It will save you time (spent writing essays), money (application fees), and eventual hardship if you end up somewhere that isn’t right for you.