a list.

I'm going to make a list. This list, for you curious readers, is an unfortunate list. It is a list composed of unadulterated frustrations and never ending confusion. This list is essentially the story of my life.

In short, it is a list of all the problems I've encountered with applications I've submitted. Applications for college, awards, scholarships, and now even medical school.

I'll begin with 12th grade...

• I was applying for colleges. A bunch of them. All of the colleges that I applied to required a Guidance Counselor Evaluation, which is a complete waste of time if you ask me, seeing as I met the lady once in my life (at the meeting when I asked her to fill out some evaluations). A few of the colleges that I applied to (coincidentally, the few that were the most competitive [Harvard, Stanford, etc.]) took part in 'The Common Application,' so my counselor could type up one response and mail it to all the schools at once. How convenient, considering... she mistakenly typed up a male basketball player's rankings (extracurricular involvement, personality, grades, scores, etc.) on my evaluation, and mine on his. I found this out, of course, after the submission of the "mid-year update," which means that for 2/3 of my application I was an only somewhat driven, mediocre student. No wonder I didn't get in. Cue the scene from Orange County, where Shaun doesn't get into Stanford because his idiot counselor submitted the wrong transcripts. My life could be a movie. (Okay, okay, for the record, I probably wouldn't have gotten into those places anyway, but I can pretend, right?)

• Once I didn't get into those top-tiers, I set my sights on Boston College and Stetson University.
• Turns out when I entered my information for a financial aid package from BC, I typed in the wrong social security number, resulting in absolutely zero financial assistance from the northeast beauty. $50k or more a year from my own wallet? No thanks. Who's the idiot now? [two thumbs are pointing at my own chest, in case you need a visual]
• Stetson. Gosh, this deserves a category of its own. First, I applied to SU through their "advanced" application, or something like that. It was supposed to be some expedited process in which I'd find out after just a couple of weeks if I had gotten in. A month or so later, I contacted them to see what the hold up was (in a polite way, of course), and they said they didn't have my guidance counselor form. Gahhhh, the guidance counselor AGAIN? Really?! Funny, since her form got mailed in with everything else...Anyway, we had another copy mailed in, and three days later I got a voicemail saying that I was accepted. Oh, and that they found my original form. Go figure.
• Soon after, I decided to apply for a full-ride scholarship to Stetson. This was pretty high stakes, so I didn't want any silly "lost-in-the-mail" scenarios to happen here. Instead, I decided to hand-deliver my scholarship application while I was on campus for a meeting with the Cross Country coach. A little while later, and rather last minute, I decided to submit one last letter of recommendation to add to my packet, and in response to this, I received another voicemail from Stetson. This time, it was to tell me that they had received the submission, but still needed my actual application. WHAT THE WHAT?! This call, mind you, came a day after the deadline, so when I re-submitted my application, it was too late. [Luckily, the two people who received the scholarship ended up being great friends of mine, so I'm relatively okay with this little mix-up. Plus, I must reiterate: This isn't to say that I would have even been selected. It's just hard to be considered for something when they don't have your application on file...]

Go Hatters! Kind of.

• Moving right along (hehe...somewhat) to my college days. Once upon a time I decided that I wanted to study abroad. Just days before it's deadline, I stumbled upon a scholarship to fund this adventure, and scrambled to gather up all the necessary application components. To my excitement, I was awarded the scholarship and was thrilled to be heading to Costa Rica that summer. Knowing my "luck," I found out months later that the program had to be canceled, and I had to scramble around even more to find a replacement program in even less time than before. I am pleased to say that this ended up working out for the best, but still, go figure. 

Thailand, where I ended up studying abroad.

• Earlier this year, I decided to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. It was a grueling process, but I finally got everything together to submit through their online system. Naturally, I waited until the last minute to submit this ever-important application, and naturally, there was a glitch with the program and my résumé didn't attach properly. The secretary of the district was human, however, and allowed me to email in my résumé. Talk about a roller coaster of emotions.
• I decided to go ahead and apply to Oxford on my own, even after not being selected as a Rhodes Scholar, and let's see, can you guess what happened? No, there were no guidance counselor issues this time. Instead, their online application system (the same one as Rhodes), temporarily "lost" the letters of recommendation that had been submitted in my name, so by the time my application was complete, the deadline for consideration for University-wide scholarships had passed. Iy yi yi.
 

Is there anyone who'd like to use their extra money to fund my stint at this grand place?

• And just today, I received word that Duke didn't have all of my letters of recommendation on file, which they take as meaning that I am "no longer interested in attending Duke." Funny, since that's not the case at all. And even funnier, considering they received one letter that was mailed in, but not another that was mailed to the same address, nor another whole packet of letters that was submitted to Duke's online system over 7 months ago (a packet that I called about in December to make sure they had access to. They said yes.) Don't worry, we're hopefully getting everything straightened out. But still. Just a hassle, ya know?
• Ha! I now have the privilege to update this post [sarcasm]-- The above Duke issue was thankfully resolved and I ended up being accepted (woo hoo!), but I heard from them today that my 'Statement of Intent,' which must be received within 21 days lest the application be thrown out (and this was excitedly placed into the frenzied world of USPS hours after I received news of my acceptance), never made its way to their desk (naturally). Hopefully this, too, can be resolved...

There are, unfortunately, more examples, but I just looked back at this post and Holy Blogginess, Batman, it's a long one, so I'll stop here.

Anyone else have problems like this? Anyone NOT have any problems like this and would like to experience them first-hand? I'd be glad to pass along some of my relative misfortune...

-M