This left me feeling extremely frustrated and discouraged, as I asked myself, “why have I put in all of this work?”. 4 points lower and if I had only half of the extracurricular activities that I had worked so hard to complete. My top choice as of now is a school that I could have easily gotten into if my GPA was. I felt as though everything that I had worked for over the past three years and all of the time and energy that went into balancing my life had all been for nothing. I fell in love with my safety school, as the classes and community were everything I was looking for, and this had posed a huge problem for me. However, as soon as I began the long and strenuous college search and application process, I found myself standing at a crossroad between my reach, target, and safety schools. I was convinced that I was “doing it all” and that I had surely set myself up to get into the best college that I possibly could have. As far as anyone was concerned, my life was definitely balanced, as I had spent the past three years trying to become as well-rounded as possible. I ran myself ragged with sports, part-time jobs, clubs, community service, multiple leadership positions, as well as maintained high honor roll academically.
![seeing the bigger picture in life seeing the bigger picture in life](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/wrap7GvFE9WQoDkVTacwtE-1200-80.jpg)
As a freshman, saying that life is all about balance essentially told me that I had to become the most involved in everything that I possibly could to satisfy myself, my parents, and college admissions offices. “Life is all about balance,” a saying taught to us ever since we were children for the sole purpose of encouraging us to have a well-rounded life and to “not sweat the small stuff.” For me as a senior in high school, this saying had managed to place an excess layer of pressure on me during my past three years.