Like so many other students, I spent the majority of last Friday worrying about impending admissions decisions and whether I’d be sharing a campus with my brother yet again. At 6 p.m. sharp, my family and I sat around our living room, eagerly watching him refresh the page over and over. Our phone started ringing, with a parent frantically asking questions about his or her child’s admission to UF’s Pathway to Campus Enrollment program, most of them derivatives of “What the hell is a PaCE program?” While my mom made an attempt at consolation, my brother finally triumphed over the UF server.
He didn’t get in.
He didn’t think he was going to get in. Honestly, I didn’t think he was going to get in either. Yet I had still managed to hold onto this naïve fantasy of us reveling in Gainesville together, if only for one measly year before my graduation. When he visited me, I tried my hardest (probably too hard) to sell him on the collegiate culture, introducing him to my friends and dragging him to every local gem I knew.
I did all this in hope that the UF admissions board would look past his lackluster grades and see him as the kind, intelligent human that I know him to be. Unfortunately, UF does not have the time nor the funds to delve this deeply into each applicant’s character.
Of course, social media was dominated by exuberant declarations that younger siblings were joining the Gator Nation for the rest of the night, and I was naturally jealous. The flood of blue-and-orange clad baby pictures certainly didn’t help. But this wasn’t an exceptional tragedy, because what happened to my brother happens to thousands of students every year.
When I was awaiting admission decisions in 2013, the Palm Beach Post ran an anxiety-inducing series of editorials following highly qualified students who weren’t accepted to UF and other state schools. They were IB and AP students with solid test scores and extracurricular involvement, puzzled over their denial despite doing everything “right.” Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure I’d get in either.
I’ve heard a variety of theories about this school’s admissions process, with some claiming it’s a complete lottery and others a numbers game. I’m sure the truth is somewhere in between these two extremes, yet there does seem to be an element of randomness to the whole thing.
I’ve met plenty of people who claimed they “slipped through the cracks” and managed to sneak their ways into this institution, but I maintain that everyone ends up here for a reason. Perhaps I’m assigning too much power to the elusive admissions board and fate in general, but I’ll stand by it.
Despite my brother’s notable absence from the UF class of 2020 (a phrase that makes me feel undeniably ancient), I’m looking forward to the next wave of peppy, bright-eyed freshmen.
It goes without saying that most of those accepted will end up here come Fall, and I can only imagine the ambitions they’ll bring with them.
As far as my brother’s prospects are concerned, I’ll eventually get over my dreams of a Papenfuss dynasty at UF. In reality, it’s probably for the best that he attends another school and forges his own path. After 18 years of having to introduce himself as “Marisa’s brother” to teachers and authority figures alike, I’m sure he’s sick of the classic older sibling shadow. All I know is wherever he goes, he’s going to thrive.
For anyone else disappointed with Friday’s results, I’ll leave you with my father’s cliched yet well-intentioned words of wisdom: “You’ve got to just embrace the randomness of life.” There’s definitely some truth to this philosophical dad-ism, and I’m realizing it more and more every day.
Marisa Papenfuss is a UF English junior. Her column appears on Tuesdays.
