Taking shortcuts can be the long way around
Cue The Village People: Young man, there’s no need to feel down. Young man, pick yourself off the ground.
Once upon a time, there was a high school senior. Let’s call him Colton. His grades weren't bad, and a well-written college essay could help his chances of admission.
Colton texts me: “I haven’t been able to start my essay. I’m sorry, Ms. Claire; the problem is I don’t have a computer. My parents ordered one for me, but it just hasn’t gotten here yet.”
I’m thinking: "Whatever happened to pen and paper? Should we reschedule for next month?"
Fast forward a month. Colton texts me again: “I don’t have my essay yet. And I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but it takes me nearly an hour to drive to your office, even taking shortcuts, and I already got into an accident.”
Devil-may-care Colton had totaled his car and luckily walked away unhurt. In his defense, he blamed the vehicle. He said he was driving a geriatric Toyota Prius, with brakes that were equally geriatric. Otherwise, he assured me, his driving was “legendary” for a newly minted 17-year-old.
His text concluded: “I don’t really wanna make the drive just to work on an essay that I could start on my own.”
I texted back, “I like your initiative, Colton. Show me what you got.”
Three weeks later, another text: “I haven’t started my essay. I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m working every shift I can to save for a truck! I looked at my application and am waiting for my parents to fill out their name and address.”
I shot back: “Colton, the application is your job. You know your parents’ names and addresses!”
By the end of summer vacation, Colton had another question: “There are seven essay questions on the Common Application. Not sure which ones to choose. Are there any shortcuts?”
“Well, Colton, the funny thing is that shortcuts are the long way around,” I wrote him. “Regardless of the essay prompt, colleges want to get to know YOU. Imagine you’reintroducing yourself to someone new. Perhaps a friend, a teacher, or an employer. Size up your audience and tell them your story and why you want to attend that college. Oh, and by the way, you’ll need to explain your suspensions from school. Not one, but two. Did you mend your ways? What did you learn?”
Colton finally makes an appointment and comes clambering down the steps into my office. He smells of deep-fried food. He’s empty-handed because he left his new laptop at Chick-fil-A, where he works and eats.
He pulls a chair from the round conference table closer to my desk so he can look me straight in the eye.
“Ms. Claire,” he says, “I don’t want to waste my time. Just tell me, can I get into Clemson?”
In my field, I have never gone wrong answering with these two words: “It depends.”
Cue the Village People’s second verse: Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be? I said, young man, you can make your dreams real, but you’vegot to know this one thing.
Shortcuts are the long way around! They don’t get you where you want to go.
“Sure, sure,” says Colton, scrolling on his phone.
“OH, DON’T YOU SURE-SURE ME, Colton! And put your phone down. The more you look at that screen, the more someone makes money off your algorithm.”
I tell him I think his best fit is The Citadel, South Carolina’s public military college. It’s in-state, affordable, and a place where he can learn to quit making excuses, put his phone down, develop a work ethic, and stop looking for shortcuts.
“But Clemson is my dream college,” Colton wails.
“Colton, The Citadel is the safer bet. They care about character as well as grades.” (And I didn’t say, “They will help you develop it.”)
Clemson wants students who rank near the top of their class, while Colton is somewhere in the middle of the pack. Grades, test scores, and class rank are important factors in admission.
“The good news,” I tell him, “is that there’s a backdoor entry through the Bridge program. Now, that’s a shortcut that really is a shortcut.”
Students accepted into Clemson’s Bridge program live on campus with other students while taking classes at nearby Tri-County Technical College. They have access to campus amenities, including the gym, rock climbing wall, pool, tennis, racquetball, and pickleball. Add a meal plan, and it’s practically an all-you-can-eat buffet at a resort.
But the Bridge program isn’t quite good enough for Colton. He wants to enter Clemson as a first-year student, bypassing community college altogether.
He’s back on his phone, desperately searching for another shortcut.
“Shortcuts are like cramming the night before an exam to learn a semester’s worth of material. Focus on one thing you can do now, Colton, like doing the best academic work you’recapable of in your senior year.
“Write your essay as if you were writing to a friend, but don’t use AI. Start with an interesting sentence that grabs your audience’s attention. The end depends upon the beginning.”
Over the following weeks, Colton showed me revision after revision. Discussing his essay turned into something of a therapy session and an opportunity for emotional growth.
Just two hours, 12 minutes, and 18.5 seconds before the deadline, Colton produced his final essay!
He’d nailed it. He’d found his writer’s voice. He explained how he got mixed up with the wrong crowd, why he was suspended not once but twice, and how he was turning over a new leaf.
He wrote that a shortcut is a long way around. Working hard is a habit.
Snot was coming out of his nose as he read it. I was crying, too.
Maybe it was that essay that helped Colton get accepted to both The Citadel and Clemson’s Bridge program.
Maybe there’s a Colton inside all of us.
I know I’ve been guilty of looking for shortcuts, only to discover they made everything take longer.
Like Colton, if we just do the best work we’re capable of, without excuses and without waiting for someone to save us, maybe we can find a backdoor entry into the life we wish to have.
C. Claire Law is a certified educational consultant serving the Daniel Island community since 2004.