#Blegh@Lyfe

What a lovely title up there, isn't it? It gives you such an acute insight about what this post will be about, doesn't it? You've guessed it, haven't you?

No? Well, what's the date today? Oh hey, 3rd of May. Why is this day important? Well, because in 1937, Margaret Mitchell won the Pulitzer prize. In 1802, Washington D.C. was incorporated as a city. In 1996 - but I guess you can find all of this yourself on Wikipedia. What I want to write about is the SAT.

That's right. The SAT, which doesn't stand for anything, which makes the lives of high school seniors miserable and which holds the ultimate key to university admission. Or at least they say so.

After more than twenty practice tests, more than 1000 words and two unsuccessful attempts, I took the SAT today for the third time. And, I mean, I was disappointed. I had a 2400 practice test yesterday (that's the maximum points) and today...I thought I did OK, but it was certainly not my best work. This week I made the bold assertion that if I score below 2300, this world is conspiring against me, but now that I'm done, and assessing everything, and looking at certain threads on College Confidential that should not exist, I'm genuinely worried that I'm not good enough.

The SAT has been deemed among others unfair, elitist, and outdated, and I don't know if any of these allegations are fair, but I certainly feel that it doesn't succeed in measuring what it ought to. You see, you can prepare for it. You can. I've prepared my butt off during these two years, and yet I still didn't get the desired score. I got close to it, but it's so dependent on the actual test you take. So while some people might turn up once, look at the paper, scratch their heads and question what the hell they're doing there, and still score a 2130, others might store 31 sweat-drenched, hair dryer-parched practice tests by their bedside, and then score a 2130. And inherently, it's the same result. It ought to be relative. But it's not.

And it's not that those people scoring low are stupid, it's just that they may excel in different areas. Or be used to different types of testing. After three years of essay-based exams full of evaluation and analysis and other complex beauties, having a multiple-choice test put in front of me left me somewhat astounded.

Oh well. Make of it what you will. There is simply a melancholy resignation in acknowledging that you've done your best, and your best is still not good enough.

And I really really wanted to go to USC.

I don't think I want to know how much I spent on these books. Neither does my mom.