How could a seventeen year old say that he's truly experienced failure?

I spent the summer before my senior year on my piano bench, bent over the keys and pondering the meaning of life, which I still haven't quite figured out. I've always found that I think best while playing the piano, and I suspect that it's because the piano only lets out its secrets when I'm playing another Chopin étude or Beethoven sonata. I needed all of the brainpower that I could get as I prepared to apply to Kale University, my dream school.

I did take my counselor's advice and find a few other schools to apply to, just in case I didn't get into Kale, but I didn't love any of them in the way that I loved Kale. Was there any other school out there like Kale? I wasn't certain, but I doubted it. There was a certain indescribable quality that Kale possessed that I couldn't seem to find in any other college or university. To be honest, I had no idea what I would do if Kale rejected me.

Therefore, my best bet was to submit an application to Kale that was so stellar that they wouldn't have any choice but to admit me, despite my aforementioned low ACT score. I didn't know how I would go about doing that, but there had to be a way. After all, that boy from my school had gotten into Yale, and that was a much more difficult school to get into. Kale admitted people with mediocre test scores all the time. How painful could the process be?

On August 1st, in the midst of the dog days of summer, I logged into the Common App and looked over what I had to do to apply to Kale. I briefly looked out the window at the boiling hot sidewalk and dry grass, and then decided that I didn't give a damn about the weather and shifted my attention back to my computer screen.

At first, it didn't look too bad. I had to fill in the Common Application, write a personal statement, answer a few Kale-specific questions, send in a letter of recommendation from one of my teachers, pay seventy five dollars, and possibly sell my soul to Kale University, and then I would be all done. I immediately started filling in my basic information.

First Name: George

Middle Name: Ryan

Last Name: Ross

Suffix: III

Preferred Name: Ryan

Sex: Male

Date of Birth: August 30th

Address: 333 Mulholland Boulevard, Las Vegas, Nevada

I continued to fill in meaningless questions for the rest of the afternoon. However, I froze when I saw the essay prompts. Everything else had been simple enough, with the possible exception of the question about my religion, which I didn't quite know how to answer in a single word, and the activity section, where I tried to pass off "questioning life, the universe, and everything" as an extracurricular activity. I'd estimate that I spend at least ten hours per week in a state of existential angst. The essays, on the other hand, weren't nearly that easy.

At first, I considered writing about the first prompt (some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story), but I then realized that I didn't have a meaningful background, identity, interest, or talent. I could have written about my dad, but that would have depressed me, and besides, I had already covered that in the family section. My interests had already been covered in the activities section, I had no talent other than the piano, and how could I write about my identity when I hadn't yet figured it out myself? No teenager knows who they really are, and in fact, it could be argued that nobody understands themselves. Of course, that begs a different question. If nobody understands themselves, then who can say for sure that we truly exist? My point is that it was silly to ask about identity for something like this.

The second prompt was almost as silly. It asked about an incident or time when I had experienced failure and what I learned from it. I doubted that any kid my age had enough experience to be able to write a meaningful essay about failure. I certainly didn't. Nevertheless, I considered the second prompt as I looked at the other three possibilities, since I did agree that failure was something that you could learn from. That seemed fairly obvious to me.

The third prompt was out of the question, because although I had challenged plenty of beliefs and ideas, it was almost entirely in my head. I considered the fourth prompt for a while, but I determined that though there were many problems that I had an interest in solving, most of them were complex, philosophical questions that likely didn't have an obvious solution, and if they did, they would require more than 650 words to answer. The fifth prompt also seemed a bit silly to ask. It asked me to discuss an event that marked my transition from childhood to adulthood, despite the fact that I didn't feel like an adult yet. At that point in time, I still went to high school and couldn't vote, so what made me an adult? Was I supposed to have some sort of reasoning powers that a child wouldn't have? That seemed unlikely, especially when I looked at some of my classmates. Was there an age at which I was supposed to magically turn into an adult? No matter what the truth was, they were clearly looking for some sort of dramatic coming of age story, likely involving a dead dog, and I didn't have one.

In the end, I decided to write about a failure, specifically my initial failures at learning to play the piano, and how I overcame some of my insecurities through my favorite instrument. My dog also made a few cameo appearances in what became a rambling 650 word story that whined about nothing and everything all at once. Needless to say, my English teacher hated it when she read it, but I had no real desire to rewrite the whole essay, so I fixed my spelling and grammar errors and sent it to Kale University, along with the rest of my application and a letter of recommendation from my history teacher. It wasn't the greatest essay in the world, but it was the best that I could come up with without sacrificing my grades or social life. Hopefully, it would be enough to get me into Kale.

Then, the worst part of it all arrived. After all of the pain that I had gone through to write my essay, I had to wait to see whether or not Kale would accept me. For the next several months, I raced to the mailbox every single day to see if there was anything from Kale. Although I did find plenty of advertisements from other schools, I didn't get a response from Kale. Ever after the other schools that I had applied to accepted or rejected me, I still didn't get a reply from my favorite school.

By the end of March, I began to question whether or not Kale had received my application at all. There was a small chance that it had gotten lost amongst the thousands of applications that the Kale University admissions department had to read each year. However, I knew that after all of this suffering, some good news had to be on its way, so I remained hopeful that my acceptance was on its way.

April arrived, and I tried to push Kale out of my mind and look at my other options. None of them measured up to Kale, but perhaps I could be happy somewhere else. After all, it was just a school, or so I tried to tell myself. The school wasn't in control of my destiny or my happiness, but if that was the case, then what was? I didn't like the idea of being nothing more than a puppet to God or fate, but there was plenty of proof out there that I wasn't in control of my own destiny either. If I was in control of my own destiny, I would have been admitted to Kale far sooner than I actually was.

One rainy April day, I opened up my mailbox and found a thick envelope from Kale University addressed to George Ryan Ross III. Needless to say, I had torn the envelope open before I even made it back inside the house.

Dear Ryan,

Congratulations! On behalf of the Kale University faculty and staff, I am delighted to inform you of your admission to Kale University as a member of the Class of 2021...

"MOM!" I shouted as I ran into the kitchen holding up my acceptance letter.

"What is it, Ryan?" Mom asked.

"I got into Kale!" I squealed, barely able to control myself. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs from all of the excitement.

"That's great, Ryan," Mom said as she enveloped me in a hug. "Now, all you have to do is make a decision."

"Mom, I think you know what my decision is going to be," I said.

My mother nodded, and then said, "I wouldn't jump to any conclusions quite yet. You haven't gotten your financial aid back from Kale."

Unfortunately, Mom was right. My acceptance letter was useless if I couldn't pay for a Kale education. Perhaps it was money that was controlling my destiny. I couldn't even count the number of things that I hadn't done because of money, and I crossed my fingers that going to Kale wouldn't become one of those things.

A few weeks later, my financial aid letter arrived. Just like I had with the acceptance letter, I pulled it out of the mailbox and tore it open before I got into the door. At that moment, it looked like fate or money or luck or whatever had determined my destiny had finally swung my way.

With a combination of need-based aid and scholarships, Kale University had given me a full ride.

Not only was Kale my favorite school by far, but it was now also the cheapest. My decision was practically made for me. I immediately told the good news to my mom, who broke down into tears of joy. "Ryan, this is a miracle," she said as she clung onto me. "We won't have to pay a cent for your education."

I, on the other hand, was grinning like a maniac. This, I was sure, was what victory felt like. Despite all of the troubles that had led up to my Kale application, I was going to go to Kale University, and I would do it for free.

At the back of mind, I had a nagging feeling that Kale had mixed me up with someone else. My test scores weren't great, my grades were decent, but not amazing, and my essay barely answered the prompt. Then again, I hadn't experienced real failure, so how could I answer the prompt?

None of that mattered now. I was going to Kale University, and who cares about failure when you've experienced success?