Opportunity

         A big issue facing adolescents today is the problem of an uncaring attitude toward the future. Instead of constructing a roadway to generate vast opportunities in the days to come, juveniles habitually forge a chain that binds them to a narrow path of frustration and hardship resulting directly from seemingly harmless yet unsound decisions. With each generation, teachers’ warnings go unheeded by high school students, causing them to err perpetually in the same manner. The forsaking of the wisdom of experienced generations, while unnecessary, seems to be a prerequisite to the years of adolescence.
         Take for example the realm of preparation for higher education. Institutions of advanced learning look at more than the record of the individual's final year in high school. Senior grades are only a small part of the criteria required for acceptance into a university or college. Standardized tests, such as the SAT or ACT, are important as well, but college level institutions try to get a feel for the whole person by looking at the complete records of the individual under consideration. Grades from all four years of high school get considered, athletic participation and achievements are looked over, extracurricular activities and clubs are weighed in, and community service and leadership abilities are reviewed. One cannot prepare an adequate college profile simply during the senior year of high school. This task must be undertaken in the preceding years when thoughts of higher education may seem distant and somewhat frightening.
         Preparation for advanced education can be likened to an automotive racing competition. A driver cannot simply race his car through the final lap and merit victory. He must begin at the starting line, maneuver corner after corner, and straightaway after straightaway, in succession until he fulfills the course as set forth by the rules. The outcome is directly proportional to the effort and skill utilized in each shift, apex, brake, draft, and operation of the vehicle driven.
         Yet annually, seniors find themselves struggling with college applications and scholarships, laboriously ransacking their brains to come up with merit that they cannot attain due to past exploits. Perhaps they are restrained by being unable to claim a required GPA, or maybe a lack of past leadership or involvement disqualifies them from a potentially substantial scholarship.
         Although warned by teachers and counselors to the converse, persistent factions of stubborn teens perpetually refuse to plan ahead to avoid the effects of inaction in their endeavors to obtain monetary assistance or college admittance. They are counseled to keep up grades in all areas of academics, encouraged to be actively involved in the community as well as in extracurricular activities such as sports, drama, subject related clubs, etc. Students are advised to pursue employment to prove assiduousness and leadership. All of these things will make the student more attractive to those responsible for the review of applications for admission or scholarship.
         What can be done to combat adolescent irresponsibility in such matters? Or is it sheer irresponsibility? The adolescent mind does not perceive responsibility as does the more mature adult. It is not that he wishes to disqualify himself from academic opportunity down the road, but that he sees it as less important than his "responsibility" to his friends and peers. Such students do not see the ugly chain they forge, binding themselves to paths void of scholastic financial aid. Those who know better should constantly remind them of the retributive nature of competitive student aid and admissions. We must brand indelibly, into their minds, the understanding that they must construct a broad expanse of roadway to accelerate into the future so they need not toil against the chains of restriction from their past.