Un-common App

My firstborn applies to college

Have you heard of the Common App? It’s one of those ways that the Internet has made life easier. A hopeful high school senior can now apply to many colleges with one application that contains one college essay – instead of spending weeks filling out a dozen applications – thereby robbing himself of tales of youthful difficulty. (Did you know that I filled out college applications on a typewriter? Don’t listen to your grandparents’ stories of hand-cramp. Typewriters are much worse.)

My son is applying to college this year, and I’ve discovered that the process is more complicated than the Common App implies. Many colleges require more than the Common App Essay. There’s an obstacle course that some schools set up to ensure that only the most intense students will apply – a kind of self-selection process. (I note that my alma mater requires three additional essays and three more short-answer responses. Admissions are more prohibitive than ever whilst the education gets easier – but that’s a subject for a different essay.)

Jack has jumped through the hoops and written several additional essays for various colleges of interest. But it’s his Common App piece that has struck me most with its vulnerability. He answers the timeless college essay question, “Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

Above all things, Jack hates discussing his particular life challenges; he has a sleep disorder called idiopathic hypersomnia in which sleep never translates to rest. (With his reluctant permission, I alluded to this condition in a previous essay.) This challenge has led to academic difficulties over the years as he has had trouble staying awake during classes and tests. In senior year, he has finally learned to “triage his energy,” as one of his teachers said, and now has the best grades of his young career. His college advisor gently insisted that he write about the sleep disorder in his Common App Essay to explain the discrepancy between his high standardized test scores and his uncompetitive grades.

Jack abhors excuses – but respects his advisor. He grudgingly agreed to address the issue. In lieu of an essay, he wrote a poem so that he could allude to the problem obliquely, depicting his cycles of exhaustion in increasing and decreasing lines of iambic feet. (The structure of the poem is easier to see on a computer screen rather than a phone, FYI.) Most striking to me is his conclusion: Everyone has brokenness that needs fixing – and there’s hope. That same hope has removed his (and our) anxiety from the college application process. In total opposition to my experience 30 years ago, he is not worried about the outcome because he knows that his future is in God’s hands.

This month, I’ve been working on an essay that wasn’t polished enough to publish today – so I’m sharing Jack’s poem below. I think it’s beautiful, and I’ll let you know the outcome in May.

Idiopathic Hypersomnia
by Jack Susong

Asleep.
Alarm then rings.
I rise, preparing for
The future: heading to my desk,
My laptop glows and draws me to my task,
The College Essay. “Name a challenge you
Have faced and what you learned from it.” Fine, then:
Idiopathic Hypersomnia –
That’s Latin for “we don’t know why you’re tired
All the time.” An essay followed, full of
Stories from my life. Yet every word
I typed, I hated. Simply speaking of it
Makes me cringe and close my eyes,
Disappointment close behind.
The weight descends again
And binds my will.
I need a break.

But no, there’s more.
I start to think: Is this
The way I want myself portrayed?
It doesn’t match the way I’ve lived my life.
I’m six foot eight, the starting center.
The symptoms hound me down the court –
Catching me. There’s every reason I should
Quit or tell the coach I need to sit.
But all would be reminded. No.
Instead push on. Defy
Fatigue and move.

Enough of woe
Is me. Can’t stand that –
What makes me feel alive? The deep
Discussions held at school or at the summer
Seminars. It’s there – a fleeting glimpse
Of what I want to feel. A rush of energy
That causes me to speak – and speak quite well.
But what a Herculean effort.
Persuasion is achieved,
But at a cost.

I rouse again
And laugh while thinking of
My friends, rememb’ring all the times
I’ve kept them entertained – with wit or sleep:
Recalling Junior Prom where I awoke
To find a stack of soda cans atop
My head – I shrugged away the pile and grinned
Before returning to my rest. I’m sure
My date was thrilled. Events like these
Are many. Even now,
I drift away.

At once I see
What I was missing. How
Do I “identify?” Not by
The problem or my overcoming it.
I’m not a victim or a champion. Just
A man who has his struggles much like every
Other man – All is broken.
My condition is the human one.
I open both my eyes, the realization
Finished. One last revelation comes:
I hear, “Arise, shine; for thy Light is come.”

---

Arise, shine; for thy light is come,
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
and gross darkness the people:
but the Lord shall arise upon thee,
and his glory shall be seen upon thee….
and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer,
the mighty One of Jacob.
Isaiah 60:1-2, 16 (King James Version)