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AdMITted

It has been three weeks since I received the admission decision. It was on the fifteenth of December at 6:28 pm Eastern time. For those fond of Math you might have noticed that it was at two pi (3.14*2). Due to the time zones, I received the decision at 1:28 a.m. the next day. A month and a half ago, I finalised my application to Massachusetts Institute of Technology- the world leading university in STEM.
After multiple essay edits, portfolio creation and video taking I was ready. I can call my application a leap of faith. The acceptance rate was less than eight per cent, and all the people who had applied from my school had not been admitted. I believed in myself though, and the non-restrictive early action application system inspired me. I avoided binding myself too much to the institution, for I did not want a heartache the moment the decision came. On multiple occasions, I build many backup plans and created schools of my dreams despite the fact that my dream school was MIT.
I always thought my admission decision would come in on the twentieth of December; five days after everyone had received theirs. I told myself that the excitement of the admissions of my classmates would cloud over mine, and that it would not matter if I got in or not. I was very wrong. On the seventh December, I received a nerve wrecking email- the admission decisions would be released the next week! At times I panicked, I wondered what would come after I got rejected or admitted. Other times, I felt immune to what would happen next, after all the application was not binding.
On the tenth December, four of the Early decision applicants were admitted, two to University of Pennsylvania, one to Stanford and another to Swarthmore.  Everything started taking an edge of reality. In those days more decision came in, some were admitted others rejected or deferred. My days were filed though; I was training in the dreamers camp 2016. This gave me something to concentrate on rather than the impeding admission decisions. Nevertheless, I was constantly reminded of this as I entered the class I was teaching. I was assisting them in ACT prep, and we had to explain why they had to do it. This made us refer to our own applications, and it was easier to convince them, for my partner had been already admitted.
The day I had been waiting for finally came. I decided to fast and pray in order to ask God to help me through the suspense. It is true that I was frightened, but I did not want to let it show. Usually I have no classes in the morning, so I had no obligations scheduled. I worked with a friend on the basics of essay writing, for he had applications to work on that required submission of amazing essays. I had had a nagging headache since morning, so I decided to go take a nap. Sadly I realised that I had used up most of my energy- I had crashed. It was not new though, In August I fell critically ill and these were the remnants of the disease. Every time I worked real hard, I crashed and had to sleep it off. I did not get out of bed for the class I was supposed to conduct or for dinner.
The night was cold, but my head was burning. It hurt so much that at times I couldn’t sleep. My friend had proposed to check for me, but I declined the offer. I wanted to be the first to know, so I put in an alarm for 1:25 a.m. I awoke to the sound of the alarm. I opened the link to the decision portal. In the meantime I wondered what my reaction would be- all I got was blank. The first attempt failed, I was panicked. I thought I had been removed from those who applied for my Standardized tests had not been sent through the official testing bodies. I tried a second time, and the letter that would change my life appeared.

“Dear Diane, on behalf of the Admission Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you admission to the MIT Class of 2021! And I was admitted. I felt like screaming, but I had lost my voice. Either way, everyone was sleeping and I thought it might be a nuisance. I decided to tell it to God, so I said a thanksgiving prayer. I went back to sleep with a smile on my face. In the morning, I didn't know how to announce it to everyone else. I felt as if it could fly away if I said it out loud. When Hyacinthe asked me the decision, I told her a matter-of-fact yes. She had to think twice before realising that I had actually got in.
Some of the girls screamed and other hugged me, but it felt like walking on a cloud. I couldn’t believe it myself. My best friend posted it on Instagram with a very emotional caption. When I got alone I finally felt like crying. Everything I had fought for was coming into place, and all I hoped for was for everything else to fall into place, just like my admission.


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