College Success: In a Nutshell
“This is it,” Kendall thought, “this is the letter that determines whether or not I am going to Alabama next year.” Kendall had been waiting months to receive a letter from The University of Alabama specifying whether or not she had been accepted. As she opened the letter, all she could think about was how proud her father would be if she were to attend his Alma matter. “Here it is,” Kendall thought, “one of the most defining moments of my life.” She opened the letter with trembling hands and was immediately overcome with emotion. She hadn’t been accepted. Kendall couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She had an outstanding GPA all through high school and she graduated in the top 5% of her class. Why hadn’t she been accepted? She felt nauseous as she read the letter. Kendall was sure there was some kind of mistake. Her ACT score wasn’t high enough to meet the university’s undergraduate requirement for admission. Although she agreed that her ACT score wasn’t the greatest, Kendall still believed that she had everything it took to succeed in college. After all, she had superior grades in all of her honors courses and even tutored other students after school. The only thing she had against her was her performance on standardized tests. No matter how she tried, Kendall could never be fully prepared for her ACT. She bought self-help ACT books and even took an ACT study class on-line. Despite all of her hard work to make improvements, Kendall always froze up the minute she was handed the test. There was nothing that she or anyone else could do about it. Kendall was a phenomenal student and always exceeded expectations; however, she simply did not do well on tests. Surely they didn’t overlook all of her outstanding academic achievements merely because of her ACT score. She would’ve understood if she had scored much lower than the minimum requirement, but Kendall had only missed the target score by one point. Kendall was dreadfully...