Fear of Mediocre by Heidi

Fear of Mediocre by Heidi - October 2023 Scholarship Essay

Junior year in my AP Language class I read the book, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. This book talks about the top elite schools in our nation and what is going on within them. Talking about the nations problem with colleges debts and college students. When we were first handed this book, I looked at it as a treacherous assignment that was needed to keep my A in the class. That vary A that I thought would be able to carry me into elite colleges only to spiral down holes of confusion on who I truly want to be. I was scared to become a mediocre student that went to the same colleges as those who have never touched an AP class in their high school career. I did not want my effort wasted on the in state college with a 80% acceptance rate. When I first started reading the book it had me scoffing at the idea that I wouldn’t want to go to the elite colleges. All my life I have been told to dream bigger than I believe is possible. However, this book made me realize the elite college was not a dream I had for myself, I was simply afraid of failure. I grew up being labeled as ‘gifted’, I was placed in multiple advanced classes starting from elementary all the way throughout high school. The academic competitiveness in me started out young because of this. I believed that there was always someone out there beating you, and the only way to beat them is to never fail. Eventually this morphed into the fear of failure, it was no longer a game of how hard I could push myself to better myself. It created that thought to become exceptional rather than mediocre. How would I be able to continue this exceptional streak and beat my peers? Going to an elite college.

Why wouldn’t I want to be labeled as one of the students in a top school in our country? As I continued to read this book, it made me face the decision of financial debt, social solitude, mental health changes and so many more issues that come along with those who choose to tend the elite schools. I started to unravel the thoughts that were built up over years of being told I was gifted, that being gifted did not mean I couldn’t be average. This book was the reason these ideas in my head started to accept new thoughts. I did not want to be faced with the debt that the elite schools would bring on, only to earn the average pay of any American, because outside of college and school there is no gifted or elite. That Harvard diploma will only get you so far into the work force, and you will be working with people that went to those in state schools. The social solitude that these schools bring ends of taking huge factors of your mental health with it. This book taught me that the people in these elite schools were the ones struggling the most with mental health. They struggled asking teachers for help and often regretted decisions of going to these elite colleges. I did not want to deteriorate myself only to receive a paper with ‘Yale’ printed bigger than my name. For that paper is simply just a sheet of paper, that throws hundreds to thousands of kids in debt, and often in bad mental places. Going to an in state, low risk college would combat these things. It does not make me mediocre to attend these colleges, it might simply make me smarter for avoiding those risks. This book deeply impacted my outlook on college, how I should not chase a fake dream to escape the fear of failing. Failing pushes us to be better, it does not make us mediocre.