public vs. private schools

Y called me about her new crush, C. He's a senior and apparently he's very good at physics. She gets to take advantage of all the resources that C has to offer. I wish I had people like that at my school.

We talked about how weird it was that everyone is a gatekeeper here. At my school, you're constantly trying to differentiate yourself and grind until you get out of this town, whereas at her school since there's an application process to attend I feel like your baseline is like already going to be a pretty good college. A lot of people at her school are actually super chill because they have a rich background and know that they're going to lead successful lives and careers, so Y has adopted that mindset. In my school, that's not the default and you're not guaranteed a future. A lot of people don't even graduate from high school.

I've been trying to find a college counselor for a very long time now and all the private schools have college counselors built in. My guidance counselor takes care of 400 people whereas Y's entire school is 300 people. Y was ranting about how she has a disadvantage because other people have Legacy. But she has much more resources than me and I think that's just generally true for private schools. Sometimes I think that I'm in the top of my school but I'm still not good enough for those colleges because I don't have as many resources. What we really need is like actual college counseling--like therapy--because people at my school are too stressed about it. Or maybe it's just me.

We talked about how everyone here thinks that Berkeley is not good enough. She said she felt like everyone in the Asian community here seems like they're living in a different world and believes that it's very easy to get into these top colleges. For Asians, there's such a huge emphasis on education. I do appreciate that. I'm not just trying to go to a college so I can flaunt, but so I can have the resources to better understand myself and explore what I want to do in the future.

Although--I mean that in the least elitist way possible--sometimes I don't think I necessarily fit into the environment here, I have made some good friends and memories that otherwise I wouldn't have. Also, having a public school education is crucial for getting to know what the real world is like. You gain more empathy for the rest of the world and instead of having people help you all the time, you have to discover what kind of things you want to do, and it teaches you the work ethic for college and the workforce. Private schools are very shielded from the world. Y told me that everyone has a "white savior complex" where they sit in a classroom full of white people and talk about racism and all the white girls have an average of 3.5 clubs. I also like going to a school that's close to my house because I would not be able to handle the transportation. In eighth grade was admitted to this private school in Marin, but I didn't go because it was too far and expensive. Although I wonder what it would have been like had I gone, I don't regret my decision.