I remember taking my PSAT sophomore year, not even knowing why I was taking it. “Was it another STARR test?” I asked myself. My scores were mediocre, and I felt discouraged seeing everyone around me get high scores. My closest friend explained that the SAT is important because it is a test colleges use to judge your academic potential. That was when I truly started to take it seriously. My parents were never taught such a thing because they are older and have little college experience. I felt behind everyone, and I had to catch up. My senior year came, and I focused all my time on the SAT and the ACT. I would spend hours studying as I related my SAT scores to success in college. However, my test scores did not change much; they were ten points higher. My college success was gone, I thought, until I realized my true potential now.

My current GPA stands at 3.91, with a considerable number of credit hours. In addition, I am a physics major taking extraneous classes that require countless hours of study. Academic success and a great college education have been my main priorities in my current college because it creates opportunities to be admitted into superior engineering programs. However, my priorities have shifted during my experience at community college. College is important to me because it has led me to discover myself. During college, I have been the happiest I have ever been. This is because it demands a focus that is outside of yourself. I came quickly to realize how hard college truly is. It is competitive, rigorous, and complicated. Everyone in college has their dream, but we all have to put in the work to achieve it. This effort creates something inside us that builds character, and It has caused me to reshape my thinking on education. I believe my education in engineering will provide the world with adequate solutions to problems—for example, innovations in car safety features or a new design material for overheating iPhones. College students are the future of America, and this understanding drives us to be successful. Every day I go to college and learn, I feel like I am making a difference in the world. This conviction and emotion is something people look for all their lives, and now I have it in my grasp. I will always put my academics at the top of my goals list, but my and everyone else’s top desires should be to create a positive impact on the world.

These traits I have built are things I created after high school and definitely not before the SAT. In other words, the SAT did not determine my success. I have applied to big universities in Texas, like Texas A&M, and I expect to get in! We should not be looking at the SAT scores because they are not a direct reflection of someone’s work ethic. I had a great work ethic, but I didn’t have people telling me to focus on the SAT to get accepted into top universities. I found another route that hopefully will lead me to a great engineering department. I might be what you call a late bloomer, but I have made success with my circumstances.