Cam Scoglio

The college admissions process

Going through college admissions was a new game for me. It was the first time I felt like I lost the game. I knew it as soon as the game started.

Throughout highschool, I didn't know college existed. Sure, I guess I did, but it was this weird, cloudy figure that was meant to be thought about when the time came. Then it did.

Everyone around me, it seemed, had been planning their whole lives around college admissions, while I had just realized the game begun. I know one guy who had been doing chemistry since 6th grade. He'd planned out his entire high school career- knew which classes to take, which programs to do, which things to worry about. He got into Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.

I sat and watched as their moves unfolded, like they'd been gathering resources and strategies for years until all at once it architectures into this beautfilly crafted college resume. They played their cards right, and won.

Luckily, i'd been smart enough to get good grades and work hard about what I was interested in. I had good friends too. I pulled some good extracurriculars in in the last moments, one being starting a business and getting to $500k ARR in 9 months before dropping it (more on that another time), and I ended up getting into Duke. But I can't help but believe I got lucky as I saw the guys who interned at finance firms get into UPenn, research and stem guys get into MIT, and people like my friend getting into Harvard. It was hard, and risky, to start a business in the last 3 months before college applications. It only makes me wish I had known what to do sooner to achieve the goal I wanted.

Or maybe I just didn't know what I wanted in the first place.

I didn't even know what college was, like I said.

I'm incredibly grateful I'm going to Duke next year, because for every person like me who didn't have that clear goal in mind and still got in, there are thousands of dead bodies behind my trail. There are even some in front of me. The process is random. But going forward, i've started to be much more careful in crafting my goals. If I don't know what I'm aiming for, I know i'll lose. The playerbase has only 1000xed. The competition has 10,000xed. And the stakes have grown infinitely. This game going ahead isn't one to take lightly. My goal right now is to "maximize the value I provide to the world." Sure, that's true, but what really is it? Is it to make money? Is it to create technology? Is it to develop a content base? Is it to start a B2B SaaS (hopefully not, those people are soulless).

I don't exactly know what it will be. I do know it must have to do with technology and will require distribution. Because those are the two highest levers to pull. And if i'm not maximally pulling those two levers, i'm wasting time and leaving things on the table.

The next game won't be like college though. I've started companies and organizations since I was 15. In the world of entrepreneurship, i'm the 6th grader aiming for Harvard. But that's a story to tell once I get there.