*This article is satirical and/or entirely fictional and is solely for purposes of entertainment. Madeline received approval from said sister to publish this article.*
You know, I really don’t understand why my family is so freaked out about my sister’s college applications. Ever since November, she’s been staying up until, like, two o’clock in the morning trying to finish her supplements or whatever you call it (why are colleges making their students take probiotics??). And honestly, I think I hear her sobbing herself to sleep at night, but seriously? College applications are not that hard.
Every time she finishes a call with her college counselor, I have to listen to my sister complain about her essay. Apparently her counselor told her to “read her essays out loud to see how they sounded,” and she started crying, saying “she basically told me that my essay sounds stupid.” Oh my God, don’t make me laugh. So let me get this straight, you spent your entire high school career writing essay after essay in a one and a half hour English class and you can’t even write one about yourself in a few months? I swear, she’s being so dramatic.
And not only that, but she keeps complaining about how stressed out she is trying to make deadlines, and my parents are always consoling her like, “Oh, it’s okay. Just take a deep breath and reset before you go back to work. You got this.” WTH?? I’m stressed out in my classes, too, but you don’t hear me whining about it because, unlike big sister general over here, I can actually monitor my deadlines and set my priorities straight.
OMG, and tell me why, last week I was sitting at the dinner table trying to tell my mom and dad about some gossip I overheard during lunch, and they weren’t even listening because (guess who!!) my sister was crying AGAIN. So their oldest daughter suddenly realizes she can express her big girl emotions and now I can’t even tell them about my day? Good lord, she needs to get a grip, because I’m lacking the attention that I deserve—they’re my parents, too!!
Don’t tell me I’m being dramatic either, because if you were me, you’d feel the same way. Ever since college apps started, I’ve just felt so alone. I’m gonna start developing clinical depression if my parents keep on neglecting me. Every human being deserves attention and—wow, I’m already crying—I should not be an exception. It makes me tear up when I talk about it because, well, this is making me feel like a glass child. I’m starting to have to fend for myself in the real world—like, what if I got kidnapped?? Nobody would even notice because I’m a nobody *sniffs and gracefully wipes a tear slowly falling from her big brown eyes*. Cough, anyway.
Bro, AND the amount of money spent on applications is completely absurd. Tell me why my parents spent $400 for my sister to apply to five UCs, and she probably won’t even go to one??? There are other existential problems we need to be worrying about, like getting me a new phone. I’ve had the same iPhone SE since 2022 and it still has a HOME BUTTON!!! I hope my parents know that it really depletes my mental health when people clown me for still having a home button. The other day, my “friend” Haley Kim asked me, “How does your phone still work? Isn’t it from the 1700s?” You know, it just really cut deep in my heart, so I think instead of trying to get my overly sensitive (🙄🙄) older sister into college, we should be putting 100% of our monthly salary into getting me the new iPhone 18e with a 24-megapixel front camera and 12 (12!!) built in gigabytes in order to improve my performance in school and promote my political education by allowing me unlimited screentime to research global news from the only reliable source on the internet, @daterightstuff on TikTok.
Oh, and don’t even get me started on admissions season, because the anxiety has basically consumed my entire household. We already know she’s going to go to college, but I have all As in my classes right now, and where’s my praise? It’s not an easy thing to do, you know. Like, in AP World History Jim Marshall started putting 20 (20!!!) review questions on our unit tests, and I’m still passing his class. Last October, I had a B in AP World for, like, two days, and my mom was freaking out, saying I won’t get into college with a B. With all due respect, Mom, your oldest daughter is hyperventilating every other night because she thinks she’s gonna have to go to JuCo** with straight As and a 4.00 GPA, so, I think we have bigger fish to fry.
**This is no hate against anyone attending/thinking about attending Junior College