Middle Seats and College Choice

The worst thing in the world is to find out that you are stuck in the middle seat of a full flight for four hours.

I don’t know about you, but I get filled with dread and the what if’s:

• What if the seat isn’t roomy enough?
• What if the person I’m sitting next to needs a shower?
• What if I am next to the most annoying kid/baby/person in the world?
• What if I have to pee and the person sitting on the aisle is asleep?

Questions like that (and others that are not suitable to write out loud), were what was going on in my head recently as I traveled for work.

But as I was trying my best to get into a positive space about this journey, I started to think about the admissions process for students. Sometimes, our students are stuck with the middle seat.

First class has only a limited amount of seats available, just like the 10 or so schools that every student applies to in the world. You look at those people in the front and whisper to yourself that they are either always lucky, rich, evil, or a good combination of the three. It pains you more when you know that you had the same qualifications as that person in 2F with a glass of orange juice and leg space for days.

You secretly really hate those people as you walk past them to your economy section or the majority of universities.

You have those people who love their window or aisle seat (I prefer an aisle); those schools that are awesome and have plenty of options. The people who get those seats always have it as either part of their main plan or the option that they are happy with because the name is known, or its the spot preferred by others. Now there are nuances to where the aisle/window is located, just as there are differences between a school located in a city or in a rural location. Either way, you still feel as if you have some options, some choice.

But because of checking in late, or the flight being oversold or thunderstorm, you get the middle seat. What hurts, even more, is that you may have had the same exact qualifications as the last person to get their preferred seat/school.

Now the dreaded middle seat is the one school that you applied to because you at least knew the school to have what you needed and that you qualified for admissions without thought and hesitation. It's that school that will never be good enough but is the only one that gave you options. It’s the school your counselor insisted that you add. For students, it’s that school that you are reluctant to attend, but you know that this is the only way you can go to get to your final destination.

But to my students and families that have the middle seat, I say embrace it. You may never know that the seat that you are in could be the best situation for you in the long run. That middle seat school probably gave a lot of financial aid to support your education. The middle seat school is the school that opened doors of opportunity and choice because they got to know you more intimately. That middle seat school gave you bigger options for your future and allowed for more intimate life-changing support.

A middle seat is not bad, but it’s never really valued. But often, as in life and on a crowded plane, we want the seat that everyone else has and fail to appreciate the seat that we happen to be given. But if students are encouraged to embrace the middle seat, then they can allow themselves an opportunity to see things from a fresh perspective.

And to be honest, the middle seat may turn into being the best seat on a plane.