Reach, Target, Safety

Remember when you applied to college? Sometime at the beginning of your process you might’ve met with your high school guidance counselor. That’s what I did, at least. One random day at the beginning of my senior year I was called to the guidance office to go over my transcript and talk about my future plans. I think - to be honest this is a pretty hazy recall, I’m reaching a bit.

You see what I did there? Reaching. That’s one of the words in the title. Anyway, this was the concept my guidance counselor wanted to present to me: “Reach, Target, Safety.” I was supposed to compile a list of schools to which I wanted to apply (I use my best grammar when I speak of the hallowed halls of college out of respect, no sarcasm implied here, none at all) and organize them into three tiers: Reach, Target, and Safety. Threw in a little Oxford comma for the spice and, yes, this is the tone I used on my applications as well.

Let me first say, I think this is a stupid method. It sucks. Nothing turns me off more than qualifying your ambition before you begin your work. I’d never met the guidance counselor in my life. The first thing she wanted to do was tell me what I couldn’t do, based solely on numbers on paper. Now, it’s not her fault - she’s doing her job. It’s the mindset that upsets me. I wish I had more school experiences where people encouraged me to imagine what I could do, rather than tell me what I couldn’t. That being said, I put Harvard and Yale on my reach tier and applied for political science, a subject in which I had no real interest, nor did I have any requisite qualification. What? She told me to reach.

I then applied to a slew of target and safety schools, 75% of which I was admitted to and then never considered attending. Not even for a second. The remaining 25% were the only two colleges I ever imagined myself attending, New York University in Manhattan, and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.

I didn’t get in to either one. No wait list, nothing. Whoops. Probably should’ve taken the whole college application process a little more seriously instead of getting mad and complaining about the system. Looking back, I was not prepared for the auditions and to be honest I might not even get in today - I don’t really think it was in the cards. Alas, I ended up at Ithaca College, major undecided. Just kinda there. That’s where I got the most financial aid, and I’d heard of it because a couple kids older than me in high school had gone. It was a safety, ya know?

Guess what? I was gone in three months. Dropped out. I wanted to come home to do music. I had to focus on my art. Thank god for my mom, she let me. I took the spring off from school and worked at the mall, while I wrote songs and got a couple recorded. I did a year at community college taking night classes, and eventually transferred to Chapman University in 2014, and I got into film school for screenwriting without ever having written any sort of screenplay in my life. I was reaching.

Two days ago I applied to a dream apartment. Yesterday I found out that “Where Do You Go” has the most streams of any song I’ve ever released. This week I’m going to pitch an album and a follow up television show. With all due respect, guidance counselor…

Let me reach.

-J.P.