Recently, there have been a handful of high school seniors across the nation who have been in the spotlight for their excellence in academics. These seniors got accepted to all eight Ivy League schools and now face the difficult decision of choosing where to continue their educations.

Their decision is very hard. They look at their Harvard acceptance letter with a crinkle in their forehead thinking, “Man, it is so hard being smart. Nobody has any idea how this feels.”

Their parents constantly congratulate them, telling them that they are so proud of them and that they were going to do amazing things with their life. Still, the kid could not shake the feeling that they were not good enough for something more.

In a parallel universe, there is a kid from LHS sitting in their room with their parents shoving two college acceptance letters down his throat. Their parents are yelling at them while the student quivers in fear.

“You need to make a choice and you need to make it soon.”

Their parent leaves the room in a fit of rage and the kid is left alone to ponder their future. He looks at the acceptance letter to their left, and at the acceptance letter to their right. Sweat drips down their face and their heart rate elevates.

“What do I do? Do I choose USD or SDSU? Nobody has any idea how this feels.”

They knew they had only two options on where to go and they could only wish they had done more to be good enough for other schools.

These two kids, on two opposite ends of the country ponder their misfortunes. One finally makes the choice to go to Vermillion to get their secondary education and the other finally decides to attend Yale. While both across the country from each other, they feel each other’s pain and emptiness.