My dream was to become a unicorn.

All through middle school and my first two years of high school, I wanted to go to the NC School of Science and Mathematics, a public residential school for the smartest high schoolers in the state and home of the unicorns.

I took the hardest classes available, joined everything STEM related, and perfected my SAT scores, and when sophomore year rolled around, I spent hours upon hours pouring my heart into my application. I searched the internet for SAT scores and GPAs of people who had been accepted to try to convince myself that I would get in while I waited for that decision to come. Everyone I knew told me not to worry because NCSSM would be crazy not to accept me.

However, acceptance is not determined by how many people think you deserve it or the fact that someone with lower SAT scores got in last year. It is determined by a board of admissions, and no matter how much so-called evidence you find to convince yourself you’ll get in, the decision is still theirs.

I thought I had prepared myself for the worst, but that rejection smacked me in the face.

For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I wasn’t the smartest person in the world. I had never really stepped back to consider that, as smart as I’d always been told I was, there might be smarter people outside of Clinton, North Carolina.

What really put the icing on the cake was the fact that I was accepted to the online program. I had just gotten rejected from my dream school, and they dare to offer me a spot in the online program? Was this some kind of joke?

I reluctantly accepted the offer. At the time, I had no idea what NCSSM Online was. All I knew was that when I applied for the residential program, I had checked a little box to apply for the online program because, hey, it couldn’t hurt.

About a week after my rejection and acceptance, I had to go to NCSSM for the Online Welcome Day. After a couple of hours of learning about the program, I was beginning to feel a little better about NCSSMO. It was the next best thing, after all. I walked out of the auditorium actually feeling a bit hopeful for the upcoming year. That is, until I walked outside and saw residential kids. They were lying in hammocks, carrying stereos on their shoulders, breakdancing on the sidewalk, having fun. That was the kind of fun I should be having. I immediately burst into tears. That was the moment I vowed to make NCSSM regret rejecting me.

Science and Math made quick work of my vengeance and my identity crisis, however. I went to the summer symposium and junior orientation that summer, then took two classes and went to the Ethics and Leadership Conference, a research seminar, and prom all at Smath. While I was trying to make NCSSM regret rejecting me, I accidentally realized how grateful I was for what they had given me instead.

Now that I realized I might not be as smart as I thought, it was easier to see others’ intelligence. I made friends with other smart people from all over North Carolina (real friends, not those people you meet at summer camp who promise to keep in touch and never do), experienced completely new things, and made great memories. I’ve grown fungi, made soap from scratch, been elected to the first NCSSMO student government chapter, experienced both a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and a Victorian tea party, communed with nature, and unknowingly befriended a somewhat famous musician. I’ve also fallen off of broken bunk beds, hidden under hoop skirts, stayed up all night talking in the lounge, broken down on a short bus, eaten chocolate chip pancakes before attending prom at a museum, and been stalked and harassed by the fan-base of my somewhat famous friend. I owe all of these things to S’math, and I regret nothing. I’m living the dream.