Faith isn’t everything

In the summer of 2015, I didn’t think that I had any chance of making the high school magnet program. My belief in my ability had plummeted when I was one of the only people in my school not to be accepted into Takoma Park or Eastern. Summer 2015, I was getting ready to go through the motions of Dr.Li’s summer class for a second time. I already knew that I was gonna end up going to the Saturday classes, even though my parents and I had many debates about it. After my two weeks of summer camp, filled with an extreme amount of homework and wanting to sleep, I was at home, and not very excited for the weekend classes, or for the benchmark testing involved.

On the testing day, I had to drag myself out of bed, and in true Khushboo fashion, got there five minutes late. After taking the test, I barely stressed, because I had no faith in myself. The next week, I started the real classes, and as usual, arrived late. Looking around for a seat, I sat beside a girl whom I knew from my school. To me, the class dragged on and on, and I started doodling all over the paper until Dr. Li came in to teach us about math. The amount of energy he had instantly woke me up and I groaned as he placed a math drill on my table.

Over the course of a few weeks, my writing significantly improved as a result of the the weekly essays. I started from a zero, but after a while was usually scoring in the 9-10 range. On the other hand, my math score stayed in the same range, close to the 15s. I did make a new friend who was much more serious about Blair and RM than I was, and we managed to have a lot of fun together. When the practice testing started, I didn’t score amazingly well, and I didn’t understand some of the questions, but even though my parents said that I had to do better, I believed Dr. Li when he said that the test would be much easier than what he tested us with.

Two or three weeks later, when it was time for the test, I wasn’t stressed, I just took the test and relaxed. After the test, people kept on asking me how I thought I did, and all I said was “It was much easier than I expected.” I stepped out of the building and silently thanked Dr. Li for telling the truth, even though I was the teensiest bit annoyed that the essay was unlike any of the practice ones that we had done. A month passes, and we enter the new year, and I felt absolutely no stress.

In February, I started to think about the results, stressing about them even though I didn’t want to. On February 10, 2016 I got the acceptance letter from Blair. I told my teachers and friends who also had applied. Then on the 12th, I found out that I had been accepted into the IB program at RM. Either way, I would have to leave most of my friends and teachers behind.

At this point in time, I still haven't decided where I will be attending school in 9th grade, but I do know that wherever I choose to go, much of my thanks will go to Dr. Li and his amazing team of teachers. Dr. Li’s class helped build my self-confidence and opened doors that I had believed were closed to me. Thank you Dr. Li.