Spent more than10 hours in a bus travelling to 2 different states in a journey which started at around 6 PM and ended at around 4 AM. Felt and fought the chilling waves of the early morning. No sleep for more than 24 hours. Reached the examination center as early as possible. Yet, I couldn’t give SAT. For real? Yes! But why? Lets hear the story of a journey then…
Me and my friend were all set to give SAT on 4th Nov. But why did we want to give SAT? Its because we both shared a common dream of attending an Ivy-League School. So SAT was the option, and we began our journey to explore it. First, we figured out how to get to the destination. We had to take a bus, then change it for the another one at the midnight, and that probably meant no sleep at all before the examination night! So we took the bus at 6 PM, reached the mid-stop destination at around 11 PM. And yes, it was getting colder and colder as the hours flew by. Maybe I felt a little more colder because of the exam the next day. You know students freak out a lot before the Big-Day! But I’m not one of them. Still it was very cold 😉
The 2nd bus started the journey at around 11:30 PM. We expected to reach our destination at around 2 in the morning. But I guess we were very very wrong! It was all foggy, and you can imagine the speed of the bus, very slow. It was a horrifying image of a vehicle travelling alone in the dark, coming out of nowhere and going to the same place! We stopped at least 2 times to eat and drink (not the bad drinks!). When at last we reached our destination at 4 in the morning, we were like “OMG, I’m too sleepy!”.
Somehow I got my 2 hours (not exactly!) of sleep and then got ready for the SAT, the next hurdle to be crossed off from my list! truth to be told, I was excited, not frightened, and quite fresh after the tire-some journey. We collected all our documents and the admit card and were completely set to make a mark in the exam. So my high hopes, I went into the center, got all my documents checked, and then was called in the office!
I didn’t know then what was going on, but later I found out I was not alone. There were around 6 students with me, including my friend, and the issue was told to us then. “All you guys and girls don’t have your passports with you, so you’re not allowed to give SAT“, the announcement was made, and I was like “WTF!” It was written on the admit card that you have to bring your Identification along with you, and I’ve everything, but why passport?
Then it was made clear. “The Indians and Pakistani students have to bring their passports for their ID verification. Nothing else will work.” Then I understood. The Collegeboard has some set of rules for the whole world, and some additional rules for the Indians and the Pakistanis. First, their extra fees which is added to the common fee+international fee. So the fees looks like: Common fee+International Fee+Fee for being from India, Isn’t it funny! And then the passport rule, ONLY PASSPORT WILL WORK, nothing else.
So that’s why I couldn’t give my SAT and was kindly asked to go out of the center after such a journey. But you know I have a wish to go to Ivy-League School, so I’m giving the SAT on 28th Jan next year, with much better preparation. And this time, I also have my passport ready :), so please no more additional rules Collegeboard!
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