Never Have I Ever Gotten Into College the First Time
I applied to college three times. The first was, like most people, during my senior year of high school. When I didn’t get into the school(s) I wanted, I decided to reapply during my gap year in Israel. I was then rejected from one school, but accepted to my dream school. When my mental health careened downward and everything I knew was no longer true, I deferred that school and applied to Hunter College, where I ended up attending and from which I graduated in the middle of a pandemic. My path to college - and my college experience as a whole - was not what I had anticipated, nor was it the typical path projected by my high school and my community.
Which is why I was so disappointed by the finale of Never Have I Ever, a Netflix teen rom-com show about an overachieving Indian high school girl, her romantic escapades, and her academic career. Because Devi - the protagonist - is the Indian daughter of immigrants (one of whom is dead), there aren’t that many similarities between her high school experience and mine. I only had one boyfriend in high school, and our relationship was tame by TV standards. I’m not an only child, nor was I a straight-A honor-roll-every-semester kind of student. But: I too - especially as a child and teenager - let my temper and anxiety carry me away into shouting matches and poor choices. I also was dead-set on attending a specific college, only to be rejected by the place where I saw myself growing into an adult.
Devi wanted to go to Princeton because of a rather sweet memory with her father. I wanted to go to Brandeis because of the idyllic summer I spent doing theater on campus and the dream of being roommates with my best friend. Neither of us had primarily picked our dream school because of their academics, though we both added other reasons onto our initial motivation for going. When Devi is initially deferred from Princeton only to be waitlisted there and rejected everywhere else, her whole world crumbles. She starts thinking of herself as a loser and has-been, and of course - because of TV plot requirements - lies to her mother, which leads to everyone thinking she was actually accepted into all of the Ivies. Devi’s college guidance counselor reprimands her for her “no safeties” plan; and I felt seen. While I did apply to safety schools, I ignored conventional advice and didn’t apply to places that I would actually enjoy attending. I was so convinced that I was the kind of student Brandeis wanted: proudly Jewish, academically motivated, involved in extracurriculars where I had leadership positions, and I’d even gone to BIMA, a precollege program on campus, where I had a preliminary interview with the admissions department! But I didn’t submit my (decent but not obscenely good) SAT scores because of well-intentioned bad advice from my college guidance counselor, and I didn’t have the APs on my transcript to back it up.
So when I didn’t get in, my view of myself shifted, and the future I’d planned out during late night sleepovers crumbled. My parents encouraged me to think of the bright side: After all, I wasn’t going to college for another year. It’s not ideal, but I could take time during my gap year to reapply.
And that’s what I did. None of my college experience was what I had hoped for as a high schooler. I didn’t live on campus, I didn’t do any theater, go to Hillel formals, or even make close friends in my classes who would be bridesmaids at my (then theoretical) wedding. But despite what the frustrated and sad high school senior thought - I had an incredible, growth-filled college experience. I figured out what I wanted to do with my life, dated and broke up with the wrong boy, built a community for myself and others, and one of my roommates was a bridesmaid when I got married last year. If I had attended Brandeis like I’d dreamed, I might not be starting my fourth year of rabbinical school. I might still have that high school best friend in my life, but I probably wouldn’t have met my husband. Things worked out the way they were supposed to.
So when the Never Have I Ever plot gets tied up with a neat bow with Devi’s eventual acceptance to Princeton (after writing a supplementary essay about her father) and living the life she’d dreamed of, I was disappointed. For a brief moment, the part of me that’s still sensitive about not following the path laid out for her by classmates and teachers and gossiping ladies in shul was comforted by seeing herself on screen. The lead character in a Netflix show was also going to reapply to college! She also was so headstrong she wouldn’t listen to others and apply to safety schools she’d attend! Instead, after angsting for a bit, Devi gets what she always wanted.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I expected a teen rom-com not to tie up its plot neatly. If I was a TV writer, I’d probably do the same thing. But most stories - and definitely not mine - don’t actually get a satisfying ending, at least not right away. It took a few years for me to look back without wincing, and even more to be grateful for the way my life turned out. And I can hope that now that Never Have I Ever told Devi’s non-linear story, maybe the next show will end with its hero not having any idea what’s next.