Alex McCarter ’25 Shares Powerful Essay at Cum Laude Assembly

As part of the MICDS Cum Laude Society induction process, each student candidate shared one of their College Common App essays for review by the Cum Laude faculty members. The faculty selected several essays, which were shared at a special luncheon held for the student candidates. The students then selected Lilly Loeb ’25 and Alex McCarter ’25 to share their essays with the full Upper School student body during the ceremony on Monday, April 14, 2025. Please enjoy Alex’s essay below.

Armed with my best “customer service smile,” I stare at the growing line in front of our booth. In my left hand is an overflowing cup of Vietnamese coffee and in my right a pen frantically scratching down sales and prices into our stained invoice book. To hundreds of faces over the next few hours, my mom and I describe the process of our yarn-making, the feed of our chickens, and the flavoring of our coffee. Behind the counter, in a coordinated chaotic dance, we punch numbers into the calculator, dig in coolers for eggs, and weigh countless boxes of green beans. For the past seven-odd years, this has been my Saturday morning routine: dragged unwillingly by my mom to the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market to sell the meat, eggs, fiber, and produce from our 90-acre family farm.

It’s the beginning of Sophomore year and I hate working at the market. I despise rejecting Friday night plans for 5 am wake-ups, the inevitable malaise every Saturday afternoon, and that my time always feels out of control. It seems like every week I skip breakfast just to make it to school on time, and each essay is pushed to the night before.

I grumble to anyone who will listen about my grievances, even writing a melodramatic essay that could’ve simply been boiled down to “I’m mad at my mom.” But instead of finding the sympathy I desire, I’m only met with confused stares and questions: why couldn’t I just “get out of it” by joining debate, robotics or model UN?

The market, however, is far more than an extracurricular: it is an obligation.

Through finals, I trudge on, working almost every day of every weekend from Thanksgiving to Christmas at essential holiday shows needed to supplement the farm’s income. Then finally, by winter break I find relief in a two-week respite from both school and the market.

That January, however, even as its schedule becomes bi-weekly, my chronic procrastination remains—my time in front of the cash box replaced by hours idly scrolling.

On one cold Saturday, buried in the house by a foot of snow and four hours of screen time, part of me wonders if this is really a better way to spend my time. I remember my routine: the rich taste of a hand pie from Megan and Preston accompanied with a side of small talk, the endless crowds beginning with our first customers—people that have known me since I was ten—returning each week. Somehow, I long for something that has seemingly wreaked so much havoc in my life.

Truthfully, there was no reason the market defining me had to be a burden. For each 5 am wake-up, there was a new lesson in the importance of punctuality; each endless line was a new way to push the endurance of my social battery; and every annoying question about growing mangoes in Missouri was really just an opportunity to introduce someone to truly local agriculture. Ultimately, there was no use in holding resentment over something out of my control, so why waste time trying to run from it.

Over the next few months, I teach myself to adapt. I learn to bring my homework to the market on rainy days when sales are slow. I discover that instead of sleeping in on Sunday mornings, they are instead a vital time for me to be productive. And I discern that maybe free periods were a time for more than just gossip.

In early April, as the sun rises over the blossoming trees of Tower Grove Park, I squint in the morning light. It’s the opening day of the market’s regular season, but it really could be any other Saturday morning. And as I wave good morning to our first eager coffee drinker—another vendor probably just as sleep deprived as me—I finally realize that my smile isn’t simply an act.