You’re with your family sitting on the couch on a Friday night, relaxing, laughing, and enjoying not thinking about the list of responsibilities that come with being in your senior year of high school.
Then seconds later, your parents ask you the most stressful, nerve-wracking, and suspenseful question: “So Deanna…Where do you plan on going to college?” And for every senior, hearing and thinking about this question creates such indecisiveness in knowing where to be for the next four years.
However, having been through the college application process myself, it is not as hard as it seems. The best and first step is to start the application process early. Be organized, know your deadlines, and make sure you’re submitting the correct application to each school (since sometimes different schools require different applications). Pushing yourself to start taking action early will go a very long way in the future. Plus, colleges also love to see you apply early because it allows them to get a head start on the application process as well.
Submitting everything was the easy part, the hard part was getting everything together. This includes: asking your teachers for letters of recommendation, finding an essay topic and being able to submit your best work, having more than one person read and edit it, and lastly sending over your SAT/ACT scores.
I think the biggest problem I handled personally was my fear of not getting accepted into my top schools due to my low standardized test scores. I felt that since I was a bad standardized test taker it would affect my ability of getting into the school. However, I knew deep down that I had a good application by running track and cross country the past four years, maintaining two jobs, and having a 3.5 GPA throughout my four years of high school.
Getting my first acceptance, which ironically was the Mount, was the absolute best feeling imaginable. I became overjoyed with happiness, knowing that all my hard work the past four years of high school payed off, especially getting into my top school, which was the Mount.
Even though I had been accepted to my top school, I still had to wait for my other school acceptances to come in to see what I received money-wise. This was going to affect my decision tremendously in case I didn’t receive enough scholarship money to be able to afford the school.
In early March, my parents and I decided that I was able to afford to go to the Mount, and I could not be more ecstatic. I even bought a whole matching outfit to rep the school!
If I had any tips to give on the college application process, I would say that once you find the school you can see yourself at, it’s an amazing feeling. Looking back, I made the best decision I could have. I now have friends that I know will last a lifetime and teachers who are very understanding and always extend themselves to help you. Therefore, the stress of it all had became well worth it by being able to go to a college that I see myself at for the next four years.
Take Deanna’s advice and start your application to the Mount today!