All college-bound students are at one point or another going to need to apply to the colleges of their interest. The acceptance rates of universities in America have drastically decreased in the last decade or so, meaning that it is more difficult than ever to earn admittance into college (and particularly into one that is highly esteemed or prestigious). For anyone with high aspirations, applying to college creates ridiculous amounts of stress and possibly even prompts re-evaluation of self-worth. I realize that it is so important to send the best applications possible, but also to keep at least a sliver of sanity during my senior year, so I have decided to research the best methods of applying to college, and to share, firsthand, my experiences with college applications.
I dream of attending Stanford University. To me, it is, hands-down, the best university in the world and is the best match for me. The problem, however, is that they accept only 5% of their applicants, all of which are incredibly gifted academically, athletically, musically and/or in many other areas. My competition is tough, but I’m still giving it a shot. Here’s the path for my journey.
I need to write one essay that perfectly sums up who I am, showing my personality, my dreams, my story, and everything that I will contribute in college. Don’t forget that it needs to be incredibly interesting with impeccable voice and a powerful storyline… admissions readers will read hundreds or thousands of these essays each year so somehow I have to make it memorable. I’ll also need to write it to one of the five provided prompts on the Common Application and keep it all under 650 words.Sound easy? No. Especially not for a perfectionist like myself who sees my entire future banking on this one assignment.
Now, I might be exaggerating a little bit.. this one essay isn’t everything. I’ll have the glorious opportunity to write countless supplemental responses and short essays as well! There are about 15 of them, all ranging between the word limits of 50 and 250. Each and every piece of writing needs to be polished and perfected. Think that I’ll finish that in one night? Uh no, how about five or six. After finishing all of these, I’ll proceed to detail my top ten involvements, activities, awards and community service, with “completely accurate” hour counts and short descriptions. Then, I’ll fill out hundreds of monotonous details of personal information; my parents, where they went to college, for how many years, at what schools, what degrees, phone numbers, email addresses, and addresses. Everything that I could possibly know about myself, my family, and my mailman is somehow included in the forms.
Combine that application with the 3-4 letters of recommendations that I have asked for, reminded of, pestered for, and reminded of again, and I’m just one step closer to completion. I just need to forward (at the price of $11.25 per school) SAT scores from The College Board to the school, release my transcript, and submit my application with a small little fee of $90. And then I celebrate! Because I’m done with one school. Wait what? One school. Yep, more to go.
If I have already decided which schools to apply to, I will be able to forego the hours and hours of research, phone calls, visits, and school analysis that is needed to decide where to apply to. Unfortunately, I haven’t, so I will spend all of that time, losing plenty of tears and sweat in the process. Why is it that no one mentions how many schools there are to choose from??
After picking my schools, I will need to apply to each one of them. If they use the common app, I will be spared the need to write another big essay and the need to fill out all of the forms. All that those schools will require are their own short applications of 15ish questions (just 5-6 more nights spent on each application, no big deal). If the schools are not using the common app, then I will start my process all over again and do my very best on each of the essays, even though I have already exhausted so much energy on my first applications. Then, I’ll just forward all of the SAT scores (100 bucks later) and submit my applications (around 500 bucks laters) and I’m ready to sit and wait for months until I hear back about my admittance.
Oh and one last thing that I forgot to mention. Somehow I’ll need to keep up my 4.0 during senior year while taking Calculus, AP Spanish, AP Literature, and all of the other classes that I selected to keep my transcript up to par. I’ll just need to find a perfect and wonderful balance between homework and applications.. and maybe I’ll even work in sleep and a social life into my schedule if I have the time.
I’m obviously still searching for the way to keep college applications stress-free and manageable, but I’ll keep looking, and I’ll tell the world the answer if and when I figure it out.
~Heather
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