A million questions rush through a seniors’ mind when they hit that submit button for their Common App. Do I have all my essays done? Did I fill out everything correctly? Is my application perfect?
A lot of students want their Common Application to be perfect for their ideal college, this feeling of stress throughout the whole process is common for students, and it is all too familiar for himself, according to Alec Stapleton ’20.
“I went over my application a million times before I hit send, I had my mom, sister and dad review my application for me. I had to be one hundred percent sure everything looked the way it needed to,” Stapleton said.
On top of filling out the whole questionnaire, there’s also an additional writing section that is only required for specific colleges. This extra part to the application made the process much more overwhelming, Hanna Ottaway ’20 said.
“I had a total of three extra essays to write, on top of my college essay, that is sent to all of my schools. The most stressful part for me was choosing what topic in my life to write about that would set me apart from other applicants,” Stapleton said.
Making sure everything was filled out correctly, getting all the extracurriculares accounted for, and the college essay was superb made the the process stressful Ottaway said.
“It was really hard for me to get my four years of highschool accounted for in this one application. I have worked very hard in highschool and I would have been very bummed out if I forgot something important that would have made me stood out to the college,” Ottaway said.
Students need to be aware of all the steps that are needed to be taken care of before they send out all their applications, according to student counselor Aja Perales.
“Each school has a little different preparation needed, depending on if they need writing samples, letters of recommendation, etc. So to prepare, I say go through it once, and then have someone look through it to make sure there is nothing wrong. A fresh set of eyes is always helpful,” Perales said.
This process can be intimidating at first for students looking at it for the first time, but they should know that teachers are happy to assist a student in need Perales said.
“To help out the students I provide information to them about scholarships, and the college visits coming in town, and Mrs. Naparano is here to help, so we have lots of different ways to support students,” Perales said.
At the end of the day though everything was worth it once the Common App was completely finished Stapleton said.
“I knew all my hard work I have done was all for something greater,” Stapleton said, “The feeling of getting accepted into college is amazing, even though the whole process to get to where I am today was intimidating, it got me to where I am today.”