Smart Strategies for the Unprepared College Applicant

Applying to college isn’t just a milestone, it’s an academic pressure cooker. Managing senior year academics with multiple deadlines to focus on completing. The personal narrative essay that’s supposed to be unique but limited to 650 words. The college application process is something I hope to never live through again; as scary as that might sound, it’s because I wasn’t mentally prepared. I would push everything to the last minute: recommendation letters, writing supplements, anything involved in the process. The reason I’m writing this article is to hopefully help a high school student who isn’t prepared or may not have the resources find some type of structure in the process; the process that, if you don’t know what you’re doing, can severely impact the chances of you getting into a specific college.

August

Now, you’re probably wondering what August is, and I’m here to tell you that you know what August is. If used right, August can be the difference between you being stressed out or not. August is still your summertime, but you should have about 20ish to 30ish days to have a head start with your application process. During this time, you should fill out your Common App, your personal information, activities, and fill out the basic information for colleges; for example, you can select what you want to major in, and if you don’t know, you have until the day you submit the application to decide.

Choosing your major is a big decision, but talking to family and others around you to narrow down your options is helpful. You can always switch your major later. For me, I was narrowed in on Finance, but then as I was applying to colleges, I found a blended major at Bentley: Econ-Finance. With how oversaturated Finance is, adding on Econ opens more doors for me to get a job later down in the math. I took a class about Economics and fell in love even more with the major. The dynamic of economics was easy for me to understand, and I enjoyed understanding how businesses make decisions based on numbers, or how numbers are calculated to make those decisions. Finding something you love is important because if you don’t, you’ll have a harder time pursuing a career in your major.

College Essay Guy

With almost every college application comes the stressful supplemental essays — the long, boring, and annoying questions. How you answer them makes or breaks your application. I used the many templates and example essays from College Essay Guy’s website as a guiding hand for many of mine. Supplementals pile up; they take a lot of time and effort. Still, it’s worse when you don’t have an idea of what these confusing questions are asking you, they layer the questions, and add hidden meaning behind them trying to trick you into giving a basic answer. Using College Essay Guy, I took from the many example essays to answer my own supplementals. Not only do they provide examples, but they provide what an admissions officer is looking for in the essay. My only regret is that I did not find this source earlier; don’t make my mistake, and do use this website starting from day one.

Collegewise

Many college application resources sit behind paywalls, and you have to dump money into their countless courses, but Collegewise does not. Even though they provide additional support for a fee, they have a Common App guide I recommend from start to finish, as it covers the ins and outs of the application. Also, attend the many essay or extracurricular webinars that you might be interested in, as they might help you improve in many ways. The final tool from this website is their detailed essay guides; they provide you with insight into how admissions officers think, the people who critique each bit and part of your application. This guide helped me understand how to make my essay stick out and give the admissions officer a harder time rejecting my application, making sure your essay shows growth and something you can personally relate to and explain why and what it means to you. The advice given helps you think. They don’t hand you an essay, but instead, they give you brainstorming ideas that help you think of unique topics for your essay. This helped me choose the idea of spiritual growth for my essay, something that means a lot to me. I took the advice and turned my essay into a unique perspective on growth, and I got it from the college essay guide Collegewise provides.

The college application does not have to control your senior year; you will always hear your peers chat about it and get countless questions. But remember, your success comes down to how you manage your time. Don’t let the deadlines pile up. Take advantage of the August buffer and the countless free resources available, including the teachers at your school. 

I hope that this article helps you even in the slightest way, because, in all honesty, this process is a huge hurdle in life, and making it this far is already incredible.