A college application is needed to attend most colleges in the U.S. Composed of different segments like essays, test scores, extracurriculars, letters of recommendation or academic records, many colleges have different requirements and expectations of their students. Yet, students like Payton Sly, a junior at CHS, along with many others, direct a lot of energy towards their application, which could lead to stress and also dictate their future.
Sly wants to study psychology, specifically human behavior analysis. While she knows that college applications can be competitive, her philosophy is that everything in life is competitive. She emphasizes that even though she feels like she is under pressure every day, Sly keeps working hard because she “can’t control who accepts [her] and who doesn’t.” Still, Sly looks forward to her new stage in life.
“I've been looking at common apps and all the different schools I want to apply to, and I didn't know about all the essays I have to write,” Sly said. “It's just stressful, but I'm excited for it.”
Sly and other students across the country can turn to resources like Common App, which is a non-profit organization that pursues equality and accessibility to college applications; they have many resources for new applicants.
For Sly, junior year stands out amongst her past three years of high school. Taking three standardized tests, like the SAT, M-Step and WorkKeys all within one week during the middle of the semester while keeping up with grades overwhelmed her.
“The SAT is stressful and the testing week is horrible,” Sly said. “It'll be the worst week of your entire school year academic wise. If you have a workload, because there's a ton of work in junior year, not putting it all into one basket and looking at everything separately and then just working through it, taking breaks as needed, is what I did.”
Before an application is sent off to a university, a student first needs to select a university that they would like to apply to. Charlie Guyton, a CHS junior, believes that one’s college application and which colleges they apply to should reflect their abilities, interests and extracurriculars.
Moreover, Guyton believes that leadership positions give one’s application the edge. They display one’s ability to take on responsibility acts as an indication for college recruiters that one is a good fit.
“Having extracurriculars definitely makes your application look a lot better,” Guyton said. “If you've got some that relate to your major, that’s really good, especially if you have a leadership position.”
However, not all students at CHS are too worried about their college application. Raymond Peterson, another junior, wants to apply to colleges that he finds are not too competitive to get into. He presumes that more competitive universities are a lot of stress for not a lot in return.
“I'm not too worried about the competition, because most of the schools I want to go to are not particularly competitive with who they admit,” Peterson said. “I think I have good enough grades that I'm not too worried about most of them. But, I'm a little nervous about just the application process and all that details.”
With Common App’s applications opening soon, many current juniors will soon be applying to universities and will go through a process that some students find stressful. Yet, if one is unable to keep up with their school work, it’s not that big of a deal according to Sly.
“Also, definitely having great relationships with teachers would help — talk to them,” Sly said. “If you feel really stressed and you don't think you can get this assignment done on time or if you have a ton of other stuff, they're so understanding. And I think having a really great relationship with your teachers is important. I mean, I'm late all the time, but just being respectful, like emailing, will get you far.”
