Guidance Counselor Helen Schurz helps senior Jennah Gnann with her college application to Bridgewater College.
Story By: Faryal Zubair, Editor-In-Chief
Decisions. That’s the key word used to describe senior year.
The decision to try and graduate with your classmates or stay behind. The decision to apply for college or choose an alternative route. The decision to apply to the right colleges or the decision to mess it all up. That last one might not be one that any student chooses willingly.
According to Higheredinfo.org, 67 percent of the graduating students in Virginia are planning on attending college. The next part is tricky though for those who are college bound: the process of applying to college.
First things first, choosing the right college or universities to apply to. A common mistake made by most seniors is that they apply to too many places. Collegeboard.com states that some students will apply to 20 places or more. Why is it a problem to apply to so many colleges?
“It’s expensive for one thing,” said school guidance counselor, Mrs. Helen Schurz.
Schurz suggests that students should apply to five colleges. When applying to colleges, she said, apply to one that might be a dream school, one that is a “safety school,” and others in between.
“Reach for one, but be realistic,” said Schurz.
“I’m stressed out about the deadlines and having to get everything in,” said senior Valerie Woods.
Woods is planning on applying to colleges such as Old Dominion University, University of Virginia, and Virginia Commonwealth University.
While Woods isn’t making the mistake of applying to too many colleges, she’s afraid that she’s still behind in the applying-to-college process.
She has a point. There are many upcoming important deadlines that are crucial for seniors. Students need to be taking their SAT’s, ACT’s, and subject tests. Registration deadlines for these tests pass months in advance before they’re taken. Late fees can be extremely expensive and sometimes a seat isn’t even guaranteed. Also, those applying for scholarships need to be on the lookout for new opportunities but also cut-off dates.
“Start working on applications now. Don’t put them off,” said Schurz.
“I think we should really take this seriously and actually try hard this year,” said Woods.
Woods makes a good point. Senioritis kicks in for many seniors as they approach the end of their high school career. This is the wrong time to be slacking off since this is the last semester to improve grades before college applications need to be submitted.
One way to ease the stress of filling out tons of college applications is to use the common application. Many universities accept a common application that only needs to be filled out once and can be sent to various schools. In addition to the application, certain colleges might ask for a specifically written essay.
Once an application has been submitted, it’s the guidance counselor’s job to get a student’s transcripts together. However, transcripts need to be requested from counselors in advance. Also, students taking Dual Enrollment classes must fax a request to the school that is providing the class and ask for those scores separately.
Another thing that students should be working on right now is getting recommendations, mentioned Schurz.
“Once you’ve done one [application], it’s pretty simple,” said Schurz.
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