As senior year or even junior year is approaching for some of you, you probably constantly hear questions such as, which college are you going to? What are you going to major in? What’s your GPA?
College admissions can be challenging and stressful. These admissions should be handled with patience and care, giving each aspect of college application utmost attention. The journey to the road to college begins as soon as you enter high school.
Freshman year is challenging and helps you get adjusted to a new environment. It is then when you should decide which college you want to go to. Even if you haven’t, it’s never too late to decide and work towards your goal. Decide as soon as you can and create a list of colleges you would consider applying to.
After a list, go to the college websites and look at their requirements. It’s always helpful to create a list of requirements for each college. You can make a list on paper and keep it for reference or you can create a list on the computer and save it to access it whenever you want. Software such as MS Excel can help create great reference lists.
Taking care of your transcripts is a big part of college admissions. The best way to keep all your transcripts and papers in order is to make a folder. Make a folder just for important papers, and keep all your papers in it. If you have a scanner, you can scan those papers into the computer and make an electronic file too.
After you make a list of colleges you are in interested in, the summer before senior year, call these colleges and arrange some visits. Visit the college you desire, to get an idea of how life is on the campus, if it matches your imagination. You can get to know people and their lifestyles and meet admissions managers. All in all, you can get a good knowledge about the school and the school will also know you showed interest.
After doing all the above, you will have quite a good idea of what to do. Next, you should download the applications for those colleges and fill them out. College essays are an essential part of the application. Make sure you spend a lot of time on those, because essays show your true personality and get it proofread by teachers, parents or peers. Do NOT use the same application essays for all colleges; make sure you personalize each essay to the respective college.
Make a checklist for each college, finalize your application and make sure you have everything on the checklist and send in your application.
Following your dreams passionately and staying organized and disciplined is the key to get into the college of your dreams.
