As the semester comes to a close seniors are faced with tough decisions about college. Seniors are having to prepare for college, and go down paths that they have never crossed before.
Throughout the year seniors have been being pushed about college, FAFSA and scholarships. As the early action deadline for college applications have passed, seniors have started to prepare for college. Some need to work on auditions for school, and some need to fill out many college applications.
Senior Gavin Wuchter talks about what he is doing to prepare for college going into a music major.
“As someone who’s going into music and who has to perform an audition,” Wuchter says, “I’ve been preparing for this for over a year, since last summer, but also my mom, for instance, whenever Homecoming was, the day after, I spent I sat down and I just spent a bunch of time to apply, and we literally spent seven hours and wrote all my essays at once, and she proofread everything for me. So I’ve been essentially just working and doing chunk by chunk. There’s always something I need to do.”
Senior Jenna Harris has taken a different approach to preparing for college because she wants to do swimming in college. Harris also talks about the process she went through to find out what college she wanted to commit to.
“I want to go into education, so I looked into their education programs, the top three colleges that I first narrowed down like my top three colleges, and then I looked into their education programs,” Harris says, “I also looked into their athletic programs, because I want to swim in college. I scheduled visits to all the colleges, and went there and saw the campuses, and then I went and talked to the coaches on each of the swim teams and made like pros and cons lists of what I liked best about each college.”
McKennah Hannigan-Jackson, a senior from Crystal Lake South talks about what her process has looked like.
“I’ve built up my resume meaning I’ve joined clubs, gotten volunteer hours, been a part of my community on a few different aspects,” Hannigan-Jackson says, “Making sure I record what I am doing. As well as getting on top of everything when it’s coming up. I completed my college applications very early in the college process for my own benefit, as well as completing FAFSA right when it came out. I’ve also visited many college campuses to try and rule out any school I may not be completely interested in.”
Senior year has been said to be the year with the “lightest load,” but some seniors are feeling the stress that comes along with having to fill out college applications.
“I feel like school work on its own is okay … it’s manageable,” Wuchter says, “but having to like, apply to eight schools and to like preparing for auditions and keeping myself good while also trying to keep good grades, sometimes can be a struggle.”
Harris has found that starting her process earlier in the year has made it easier for her at the end of the semester.
“It was definitely stressful at the beginning of the year, because it was like a lot to handle on top of all the classes.” Harris says, “But I think that getting it done at the beginning of the year helped, because now that we’re halfway through the year. It’s a lot less on my plate. I am happy that I got it done early.”
Some seniors have started early and have not had as much stress added onto their senior year load.
“As for the ‘light load’ of senior year, focusing on college applications has been a priority to me, meaning I got them done pretty quickly, unlike other seniors I know who waited until the early action deadline and was rushing.” Hannigan-Jackson says, “I didn’t want that for myself so I got it done as soon as I could. While doing them it was quite stressful, making sure I put in all the right information and that my essay wasn’t horrible and portrayed what I wanted it to. So college applications didn’t really make my year any more stressful, however, the waiting and having to make a decision on which college is specifically for me has added some extra stress to my load.”
As seniors have started their process of preparing for college some have committed and some are still making decisions. Either way seniors still have a lot of work to do before the end of the year to continue to prepare for college.