The upcoming fall semester is approaching fast for the class of 2025. This semester is arguably one of the most important in high school. Students will begin venturing out into the vast world of universities and looking at all they have to offer. This time can be extremely overwhelming for some, but it really isn’t as challenging as it made out to seem. Today we will be exploring tips and tricks to help upcoming seniors prepare for application season. Special guest Henry Balasia 24’, will be chiming in to share some of his secrets to success.
Starting Early
By the time the fall semester rolls around, you will have many admission deadlines approaching, including many on November 1st. This may not seem like a lot of time, so it would be beneficial for you to know exactly what schools you want to apply to going into the school year. Do they have programs that you like? Is it a big, small or medium school? Is it private or public? What’s the cost to attend? These are all factors you should know going into the school year. This will give you more time to write essays during the fall. Most schools release essay prompts early and you will be able to get a head start working on them. Henry says, “this was very helpful because I was able to write about half my essays before the school year even started”. He was then able to get them all revised. This allowed him ample time to work on requirements for other colleges. Another element to applications all students should be on top of is letters of recommendation. Asking teacher’s you have built a strong connection with over the years at U of D would be a great candidate to ask. Be sure to talk to the teacher and let them know before school lets out for the summer.
Using Counselors and Tutors
Everyone here at U of D has a college counselor. You will usually meet with them towards the end of your junior year to discuss the next steps in your high school journey. The two of you will talk about your future careers and the possibly of jobs once you are out of college. This will help narrow down college options. To also help narrow down this wide range of schools you two will talk about your performance over the last three years to help decide what schools are realistic for you. One of the first tasks you will have after meeting with your counselor is obtaining letters of recommendation from two teachers. These will be attached to your Naviance account (which is the HUB to all things college) and then later submitted to the schools you apply to. It is highly recommended that you get on top of this as fast as possible. Teachers that write strong letters of recommendation might only write a certain amount each year, so, you don’t want to be the guy that doesn’t get a letter. Private tutors are also a great resource, they are an extra pair of eyes to look over your applications and essays. Henry recommends that students “start communicating with theirs as soon as they can. This will help them get a grasp of what they need to do to prepare for application season”. The sooner you start the better you will be in the long run. Nobody wants to be scrambling last minute to get everything in on time.
Dealing with the Stress
Stress will be an inevitable part of application season, but no matter what you cannot let it affect the quality of your applications. You could possibly be applying to 10 or more schools where almost every college will require supplemental essays. Regardless of if you start writing them early, things are going to pile up on you. These are things you can do in this situation is break up your workload day by day: write a little bit here and revise a little bit there. If you take it step by step you are sure to feel a lot better about yourself going into the application season. Students need to remember that what they do now will be preparing them for their future, so it is important to take it seriously.