College season for seniors is here, and this is more than a two step process that takes five minutes. Seniors have taken weeks upon weeks gathering everything they need for these college applications, yet it still seems that it is not enough. Let’s take a look at some of the tasks needed for this college process
Students start off by completing the Common App, which is where you apply to colleges. You need to fill out family information, financial situation, all grades and courses, activities/sports, and arguably the most time consuming part, the college essay. For a little background information, the college essay is 250-650 words, and is a well thought-out, outside of the box idea that is constantly revised and takes time and effort. This displays who you are as a person and can be a huge deciding factor for college admissions officers for whether or not they want to accept you into that college or not.
Now on top of that, each college has multiple questions that you need to fill out such as major choices, housing, financial situation and even some repetitive questions. Many colleges also have what is called supplemental essays, in which they have their own essays, some none and some four, where they give specific prompts and you have to write an essay based on that, it tends to give more of who you are as a person. However some can only be 100 words, while others are 600, depending on the school. However it can be frustrating for students as they already wrote a long, thought out essay, and now they have to write one, two, or three more essays. It is very time consuming and can be mentally exhausting.
Senior Abby O’Hara stated, “I feel that these essays are unfair as I did so much work, just to write more essays, there is only so much a person can do, especially since a lot of people apply to multiple colleges.”
Additionally, most colleges require two letters of recommendation from teachers, in which they can be difficult to hunt down and have them get the letter in on time for deadlines. Also, it is not required, but heavily suggested that you write a resume of everything you have done from sports, to work, to clubs, to activities, to education and more. This is also time consuming.
Now finally after you have done all college applications, and excess, required materials, it’s time to submit. Now once it feels like you can relax and you are done, colleges ask you to send SAT/ACT scores, the SRAR/SSAR-which is self reported grades just on a separate website-scholarships that also require long essays, financial aid, counselor recommendations and AP exams scores. I could probably think of more things that colleges ask for or require.
Senior Julia Baumbach gave her thoughts on this long, time consuming process; she said “I wish colleges could understand that time simply does not stop and we still have school and other activities, they should be less demanding of college applications.
As seen now, Bethpage High School students are frustrated with the amount of work and time it takes for college applications, especially since you can put in all that work and get denied despite meeting the requirements. What are your thoughts on the college applications process?
