Lauren O’Malley, Features Editor
@lomalleycourant
Why am I worrying about failing a math test? Why am I so concerned with doing well on my english paper? One thing that unites high school students drive in school and even outside of school is college. Nowadays, it seems like all anyone can do is think about what they want to do and where they want to be, and it seems like the only way to be successful is going down the path of a four year college. With application season just around the corner, seniors are finalizing their school lists and finishing their essays to get into their dream schools. But, one has to think about the enormous amount of pressure from students, parents, and society that’s being placed upon them to go to certain colleges.
Senior Clara Bloom said when looking at Naviance, “The first thing you see about a college is its acceptance rate and SAT scores so that’s kind of at the forefront of your mind. But you actually have to dig deeper and figure out if it’s actually what you want.”
When talking about some of the most popular and highly-ranked colleges at the school, senior Barrett Schmitz said, “According to Naviance the most popular schools would be University of Connecticut because it’s in state, I also think Texas Christian University is up there, University of Virginia, Providence College, and Villanova.”
Students sometimes feel obliged to apply to some of these super popular colleges. In fact, Ann Vernon, a guidance counselor said, “There are so many great schools that I think I am concerned that students feel like they’re supposed to say that they’re applying to all these competitive schools.” She goes on to describe that when applying you need to have a good balance of reaches, targets, and likelys.
Competitive schools do have their appeals as senior Matthew Kim said, “These competitive schools have high academic standards in addition to the fact that everyone knows them. Later on in life, that could be really helpful when starting off your career.”
But despite people’s different interests, you can still get caught up in the hype of a particular school. Senior Erica Angilleta said, “I’m applying for BFAs or acting programs so, I feel like everyone has different intended majors, so their list is kind of different. But, especially the popular schools, I definitely look at them a little differently.”
There’s the constant paranoia about talking about schools that’s also a factor. “People are very weird, sometimes they talk about college and sometimes they don’t,” Senior Cole Schubert said, “It depends on the conversation, you have to gage whether or not they’re willing to talk about where they’re going.”
Adding to that, Barrett said, “I’ve heard some counselors and parents tell their students not to say where they are going to early decision or regular decision. And I can understand that in a really competitive school like New Canaan, admissions matter.”
When talking about how competitive the application process is, Ms. Vernon shares her experience and knowledge: “Some colleges accept all of our students that are eligible to go there. There are other colleges that are highly competitive schools like Ivy Leagues that might take maybe one student a year, if that. There are other very popular schools that don’t take any students, like one every five years. But I think for the most part, colleges are looking for students, they want to accept students and they know for the most part that students are very well prepared.”
There’s also something to say about the indirect pressure parents put on students to go to their college. “My Dad went to a good school so I went to see the campus primarily because of him,” Barrett said. “So the pressure was that my Dad went there so I feel like I should apply, I mean I really like the campus. But I feel obligated to apply. Luckily, I really like the school.”
The culture around here is especially focused on going to college. “I know a lot of parents want their kids to go to college, I know my parents want me to go to college,” Erica said. “Especially in New Canaan where it’s always college, college, college, I feel like some really academic students might feel that pressure”
But there’s a way to navigate through all of the factors that go into applying for college. “I think surface level it’s kind of hard to figure that out but once you dive deeper into certain programs, or different courses of study, and the opportunities each school has you can filter out if it’s just a pretty school or if you’re actually interested in it,” Erica said.
“I have my list, and it’s color coded really cool. But I think every college is special in their own way, like you’re going to go somewhere that you really want to be,” Cole said.
But it all comes down to narrowing where you’re searching. “The search starts out big but gets smaller the more you research,” Ms Vernon said. “Sometimes students like every school and it comes down to the school’s colors or how the food is.”
