Chloe Rippe
Reporter
As the time approaches for seniors to send in their college applications, students are struggling under the pressure to finesse what could be the making–or breaking–assets of getting accepted into their dream colleges. Senior Zach Tahajian, who is looking for schools, said, “I’m mainly stressed about finding the right colleges and meeting deadlines”.
A problem that seniors have is the time restriction imposed by application deadlines, such as Senior Danny Yudkovitz is applying to multiple schools. “The main stress is just dealing with finishing applying…because (my first choice) is due on November 1st. It’s just going to be hard to get it in on time”.
There are also seniors with more imminent pressure; those applying to certain schools early decision or early action. Senior Sydney Czech said that her overall biggest struggle is, “finishing applying for early action”.
Other students haven’t begun applying and rather are still finding it difficult to narrow down their lists of possible schools. One of the biggest stressors of applying is figuring out which schools to apply to, said Senior Zach Tahajian.
Luckily, some seniors have ways to organize the workload. “I get it done by sitting down once a week and working for an hour,” said Zach.
Danny agreed tactics are helpful. “It’s a really big process, so I leave a couple of hours a day, kind of like you do with homework,” he said.
New Canaan High School guidance counselors, Ms. Lenci and Ms. Rivera, also have some insight as to easing application stress. “Chunk and check…Make a list of all of the things you need to do, and designate times to finish each chunk. When you are done, check it off and continue designating due dates,” said Ms. Rivera.
Ms Rivera added that a good way to manage time is to , “Do a piece of Common App one day at time”.
Many seniors are applying early admission, whether it be for early decision or early action. One important piece of advice is to, “…only pick a few favorite schools to focus on, “ Ms. Lenci said.
However, early admission deadlines aren’t crucial for getting accepted into schools. “It’s not the worst thing to miss early deadlines, some can go well into December”, Ms. Lenci said.
When it comes to choosing colleges, there are many influencing factors impacting students, such as parents. “Rutgers is at the top of my list because my dad went there, so there’s a lot of his influence on my decision,” Danny said.
Majors can also impact choosing schools, such as with Senior Juliet Guynn who said, “I wanna do pre-med, so I like looking at schools that have good science programs”.
Other seniors like Sydney Czech stated that “I’m not focusing on majors, because that could change at any time”.
Although different factors can influence college decisions, it is up to the student to make them. “Don’t base your decision on what your friends want,” Ms. Lenci said. “make a list of possible schools that you like”.
Seniors don’t need to make decisions based on possible majors or careers. “Well around 80% of students change their majors in college,” said Ms. Lenci.
However, when writing essays, Ms. Rivera said “(You) want to play to (your) strengths without identifying a specific career”.
Ultimately there is no need to focus too much on majors. As Ms. Lenci said, “It’s really hard (to choose), and chances are they’re gonna change”.
Mr. Webb, a history teacher at New Canaan High School and popular choice for seniors’ teacher recommendations, also shares similar views with the guidance counselors, he said, “Number 1: Do not go to a college you have not visited. And number 2: Do not go to a college that your parents desperately need you to go to, it’s not 1985”.
He backed this up by saying, “High school is the new college, most parents never experienced something so intense until college”.
Although the stress is can seem intolerable, teaches and advisors agree that there is no need to panic. Mr. Webb, more broadly speaking, advised, “to any senior: get good grades, a master degree, and you’re good,” and “the best contacts you make in life won’t be in the classroom, but at the parties and fraternities”.
Collectively, all informed adults agreed that seniors need to relax about having to find the perfect school, as Ms. Lenci said, “There is not one right fit…Every student get’s into a college if they want. Students get into this aura, they need to step back and realize it’s going to be fine”.
