Over the past few months, many seniors have been tirelessly working on their college essays and applications. Now that some of the deadlines have passed, several seniors have had the chance to express their feelings and reflections on the process.
Photos by Sandra Genidy
“Now that I have submitted my college applications, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I am a lot less stressed and am very happy and excited to have submitted all of them. I definitely wish I started earlier, so I wasn’t as stressed while working on them and juggling schoolwork and extracurriculars simultaneously. I also wish I had reached out to the counselors for help sooner. They gave a lot of great insight and advice, which I wish I had known earlier. I have not made any decisions on where I will go yet and am waiting to hear back from the majority of the schools I applied to!” senior Allison Nguyen said.
“After having submitted my applications, I feel very accomplished. I spent a lot of time double-checking and triple-checking everything on my applications; I’m glad to know that I turned in something that I put a lot of effort into. Mostly, I am glad that I submitted the PIQs for the UC schools that I applied to because I spent the most time on them. I tried my best to write them in a way that would best allow the deans of admissions to see me for who I am. During the process, I do wish that I had included a few more of my extracurricular activities. There were a few activities that slipped my mind and were not included in my applications. I also wish that I had started sooner on my applications—perhaps in the summer. Because I started when school was in session, I had to learn how to balance both schoolwork as well as my applications. I have not made any decisions on where I will go yet because admissions haven’t been decided. There are a few select schools that I eagerly want to be accepted to. However, I wouldn’t be awfully bummed if I don’t get into them because I know that success can be reached by many paths and looks different for everyone. Overall, I’m just extremely thankful to have been given an education that I may deepen in any college that I end up going to,” senior Jessie Pham said.
“I feel very relieved now because college applications have always been lingering in the back of my mind. With them finished and submitted, I can finally focus more attention elsewhere. I wish I had started on my essays earlier, using my summer to edit them, instead of leaving them for October. I have not made a decision on where to go yet,” senior Kathleen Ha said.
“Not having to worry about college apps anymore is a big relief. Whether I get accepted or not isn’t up to me, so I don’t really think about it too much. There are a million things that I wish I would’ve done differently, but there is nothing I could do about it now, so it doesn’t benefit anyone to dwell over it. A wise person once told me, ‘everything happens for a reason,’ so I know wherever I end up is where I was meant to be. I haven’t gotten any results yet but I hope to attend Cal Poly SLO where I’d most likely major in aerospace engineering,” senior Ivan Benitez said.
“I feel so relieved that I’ve finished submitting all of my college applications. It’s like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I knew, going into senior year, that the entire process would be difficult, but coupled with a return to in-person school and having to deal with my senior classes… that made the process seem a lot more stressful. Some days, I found myself busy trying to crank out an essay, and other days I found myself not even touching my application and instead focusing on my classes, but I don’t think I would have changed anything. Yes, the process was stressful, but honestly, it was also really fun. I started the process towards the end of summer and ended it right before winter break started, so I didn’t have to worry too much about cramming so it wasn’t stressful for me. And it might just be me, but I loved writing the essays, even though most felt repetitive by the time I was on my nth college, but it was still so fun getting to explore my own identity and reminisce. I put in my best effort during the process and there’s nothing I could do or would want to do that would change the outcome of it and I’m perfectly content with that!” senior Judy Liu, who will most likely attend Stanford, said.
“I honestly felt relieved after completing all my college applications because now I don’t need to worry about those things anymore. Now that I’m done I can just focus on my education this year and not for the future because it is sort of out of my hands now to where I get accepted. I think that I went through the process well because I started very early which gave me plenty of time to figure out what to put in my essays and fill out my applications […] I wouldn’t change anything but definitely suggest that others get ahead while they have the time earlier in the school year,” senior Sean Zukle said.
“I honestly just feel amazing. It’s just a weight off my shoulders. Definitely. And I don’t think I would have done anything different. I mean, I’m totally content with everything. I got my first choice school and I heard back from them in like a week, so everything worked out exactly how it should have in my mind. I applied at the end of August, and I heard back by the second week of September, so I’ve known for a while which gave me plenty of time to prepare for everything that I need to get done pre-college […] the school that I applied to had rolling admission, so it was like the earlier you applied the earlier you found out, which is really nice. So I recommend applying to schools with rolling admission,” senior Tyra Oberg, who plans to attend Northern Arizona University, said.
“Being finished with college applications is a huge relief. It was a very stressful process, but I was able to meet the deadline for each school that I wanted to apply to. Now that I’ve turned in the applications, I can definitely feel the temptation of senioritis and slacking off on schoolwork, so I have to remind myself that colleges still look at your senior year grades. One thing that I wish I had done differently in the application process is when I began writing the essays. I started the essays a few weeks away from the deadline, but I should have started them much earlier. The essay prompts require a lot of thinking about yourself and your past which can take quite a while. I would definitely recommend to anyone that is a junior to look at the essay questions now and keep them in the back of their mind so that when the time comes, they will already have ideas as to what they want to write about,” senior Gavin Rose said.
“I feel relieved; it was kind of like a weight on my shoulder having to fill out all of the applications and supplementals and stuff. As for the application process, I probably would have wanted to start and finish earlier, leaving me more time to be sure of my application just because I procrastinated a lot. I have not [heard back]. I applied regular decision to all of my schools, so I’m waiting until the first week of April to get my decision, senior Muna Naseer said.
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