College application season is in full swing for seniors. Whether they’re just beginning to work on their applications or finally hitting the submit button, the consensus is that it’s an extremely stressful and busy time to be a senior.
A consistent obstacle in the application process is balancing regular classes and responsibilities with the ticking clock that is application due dates.
“I will say senior year is a lot easier class wise,” senior Kailey Renehan said. “I don’t have as much homework. But with the additional college apps, it is a little bit more stressful.”
In the wake of time management troubles, these seniors have taken extra steps to ensure they can complete everything on their full plates.
“I usually have to take my college apps outside of school or during a block where I’m free or caught up with work,” senior Carson Leigh said. “So it’s been a struggle, but I’ve worked around it to make it work.”
Senior Comet Maupin also has strategies to get ahead of their applications.
“I’ve been keeping up with my work because I’m really big on procrastinating,” Maupin said. “So if I have a moment to do it, I just try and get it done, because it won’t take that long.”
For senior Katie Clarke who committed to University of Delaware to play field hockey, her application experience has been a bit unorthodox.
“For my commitment, I still have to apply and get into the school, but I only have to do one application,” Clarke said. “And for the University of Delaware specifically, there’s no supplementals and I just fill out my Common App and do my essay.”
As Clarke is only applying to one college, she’s had an easier go at making time for her application.
“I think that’s because I only had to do the one essay, whereas, for other schools, there’s a lot of supplemental essays, a lot of extra questions that I don’t have to deal with,” Clarke said. “That made it a lot easier for me.”
As for the seniors who are submitting to multiple colleges, a common struggle is the essay writing process. This was certainly the case for Renehan who, for months, struggled to come up with a Common App essay topic she was satisfied with. She ended up getting some inspiration from a teammate at a graduation party to write about something very niche.
“One day, I was still at a loss of what I was gonna write about,” Renehan said. “It just sparked in my mind. I collect postcards and it’s something that I love to do, and I have been doing it for two years, and I realized I could write about that. And so one day I sat down and I started writing my Common App essay.”
Apart from the Common App essay, a consistent complaint about the essay writing process is the amount of supplemental essays.
“It’s like if I had an essay in every class due and I was just like, pushing them all off,” Leigh said. “It’s just so much writing and I get so bored of answering the same question, or trying to come up with a new way of saying something.”
Another complaint from the college applicants of today is how much more intensive and extreme the application process is than it was 30 years ago.
“I think maybe college admissions often forget that a lot of these students are applying to 5-10 schools,” Renehan said. “And that everybody is asking for a lot. So I just hope that the college admissions readers have a little grace with us if some essays are a little bit more rushed than others.”
For some, the time to complete applications in senior year came up quickly and feels slightly unreal.
“I’ve been building up to this moment for so long where I’m like, ‘oh, next year I’m applying to colleges. Oh, in two years I’m applying to colleges,’” Renehan said. “‘I have to worry about that next year.’ Well, I’m worrying about it now.”
