hello class of 2018!! i thought id make a senior year guide since i just graduated, and wish i knew some things before i started!
honestly the worst part of senior year was college apps. it made the first half of the year so stressful!! i recommend getting on it STAT if thats the path youre taking after high school!
know where youre applying!!
i only applied to 4 schools because i had no idea where to look. i’m the first in my family to go to college so boy, was it scary! start your research now, i have serious regrets about not applying to some schools. (im in love with stonehill now but wish i broadened my horizons!)
i recommend making some sort of spreadsheet so you can keep track! pick some safety schools (1-2), schools you’re most likely to get in (3-4) and dream schools (1-2).
know the requirements!!!!!!!! omg!
okay so i MESSED UP senior year. in order to apply to ivy league schools i needed to take sat subject tests. call me dumb but remember no one else in my family went through this lol. i couldn’t apply to brown because of this and it made me very upset. so, look up every aspect of each college’s application. sure its all on the common app but theres still different requirements!
same goes for financial aid, private colleges need the css profile, which was hard for me since i had to fill out a NCP, a non custodial parent profile. i have no contact with that parent, meaning i had to fill out waivers for each private school i applied to (only 2, but it was still difficult!) make sure you know this now before youre scrambling to fill out different forms, not just the NCP, but different things that might come up.
personally i didn’t do early decision cause financial stuff made it confusing, but if you’re applying to ivy league schools or anything really high up there and want a better chance, go for it! but…
early decision is BINDING. remember this!
early action is NOT BINDING.
i had a close friend apply early decision to brown and got accepted! but i had another friend who applied to brown regular decision and thought she wouldn’t get in cause he did, but she ended up getting in! (she also got into harvard and MIT, and then had a choice of choosing MIT). just keep this in mind!
i recommend applying as early as possible. to have that burden gone helped me a lot while I was applying to schools and scholarships. financial aid can be tough, and i heard they’re making the FAFSA harder to fill out. do this in the early fall, you’ll thank me later.
the essay was difficult for me and im an english major. choosing what to write about is nerve wracking! my advice is to find something that won’t show up on any other part of your application. make it unique to you - it doesn’t even have to be about how great you are. look at yourself from a friend’s perspective, what makes you awesome or unique? what do you value?
my essay was about empathy, and having a younger sibling with a disability. at first i thought it was too pitiful, but always connect it back to how youre a better person cause of x/y. make it as memorable as possible. the admissions officer who accepted me to stonehill actually wrote me about my essay, and quoted a line from it. MAKE IT MEMORABLE AND UNIQUE TO YOU. look up some cliches and avoid them.
the rest will be under the cut since its longer than i thought lol
turnnoffyourmind
2087
dededos
snowghoul
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