Congratulations! You have reached the point in your life where you are applying for college, and as exciting as that may be, the process is going to be exhausting. Applying to colleges feels like taking a whole other class. You must make sure you have the right grades, perfect essays and that you’re choosing the right school. It’s stressful, but it will all be worth it because, in the end, you will end up somewhere where you will create the best memories of your life. Here are some things to remember while going through this process.
1. Organization
Being organized throughout this process is crucial. Getting a binder to organize the mass amounts of material you’ll collect is always a good idea. Separating essays, forms, and other papers by school make it easier for you to find what you need. A good idea is also to separate the schools into reach, target, and safety schools. What I recommend to people is to write up or find a profile for each school you’re applying to, that way you can quickly learn about prospective schools. The profile can include:
- Acceptance Rate
- Cost
- Average SAT/ACT scores of accepted students
- Average GPA of accepted students
- Deadlines (early action, early decision, regular decision, test scores, FAFSA, any other documents)
- Any requirements (like essays, writing supplements, resumes, or certain test scores, etc.)
- Number of undergraduate students
- Racial/Ethnic break up
- Any other notes relevant to you
*Pro Tip – Save electronic copies and print hard copies of everything! You will never know when a school requests a copy of your transcript, essay, or application confirmation. Save everything.
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2. Brainstorming your essay
Writing the essay(s) is not the difficult part, but coming up with the idea that will capture the reader’s attention is. My advice is don’t do a typical “life-changing moment.” Just because you spice up some event to make it seem like a much bigger deal than it is, doesn’t mean it’s life changing. Try your best to write about something close to your heart, and something that will show who you are on paper. Don’t be afraid to be open in your essay. The admissions committee uses the piece to understand who you are. You must show them, and you do that by writing from you heart (as cheesy as that is).
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3. Editing your essays
Application essays play an important role when applying to college. You should take your time with them, and never write them last minute. Follow these specific drafting steps, and your essay will be polished and perfect: Take a moment to brainstorm your essay.  Your first draft should just be you consistently writing until you’ve finished the paper. It doesn’t have to have structure and don’t worry about spelling or grammar. This step is to get a foundation of your essay. Revise that first draft by reading through with a red pen and make edits as you go. Rearrange and add content to the essay and remove anything that’s not strong. After editing, retype the revised version of the essay, this is your second draft. This draft should now have a typical essay format (intro, a few body paragraphs, and a conclusion). Revise the second draft like you did with the first. Add style and creativity and remove unnecessary bits once more. Retype a third draft with the edits you made. This draft should now be a final piece. It is always good to edit your papers awhile after you write them on paper. You will always spot more mistakes on paper awhile after it was written than you would miss on a computer.
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4. Research and visit
Visiting a prospective school isn’t always possible, but stepping foot on a potential campus can influence your decision greatly. If you can’t get onto campus, then doing as much research as you can on the school is necessary. You want to be at a college where you will be comfortable and can grow as a person and student. Use Google and the school’s recourses to your best advantage and find out everything you can about the school. Niche is great because it has reviews of schools from students themselves. You can look at social life, housing, dining, academics, extra-circulars, and opportunities the school offers regarding building a resume.
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5. Everything happens for a reason
This tip is something you must remember throughout this process, especially when you’re getting responses from schools. If you don’t get into a school that you wanted, even if it’s your dream school and you have everything and more that they may want, it’s clearly not meant to be. Everything happens for a reason, and you end up wherever you do for a purpose. Whatever that purpose may be nobody knows, but you’re supposed to be there.
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Hopefully, some of these tips can help those of you going through this process. Just remember to be on top of everything and to stay positive. Don’t get discouraged by rejections, and they didn’t deserve you anyway. The application process is supposed to be an exciting (and only a little stressful) time! Let us know if you have any other tips worth mentioning by tweeting us at @hercampusdrexel!