Watching the Clock Tick: Looking Back on the College Admissions Countdown

I won’t be the first one to say it, but college admissions waiting is most likely the absolute worst part of the college process.

When I first began to apply to college, I thought that I had a tight grasp on college planning. Out of all my friends, I was the only one that had toured universities as a sophomore in high school. My motto was you “fail to plan, you plan to fail.” But I soon realized that I had not planned ahead for the most difficult part of the college application process—the waiting. I had thought I was in the clear after the work was done and the applications were in, but instead, I was left with the largest wave of anxiety I had felt yet after I was through with the actual work. I’m no surfer, but I think the proper term was I was “pitted” right in that massive wave, meaning I was straight in the center of it and constantly feeling anxiety rushes every time I had to open my email.

Now I know, that sounds dramatic, and at the time I probably was because reflecting back to that time in my life, it’s hard to imagine I was so incredibly stressed over ticking time. But, if you are beginning to apply to colleges now, you might find yourself “pitted” as well in your own anxiety, and what nobody tells you, is that it is ok to stress. It’s ok that you might have spent the past 15-20 minutes of class reloading your email and checking your portals before racing home at the end of the day to check the mailbox.

You’re not only one with a constant swirling mind that begs for answers from a school because I was the same way. But, it is important to know that the answers you are seeking from these schools come with time, and while it may feel as though you will never reach that time period where you are donning your new school sweatshirt, it does come, and faster than you think.

If I were to give myself advice for this process, it would be to not watch the clock. Not to count down the months, days, hours until you get the news. Let the clock tick in the background and instead focus on the present because once your applications are in, things tend to have a way of working themselves out.

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