Greater than the stresses of the end of my senior year, an even more stressful process has presented itself; the college decision procedure. Simply trying to decide for myself where I want to go and what will bring me joy in my life is a more difficult feat than I first imagined. All of the letters, confusing websites, and constant rush of opinions leave me wondering if there is an easier way to get through this process.
With each new day, the mail brings more letters from colleges and universities. Being indecisive and undecided about my after-high-school plans does not do much to help the situation. Each letter brings more confusion and presents itself as yet another option. In trying to consider which would be most suitable for me, I am run over by the flood of opinions of other people in the colleges as well as the neatest graphics in the letters. I am blessed to have so many options in front of me and so much information available; however, all of this information can be overwhelming. Attempting to escape the propaganda of the letters, I run to their websites for more information about the schools.
This, however, is an even larger wall to scale. Navigating through the websites of the universities is not for the faint of heart. So many artistic pictures and bold fonts catch my attention. Trying to separate the legitimate facts from the opinions of the staff, I search for hours. Even in the mounds of facts crammed into the websites, I cannot find enough to determine whether or not a college is right for me. I cannot envision student-teacher ratios and enrollment size, so I am not aided by statistics.
Because I cannot find what I am looking for in the websites, or the letters, I head for actual people. I talk to friends and family about my college dilemma. They are often very helpful, but I find that I am led back to the start of the process and back to listening to advertisements.
Their opinions about colleges are so diverse, it makes my head spin. Although they try to be helpful in the process, offering their favorite college as an option places more on my plate. Their advice is extremely helpful because it allows me to see more than statistics, but for the most part, I often find myself buried in their opinions. Being pushed in a certain direction can be problematic because it takes up time that I could have spent considering what I wanted to do. Also, what others want for me and see in me might not necessarily be what I would enjoy doing with my life.
Dredging on through the confusion, I find that I am lost even more in the process. I appreciate the help that people, letters, and websites offer, but find that I must invest more time in considering what the aim of my future should be and how I should go about reaching it. I feel lost, but as I look around me, I see many other undecided seniors in the same boat, wondering which college is best for them.
To aid underclassmen when they search for meaning in college letters, websites, and converse with friends in their senior years, I have come up with an assortment of things I wish I would have done earlier in my high school career.
First of all, I would have dove into discovering who I am as a person, and what my unique interests earlier in high school. This would have helped me when I look at colleges so that I would know what major, or program, I specifically wanted to find in college. Searching online for a good nursing program, for instance, would make maneuvering through the ocean of information much easier than going through facts only to see if a school would be a good fit in general.
Another tip I have for underclassmen to aid them in the college search is talking to friends and family members about their personal college experiences. This could serve as a reality check of what college life is like, so that a student can picture him or herself at a particular college. To envision myself anywhere in the future has been one of the most difficult things college letters and websites have presented to me. Often, because I cannot “see myself” at any of the places, I have a rough time deciding where to go. I would advise junior and sophomore students especially to consider possible college options, and then seek out teachers and adults to talk to about their experience at those colleges. This would deeply help students visualize themselves at a college.
My final tip for students is to not put college searches “on hold” until the end of their senior years. Although I can be a major procrastinator, jumping in early on the scholarships and college applications is a must. Deadlines really are closer than they appear. The juniors who will be seniors next year should definitely search over the summer for college scholarships and colleges, so that the stress does not pile up in the middle of January. Instead of a massive tidal wave of deadlines in January, it would be much better to face it drop by drop throughout the summer, fall, and winter of senior year.