Kathryn D'Alessandro, Co-Editor-in-Chief
This might sound sad, but perhaps the greatest accomplishment of my life was finishing my last college application. Now, you might think that when you submit a college app, there’s a big green box that pops up and says, “Good job! You did it!” Unfortunately, there is actually no such thing. It’s actually kind of boring looking, but that’s okay. I was just happy to be done.
The college application process is notorious for being quite possibly the most stressful thing a student will do in his or her high school career. I’m not going to argue with that, but I think that there’s another side of the coin. In fact, I’d say that the college application process and I had a (sort of) love-hate relationship.
As I finished my last essay two nights before the deadline and hit submit, I felt this strange sense of calm. No longer involved in the actual applying part, I could sit back and look at it objectively, without all my crazy stress and occasional emotional breakdowns clouding my opinion.
Surprisingly, I actually felt this sort of strange affection for the process. I feel like it really pushed me to my limit and made me think hard about the type of person I was. I thought I might be the only one who found some sort of peace with the whole thing, but it turns out I was not alone.
“You learn a lot about yourself. You kind of get to put your life in review and you realize that, ‘hey, a lot of things that I’ve done are actually significant,’” NHS senior Bethany Dubois said.
Though writing essay after essay (and trying to recycle any and every one) was a pain, I thought that this was actually the thing that made me take the hardest look at myself. When faced with a hard question, you have no choice but to be thoughtful in your answer. For example, one college asked me, “What matters to you and why?”
It might seem easy to talk about what’s important to you, but this was one of the most difficult essays I have ever had to write. I sat down and literally asked myself, “Self, what is the most important thing in the world to you right now?”
Really studying myself allowed me to come up with the most honest answer I could, and I really poured my soul into this essay, along with many others I wrote. The amazing thing is that my college supplements were the most honest and personal things I had ever written in my life.
Dubois agreed, saying, “Well, I wrote a really bangin’ essay and I think any chance to create a great piece of work is a good opportunity.”
Unfortunately, this was no easy task for those (crazy) seniors who applied to as many or more colleges as I did and wrote at least two dozen supplemental essays. Staying on top of everything without staying up until midnight on January 1st required a lot of effort and constant focus.
“I got good at writing essays,” NHS senior Brooke Newton said, “The process really makes you self-disciplined.” One might think that this is something learned in school, but the application process is a different animal. There are no teachers reminding you constantly to space out the work. CommonApp might try, with little clocks that pop up two weeks before deadline, but that doesn’t make you feel as guilty, even if you’re nowhere near done. Unless you’ve got nagging parents, you’re really on your own to make sure everything is submitted before the deadline.
This can be overwhelming at times, but it is actually a great lesson that is better learned now than later. It seems that the process is actually full of such teachings. “Going through the application process helps with some life skills that will be important later in life,” NHS guidance counselor Jan English said.
Time management isn’t the only life skill that a student can learn through the college process. Good organization is the key to success, and many students learn how to build résumés, or go to an interview for the first time.
Though we may not like to admit it, the most overwhelming process of our lives actually comes with a few hidden perks. And hey, hopefully if you get through it all alive, you’ll receive what might be the best benefit of all.
Photo credit to blog.ivywise.com.
