Welcome to senior year, seniors! The fun year ahead of you will slowly approach, but until then you’re stuck completing the long, dreaded process of college apps.

 Not only do seniors have extracurricular activities, sports, and schoolwork, but they now also have to add college apps. College apps are not easy. They are a long process and take much time. 

The lack of progress from certain students does not help this stressful situation. Students begin to procrastinate barely meeting their deadlines, only to regret it  later on, wishing they had completed their essays sooner. Even parents, with their constant pressure, are factors of stress.

Let’s face the reality. We apply to a school,  pay so much money, then get rejected by every decent school we applied to, lowering our self-esteem. Not to mention, we become more stressed because we know we should’ve applied to safer schools but didn’t end up doing so and then ended up regretting it. 

Starting junior year, college board sells out our info so that countless students begin to drown in emails from all kinds of unknown colleges. What even is “Northern Arkansas Christian University”?  and then we begin to think…why would I go there? How do they know if I am Christian or not? With all of the college emails students have deleted throughout their last years of high school, they probably have wasted a solid hour of their lives emptying their inboxes of emails from colleges they are not interested in.  

And then slowly, we begin to lose track of our social lives. Weekends and weekends, gone before our eyes could blink, staring at a blank computer screen under the question “What are some good qualities you have that you would like to tell us,” Then forced to ask our parents qualities they think we have because we can’t think anymore. I can’t forget to mention the question we get asked, “What are some awards you have received?” I think to myself “I have no idea what makes me unique!” Only to be able to think about the time in elementary school when you won the school talent show, no longer relevant. 

Not to mention, after they apply, get in, and accept the college, everyone looks at the expense from the school and start crying. At college, students are forced to pay for breakfasts, lunches, and dinners, textbooks, the gym, tuition, and clubs, camps, sports equipment, and intramurals, etc. Leaving the school in debt, young adults are forced to find  job quickly before they lose track of their life!

Back to the reality of things, senior year and college apps are so stressful. This takes up majority of our weekends when really, we should be spending time with friends and family, 

Adults will always tell you “enjoy senior year, it goes by fast,” and while this is true, what they fail to realize is the beginning is anything except fun and fast!