More than the Number of Acceptance Letters
Students work tirelessly to keep their grades up throughout their high school careers with one final step in mind: applying to college. Students, who can afford it, often spend hours of their time receiving standardized test tutoring and taking the test multiple times in order to achieve their desired score for admission or scholarship. Along with working hard in classes and a solid standardized test score, applications typically require one essay that is uniform for all schools and multiple short essays that vary from school to school.
Most students spend months getting their applications together to apply to somewhere between five and eight schools. While applying to that many schools can be necessary due to their rigor, it is not always needed. College is about going to a place where you feel like you will belong and are excited to continue your education. If you know you do not want to attend a school, you should spend that time on applications to schools you want to attend or with friends and family in order to enjoy your senior year.
College Board recommends that students have a list of five to ten schools to apply to by the end of senior year. What happens if you feel confident you are going to get into your top school based on your qualifications? Why would you apply to four different schools just to tell them “no?”
Another factor that comes into play with admissions is the high school you are applying from. If you are applying from a large public high school, the university will accept more applicants from that school due to the large number of students who attend that high school. If you are applying from a small private school, you are competing against your peers. Colleges like to have a student body from all over the nation and sometimes the world. If they accept five students from a graduating class of 70, that decreases the school's diversity of incoming students by location. If you know that someone in your graduating class loves a school and has their heart set on it, why would you compete with them and possibly take their place, when you could just follow your heart and say no?
College is about your journey and where you are meant to go to help you achieve the future you desire. It is also about meeting new people and learning how to navigate the professional world before being thrown into it as an adult. It is not about the number of essays you write or the number of acceptance letters you receive. So, take a breath, relax a little bit, and enjoy your senior year and only apply to places you care about.
By Kathryn Pope