By Tim Hayes ‘22

For most teenagers, leaving for college is all they can think of. They just want freedom and to party all day. Many, including me, didn’t realize the immense strain caused by college application.

Because of Covid-19, I couldn’t do any college visits my entire junior year. I didn’t get to have my first college visit until the last week of June of this year. Before that, I didn’t realize how close I needed all my stuff in and actually do the research I needed on schools.

Naturally, I did what most kids do when it comes to college applications: Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.

Just the task of filling out all the questions from the colleges on CommonApp was daunting and filled me with anxiety. For a solid week, I grinded through college after college, getting the applications done. If it wasn’t for my counselor Mr. Creed, I would have accidentally put early decision for St. Louis and legally be committed to go there. Big thanks to him for catching that.

In my most triumphant moment, I got all my questions done, my transcript in, and ACT scores sent. My application was finished and boy, it felt good to finally take that long deep breath and be done. Now, all I can do was sit and wait to see where I got in.

Photo by Matt Ragland on Unsplash