(Photo Courtesy of UBC Learning Commons via Flickr)
With college application deadlines coming up, it’s a stressful time for many college seniors. Youth Radio talked to three graduating seniors, Arnav Gupta, Nina Roehl, and Sierra Fang-Horvath, about their mad sprint to the finish line.
Arnav Gupta: The application process has been pretty stressful so far and has definitely created a lot of points of contention around my family as well.
Nina Roehl: Procrastination was definitely an issue for me because now it’s due in a week and I’m definitely not even close to being done.
Sierra Fang-Horvath: So for me, I’m having to juggle the writing, but there’s also getting letters of rec, applying for financial aid. There’s just a ton of stuff and I keep worrying that I’m going to miss something.
NR: And it’s just really stressful with essays cause you have to write about yourself and I find that it’s really hard sometimes. It’s just when I have to do it to apply for college, I suddenly go back and I’m like ‘I don’t know who I am’.
AG: I feel like teachers have not been the kindest in terms of assigning us less work. It’s almost like I’m doing double the amount of work that I would do in any other year. And there’s actually a lot of consequences. So you have to be really, really careful.
SFH: I’ve got a handy-dandy Google spreadsheet. I have all of the schools I’m applying to, then all their separate components. So I have the main common app essay and I’ve got each school supplemental essays, my scores, financial aid, have I selected my major? And I have all the things I haven’t done and red. And then once I’ve done it I go through and put it in green. And needless to say, it’s mostly red.
AG: I would get frustrated with my parents for trying to push me too much or micromanage the things that I was doing — not really realizing that they just want the best for me.
SFH: My parents definitely have a facade of calmness and acceptance. They’re always like, “Sierra, we’ll love you no matter where you get in. We want to sponsor your dream.” But I know. They don’t fool me. They have expectations.