College is an important part of many peoples’ lives, and it creates an important foundation for a future in the workforce. College is something that students work towards throughout their entire high school career. Just when students begin to think that their twelve year educational journey is over, the hardest part of their educational career presents itself: applying to colleges, and choosing where to attend.

You might think you’re the only one stressing out, but in the end, everyone goes through this tedious process, and it is worth the effort.

  Before you start filling out all of the necessary applications, you have to decide which schools you are interested in going to. There are many factors that could affect these decisions, whether they deal with academics, athletics, or even just the location of the school. For one future college student, Shea Farrell, ‘14, all three of these factors are a big part of the decision making process. Farrell says, “The most stressful part (of applying) is probably trying to find a good fit both athletically and academically, and also realizing that in less than a year I will be living away from home without parents.”

  Another difficult part of applying to colleges is making sure that you can actually get into the schools you apply to. You don’t want to apply only to very competitive schools like Harvard or MIT because you might not get in to one of them. You want to make sure you can get into a school, and be able to find somewhere that fits you and will accept you. Meghan Flanagan, ‘14, said her stress is coming from this exact issue. Flanagans says the hardest part is, “Figuring out which colleges make sense to apply to, because you have to have a target school, a reach school, and a safety school, and making sure you meet the deadlines because they are different for a lot of schools.”

  Applying to college is one of the most stressful parts of any student’s life, but once the process is all over, the results will definitely show.