Alexander C. is a senior at Student Leadership Network’s CBI partner school, East Side Community High School.
By Alexander C.
Originally published in Chalkbeat on February 2, 2024
For the past few months, the stress of the college application dominated my life.
Overall, I spent some 200 hours applying to 23 schools and writing 50 supplemental essays, with topics ranging from my interest in a school to the three words that best describe my life. Answer: providential, earnest, and excited.
In the interest of benefitting future applicants and providing some insight into what it’s like to apply to college, here are some of my biggest takeaways from the whole process.
Stay organized or waste hours of your time.
If you’re like me, and you find it hard to keep track of things in your head, a spreadsheet or document that contains or links to all your college application-related materials will be invaluable. I’d say that more than anything else, following my college counselor’s recommendation of using a spreadsheet saved me tens of hours of my time, and made my life 10x easier. Added bonus: Keeping track of the total number of supplements I had left to do was motivating as well as therapeutic.
Strive to be yourself and find your authentic voice.
I’ve always thought that “be yourself” is a reductive piece of advice, but having been through the application process, I have to admit that it’s true. In my case, I wrote about my love for cycling around New York City and my passion for Russian literature. You should genuinely believe what you’re writing. If you don’t, why would the person reading your application believe it?
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