College application advice from a senior

There is so much more than getting accepted and preparing the decorations for your dorm before actually going to college. I did not realize how many forms I would have to fill out before. There are room forms, roommate forms, and meal plans each with a different due date. It can feel overwhelming. There are many things I wish I had known before starting. 

Filling out the application was easy, but they also require forms from your high school. That required going through Naviance to request a counselor to send it. It was an unnecessary step for me. I only applied to one school and emailed my counselor about sending my transcript to my college. She told me to go through Naviance, but she already knew where to send it since I had asked. I did go through Naviance and there were many steps to that. 

The dorm room forms were not terrible to fill out. Although I felt like it was difficult to keep all the halls straight especially since I could not visit in person this year. There was a comparison chart, but it did not compare what I was looking for. It did not show prices or the bathroom situation. I wish there was a page where I could have scrolled through all the halls or at least the ones that were similar instead of flipping through pages. 

The scholarships are probably the most difficult part. There are scholarships directly to colleges and outside scholarships. So far I have realized the ones at through the college have many parts. They can not be started the night it’s due. There are many websites with scholarships. They can even match scholarships for people. That part is great but sometimes I do not qualify for scholarships I have “matched” with. Those often do not take much time unless it is a large amount of money. 

I think my advice for underclassmen is to pay attention to deadlines. There is more to do than you realize. I am sure you have heard seniors complain about the work before and thought they were exaggerating, but I can assure you they were not.