The stretch from the beginning of September to Nov. 15 is recognized as one of the most challenging times for a high school student.
Stress is at an all-time high while students try to balance sports, a social life, all the senior festivities, life events, and the college application process with its frightening deadlines. “I’m applying to over 20 schools while managing everything else in my life. It was really hard, a lot harder than I thought it would be. But in the end, it’s going to be worth it because it will allow me to have more options in the future,” senior Ethan Kuan said.

Once these early applications get in, it is a huge stress reliever for all seniors. Even if they still have any schools they want to apply to with a later deadline, such as rolling decision or regular decision, those applications are less stressful because you have more time to work on them, and the deadlines are more lenient. Usually, students try to apply to their top choice schools either early action or early decision, so those are the applications that get the most time and attention. After Nov. 1, senior year tends to get a lot more enjoyable for most students.

A lot of juniors would say that they are having it the roughest, due to balancing an important school year and SAT/ACT prep along with everything else, but junior Holden O’Brien sees it differently: “A lot of my friends say that we are having it the hardest, but I think for the first couple months of school the seniors have a lot more going on then we do. I am dreading that time next year, I have the feeling that it will be stressful.”

Hopefully the juniors this year have an older sibling, college friend, or senior friend to help them and guide them through the college process. Naviance can be confusing; the Common App website is a tedious and long process, so getting to know the ins and outs of the process is beneficial to younger students. Never be afraid to ask for help, as it is much better to do this as opposed to waiting and possibly missing a deadline or not submitting an application because you had a question unanswered.

Now that we seniors are done with early action, we know what it’s like to go through this, and we know the best way to tackle all the applications efficiently. “The best advice I can give is to not procrastinate. Don’t save everything until the last minute. Doing a little bit each day will prevent a lot of stress in the long run,” senior Abraham Labban said.