Fact: Senior year is NOT the easiest year of high school. At least, not by its very nature. Moving up the class ranks at Roosevelt, all people could talk about, it seemed, was reaching the promised land; the holy grail of educational achievement. This “promised land,” more commonly known as Senior year, is but a trap of which everyone should be wary – a mirage of relaxation in a desert of stress. It was said that senior year would be a breeze – that with SATs and ACTs completed, college apps fulfilled, and a college acceptance in the bank, there would be nothing else to do but kick back and skip (or sleep) your way through Senior year. But, unless you possess God-like abilities to work rapidly and stress-free, or can somehow manage to get your feces cohesive and complete seven to ten college applications over the summer prior to senior year, you will more likely than not be living through the most hellish three to five months of your educational career. Let me be clear: “seven to ten college applications” is not just a matter of ticking some boxes and copying and pasting an essay. “Seven to ten college applications” is, instead, a brutally endless process of essay writing. By the time you finish your college applications, you will likely have written between fourteen and twenty essays (expect to write more if you need to apply for scholarships), completed several interviews with college representatives (required, or at least recommended by most colleges), and, if you’re savvy enough, will have compiled and sent many additional documents proving just how great you are to your top colleges. In other words, you will be about ready to rub a cheese grater across your forehead. I’m not here to complain. I’m not a complainer. I rowed throughout my Freshman year, and worked my way up from an intern to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal’s one and only YouthOutreach Coordinator my Sophomore year. My Junior year, I wrote policy for State Senator Manka Dhingra and the 46 th Legislative District Democratic Party; represented 130,000 people at the Washington State Democratic Party Platform Convention; and redesigned the streets around Roosevelt, which gained attention from King5, among other news outlets. I did all this while maintaining a near perfect GPA. I say this not to be arrogant, but to prove a point. No matter how organized, outgoing, or hardworking you are, the college application process is a time consuming, stressful, and grueling process for everyone. The only way around it, as far as I can see, is to simply not apply to college. In all seriousness, if I could tell Freshman, Sophomores, and Juniors interested in college anything, it is this: Senior year is not easy, so be prepared. Research colleges your Sophomore year, tour colleges your Junior year, and finalize your college list before your Senior year. Most importantly, know when your college applications are due, and whether or not they use the Common Application – deadlines vary across schools, and the last thing you want is to miss a deadline, or be surprised by a last second deadline. To avoid these deadline crunches altogether, start your essay-writing process as soon as you can (most schools release their essay questions over the summer, so unless you want to suffer, start then), and I cannot stress this enough. You need to maintain your grades first semester Senior year (for the sake of your college acceptance potential), and there’s no bigger grade-killer than being swamped with last-second college essays (Start. Your. Essays. Early). I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I believe it is better to be prepared than naïve. As stressful as Senior year may sound, you will get through it. And remember: no matter what happens, you can always take a gap year, get a job, apply to community college, and reapply to college. Things are far more likely to work out for you than they are to not – and if they don’t work out, your world is not over – you’ll just keep swimming.
