Any senior applying for colleges will tell you how ridiculous the process for applying to college is. Between finding the will to actually start completing applications, applying for student aid and keeping yourself sane, the constant state of exhaustion becomes a normalcy. 

Students are told to start thinking seriously about the college process their junior year. This is the time when the first college presentations are given, and the time when students are told a whole bunch of important information in a small amount of time. This is meant to prepare students for the upcoming application process, but it usually ends up causing more confusion and more stress. It is also meant to ensure that you know the school counselors are there for you when you need something to apply for colleges. 

“If you are a part of LE you prepare more, if you’re a normal student who doesn’t have access to the counselors in LE you aren’t as prepared for the admissions process,” Allaina Wagner, senior, said in regards to the counseling help for students during the admissions process. There is little done to make sure students who don’t have LE (Learning Enrichment) at State High are given the same help and care when it comes to the college process. 

The school also neglects to inform students of options outside of college and the military to pursue after high school. Gap year options are not elaborated on. Besides informing students that gap years exist, they are not further elaborated upon. They also do not go into depth about less expensive options for college, like community colleges.

“I only applied to community college, so my college admissions are a lot shorter,” Micah Jones, senior, said. “If I was using the common app — it’s so long and complex, stressful. You have to get so many different things from so many different people and if you don’t have time for all of that, if you have a job or chores or siblings to take care of or something like that, you can’t always sacrifice all of your time to apply to a college that’s just going to keep you in debt for the rest of your life.” 

“It took me a week to get through college applications,” Kore Pletcher, senior, said. “I only applied to two schools and it still took me a week. The school doesn’t prepare you to apply to colleges. By the time that they had a meeting to talk to seniors about applications, early deadlines were already due.”

Pletcher also criticized the fact that the college presentations took place during English classes for seniors, and some seniors who didn’t have an English class during the time presentations didn’t get to attend the presentations. This left many seniors lost and without the loads of papers and checklists handed out at the presentation.

The chaos and anticipation for college acceptance letters have arrived. Students who applied to Penn State through Early Action will receive their letters by the 24th of December. The time for existential dread to set in is now.