The college application process is so hectic and causes eternal stress. The most stressful thing about application season is the fact that it is so inconsistent. Between the problematic emails, different requirement dates and complicated financial aid, there is so much going on throughout the whole process.
Starting from the end of sophomore year, my inbox has become a flood of emails from colleges saying “pick me, choose me, love me.” While some of these emails have caught my attention and have been important enough for me to look at, it is hard to determine which ones have been simple promotional emails or emails containing important application information. My mom gets my email notifications on phone and tends to badger me about college emails in different ways. Most of the time she just looks at the emails and ominously tells me to check my email, making me think that there is something wrong when in fact it’s just another promotional email from a pick-me college.
Once I sorted through the pile of emails and decided which colleges to apply to, I thought it would be a simple ride, since I was using the Common Application. Turns out, I wasn’t entirely correct. The Common Application made my life so much easier when applying initially. But when it comes to the variety of different things that colleges want sent on their individual websites, the lack of consistency just piles on stress. Two colleges want self reported academic records, on two different days, which is plain confusing because why do you want me to self report my courses when you received my transcript, and my self reported courses and grades on the Common Application itself.
Even the financial aid presented a challenge. Not only did the schools have different deadlines, multiple forms to fill out, but it was also just a long repetitive process. If I didn’t have my dad there to help me out I would’ve been so lost. Before now I had never heard of a CSS profile and didn’t understand the requirements and process for applying for financial aid. The only reason I know this process now is because someone needed to, very carefully and with ample detail, explain this whole process to me and show me where to find the deadlines and requirements.
And despite having applied to almost every college I wanted to, I continue to have the need to be a detective in order to understand what the emails are trying to tell me. More often than not, the important information in all of the emails is buried deep inside the email like a needle in a haystack, making it so that I have to always read the entire email, wasting my time, rather than sifting through and getting the important information. The only saving grace is the colored text and occasionally underlined words to even begin to figure out what is important within the email.
My final gripe with some of the colleges are the acceptance emails. Now I do understand that having the subject line saying “Welcome to our college” is something meant to catch your attention in the beginning of the email. But if I am already sifting through emails, what is one more? I believe that all the emails should direct you to their website, where one already has an account set up, to truly preserve the feeling of opening a college letter. I’ve gotten emails welcoming me to college (thank you to those colleges, by the way), and thankfully I opened my email at home, preserving some of the surprise. But a simple email took away from the thrill, the suspense, that is associated with college acceptance-especially when it comes to rolling admission. If I was someone just walking in the hallway, and decided to check my email at school, I would have either been happy despite the anticlimactic email, or sad due to a rejection.
Overall, while there are steps that have made the college process easier, it still isn’t at its best potential. From an overflowing inbox to the confusing, there is much that can be improved for future students, preserving the college admission experience without unnecessary stress.
