College applicants and parents of college applicants may be feeling the pressure of the end of the semester. Be sure to take care of certain administrative tasks before school closes for the winter break.
Final papers may be due and end-of-semester tests can pile up. Deadlines that seemed far away back in September are now looming. Your teachers did not conspire to make these last days horrible for you. They were trying to give you as much time as possible to finish your work. But that may mean you have a lot of deadlines all at once.
It’s very tempting to think you can just put off college applications until you’re done with school. Perhaps you want to take this last chance to improve your grades. That’s an especially important concern if you are looking ahead to the Mid Year Report that colleges can ask for in March, and might play a significant role as you work a wait list later in the spring.
Or maybe you find you just can’t think about everything at once. It can be difficult to concentrate on the fine points of differences among colleges that are asking for supplement essays on why their particular school is the one for you. If you haven’t yet written the personal statement for the Common Application, you may need mental space to answer the big questions about identity or values you are asked to address.
It’s all a bit overwhelming. You may in fact think more clearly once the details of differential equations, the French Revolution and whatever else you are studying are behind you.
But before you put off everything, consider this: it’s not only about you.
School Offices May Be Closed
Your recommenders may be going places. Your school counselor may need to send out your transcripts. You may want advice on whether or not to submit your test scores to test-optional schools. If anything goes wrong, you may need help to get all the components of each application submitted by the deadline.
School offices are likely to be closed over the break.
If you are applying to one or more of the many colleges with application deadlines at the very end of December or early January, take time now to review the requirements. If it’s possible, check the Common Application or college-specific portal to line up every piece of each applications that depends on somebody else to do their part.
Early Decision II
Pay special attention to the requirements of a college to which you may be applying Early Decision II. Like ED I, ED II is a binding agreement. Make sure you have discussed this with your school counselor, your parents or whoever may be responsible for signing an agreement to the conditions of ED II.
Once that’s arranged and school is done, you are free to focus on your part of the applications. You can immerse yourself in imagining classes at an inspiring campus-based college or exciting internships at a big-city university. Allow yourself deep thoughts on the prompts proposed by the Common Application, as you “reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea” or consider “the lessons we take from obstacles we encounter.”
Knowing you have taken care of anything that requires the attention of other people can free you to truly engage with the creative parts of college applications. Writing the personal statement just might itself become “a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time.”