Five Things I Learned From the College Application Process — From A High School Senior

By Seneca Schwartz

College application season is daunting. Here are five pieces of advice my younger self would have loved to hear when first starting the application process.

1. Start early

This may seem like an obvious piece of advice, but many people take the free time they have for granted. It’s hard being productive, I know, but working on supplements bit by bit can make life less stressful for your future self. The summer before your senior year of high school is the most amount of free time you’ll have for about six months, so use it wisely.

It’s important to note that many colleges do not release their supplemental prompts until later in the summer, so keep an eye out on websites that constantly update their page with what schools have released their prompts.

However, even if you don’t know the exact prompt for the supplementals you’ll be writing, you can still spend some time brainstorming ideas, themes, or stories you would like to tell in these supplements. Most schools will have at least one regular supplement that asks you why you want to attend said school, so make sure you also have your research done!

As for students looking to go to film school like I was, keep a notebook of story ideas and themes that seem interesting to you. You will most likely have at least one school that will ask you to write a logline, short story, or a short screenplay, so make sure you have some ideas on deck. This advice goes for making your visual sample as well. Start thinking of a story and what you want to portray, work on a storyboard/shot list and go shoot your film!

2. Don’t get attached

This one is tricky, but I am super grateful I didn’t let myself fall head over heels for one college. From the beginning, I told myself I wouldn’t have a “dream school” because I would only be heartbroken if I didn’t get in. With this mindset, I was able to quickly bounce back from rejections, waitlists, and deferrals, because I approached each college equally with no extreme bias for one over the other. It saved me from being extremely stressed and anxious when decisions came out and when I was overworking myself with a specific school’s supplements.

3. Write supplements you enjoy writing.

No one wants to read a story or an essay you didn’t even want to write. Find themes, stories, characters, and experiences that you enjoy writing about and include them in your supplemental essays. You want to stand out and catch the admission officer’s eye, but not in a way that gives them a false perception of you as a creative person. The experiences you have gone through and your ideas make you unique, and including them in your writing will create a better and more well-rounded version of you for the admission officers to see.

4. It’s a learning experience

This process is grueling. There will be nights when you’re up late. There will be times when you will have a hard time balancing school, your social life, and college applications. There will be nights where you beat yourself down. But this process is worth it.

Even if you don’t get into your top school, you still learn so much about how to be a better writer and creative person. You are thrown into the deep end during this process, and at first, you may not even be able to keep yourself afloat, but over time you learn to doggy paddle, then freestyle, and by the end, you can swim multiple laps in the pool.

You’ll learn so much about yourself, the creative process, how to stay organized, and time management. There are so many takeaways to be appreciative of other than acceptance.

5. It’s all about perspective.

Perspective is everything for a process as competitive as the college application process. Whether it’s looking at the ten supplements you need to do by the end of the week or getting a decision back from a college, the way you look at something can make you feel better or worse about a situation.

I learned that success does not have to be defined by acceptance into a prestigious school. I walked into this process as a very weak writer. Now six months later, I have noticed considerable improvements in my writing. This, to me, is a success. Over time I learned to view my waitlist decisions as a huge win because it meant schools were still acknowledging my hard work, skill, and effort and could see me as a potential student. Changing my perspective and mindset has taken a weight off my shoulders and has empowered me to become more hopeful than hopeless.

Best of luck!