The Stress is Over – For a Short Time, at least

As underclassmen, high school students often witness their senior friends or acquaintances lose their minds during the first semester of their final year of high school. The cause of this? College applications. These seemingly harmless requirements for entering college take over the seniors’ lives and stress them out beyond belief.

Luckily for seniors, the application deadlines for most colleges passed on November 30th. “Applications were so stressful!” exclaimed senior, Mariam Mostafa. According to an article titled “College’s High Cost, Before You Even Apply” in the New York Times, the process of applying to colleges has become more and more stressful in recent years. Some believe that this is due to the increased amount of applications colleges are receiving with each coming year. 2009 was supposed to be the peak of applications, but there is no way for us to be sure until this year’s round of applications has been completely gone through. “Now we just have to wait to hear from the colleges we applied to,” says senior Jessica Artale. Even though the stress of the applications themselves is over, students still stress out until they receive the huge envelope that holds that sacred acceptance letter inside.

“There’s no way underclassmen know how stressful the process is,” states Jessica. “They may think they have an idea, but there’s no way to actually figure it out until they are going through it.”

I know for myself that this was true. As a freshman and sophomore, when people were worried about getting into college, I thought they were insane for stressing out so much. As a senior, my opinion has definitely changed. Nonetheless, there are some underclassmen who have a better idea about what this time in their life will entail. Stephanie Cerini, a sophomore at Woodside, is still two years away from dealing with applications, but when asked how she feels when talking about college, all she could say was, “stressed!” Unlike some of her fellow classmates, Stephanie has already been through the process in a way. But instead of applying herself, she watched on when her older brother – class of 2008 – was applying. “I saw my brother go through the whole thing and it made me nervous just watching him. I’m scared for the time that I have to do it myself.” Maybe this means she will be better prepared for it when the time comes, but only time will tell.

There are many different aspects to completing applications. However, both Mariam and Jessica commented on the fact that what stressed them out the most was the writing portions of each application. “The essays take up the most time and cause you the most stress because they force you to think more,” stresses Jessica. “The essays stress you out because you feel like that is what the school is going to base their decision off of,” stated Mariam. Although many students worry about this factor of their application, most colleges do not base their acceptances solely on how well someone can write about how diversity is important to them. Yet we become so engulfed in every minor detail of what we are sending to these institutions that we forget to take a step back and look at everything as a whole.

Even though this may prove to be one of the most stressful times in a student’s life, at least it is over for this year’s seniors, and we can all relax for a little while. As for the rest of the students at Woodside, take some advice from somebody who has been through it: Do not procrastinate!