With this year being my senior year, I am starting to realize there are a lot of processes that the seniors have to go through to prepare for college. There is a lot of paperwork and online information that we have to fill out, and I wish I would have known about it sooner. I could have gotten a head start on all of it. Learning about all of the different things seniors will have to turn in and the essays they will have to write to even get into college or for scholarships could really stress teenagers out. The many things needed to do to prepare for college on top of the classwork we have as seniors can be a lot at times.

This year so far, I have already applied to over ten colleges. Each one having a different type of application that took quite a while to fill out. Some even have a certain amount that has to be paid to even allow people to apply. This being just the first step of the entire process. They ask for your personal information, grades, what you want to study, and many other topics. Each can take from thirty minutes to an hour. Once you get in, the paperwork becomes worse and the choices become harder. Scholarships take up so much of my time, because there are so many to apply for. Each comes with several essays and more paperwork to fill out. This is a timely process that we should have started while we were underclassmen. From my experience, it would be way less stressful if there was a class to help us learn how to attempt this whole process before actually having to do it.

Another big part of the college process is filling out your FAFSA. FAFSA is the Free Application for Federal Student Aid to help with the costs of college. This is a day’s process in itself. Filling out this application, I had to calculate my parent’s financial income from the past ten years as well as the income I have made through the jobs that I have had. This was probably the most stressful part of the process, because it took so long and required so much extra information.

In conclusion, the college process is long and very stressful. My advice to the underclassmen would be to get a head start on this now and learn as much as you can about the process before you attempt to do it.