Applying to College

Some resources + advice (hopefully not too many cliches)

So you are applying to college, scholarships etc. It’s a stressful time and it can feel super overwhelming. So here is some free advice in a step-by-step format.

I want to preface this by saying you don’t have to have it all figured out! It is completely OK to not have a clue of what you want to do in the future major/career wise. That being said it’s important to have your future (for now) defined for your college applications. Why? Well colleges admit you for your future they want alums who will contribute to society (and their university) once they are out and about in the world with a super successful career. Just like in job applications, college applications are about how you sell yourself. What are you interested in learning about? What is important to you? Doing this assessment helps center yourself in your values and goals.

Now you know what your key values are you can talk about your relevant experiences and give some background about yourself in a paragraph. I call it a blurb. Having a blurb really helped me streamline the college application process and continues to help me in my job applications. It’s also known as an elevator pitch. Specifically for your college apps you should split it into a few parts.

At the end of this you should have a blurb like this:

Now that you have a blurb you have an easy starting point for basically any college app or scholarship question. The work flow I would go through in an application was to copy paste this in, take out parts that are less relevant, elaborate on relevant parts in a narrative way, then rinse and repeat.

Okay now many people have this figured out. I did not… I say I applied to “too many” schools because it is true. You really don’t need to apply to 15+ schools but make sure you make a list that takes into account all the most important things to you. That was so vague so here is a guide that has key words, narrow them down and prioritize.

It is a good idea to choose 1 reach school, 2 safety schools, and 2 schools in between. I kept mine in spreadsheet with application dates, application log-in info and other relevant information.

Also exploring schools is fun! I didn’t really tour that many schools because I didn’t feel like it made that much of a difference for me but I know some people swear by it. If a school wants you enough they will fly you out to check it out this list is helpful for finding the schools that will do that

Everyone has a different story to tell and different merits, one thing that is certain is that college is what you make of it. Going to community college and a super elite school are different paths but both may lead you to your goals.

Well this is about the end of this guide! I might add more it’s still very much a work in progress so if you’d like to contribute let me know!

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