Seniors
Applying for college can be an extremely stressful process, leaving seniors swamped with work as colleges open their application windows. “I would definitely say that I’m super nervous, super stressed about them,” Aarushi Bhandari, a Berkeley High School senior, said, “I feel like all four years of high school build up to this point in my life ... I’m a little unprepared; it’s kind of hard to feel prepared for such a big step forward.”
BHS’ College and Career Center (CCC) offers many helpful resources to prepare students for their college applications, such as college essay writing support, college counselors, and small learning community-specific support. “We provide a lot of resources,” Yasmin Navarro, a college counselor at BHS said, “We also hold workshops for seniors; they can come in and check them out, that’s gonna be (working on) Personal Insight Questions (PIQs), personal statements, activities lists, making a college list, that kind of stuff, and we're learning as we go.”
The college counselors have office hours from 8-8:30 a.m. before school, during lunch, and after school, where students can ask questions and receive guidance from college counselors. The CCC also provides college visits. “So on top of this, our seniors have access to the college rep visits,” Navarro said, “In September through October, we become a hub of visits and all of these representatives from colleges are going to be reading your applications and are going to come in and talk to you about the school, so our students get the chance to come in and meet the reps.”
“I know that the school offers essay readers in the CCC ... But I should probably utilize it more than I do,” Bhandari said, “I think that it’s kind of daunting to go in there and have a random person read an essay that might be really personal to yourself. But I definitely know a lot of people who have utilized it and have really gotten a lot out of it.”
Aside from writing PIQs and personal statements, some seniors report that the majority of the stress comes from standardized testing like the SAT or ACT. “It’s a little easier now because California doesn’t require the SAT anymore,” Maxwell Chung, a senior at BHS, said, “But, if you want to go out of state, you would definitely want to take the SAT and get a pretty dang good score. So that was one of the bigger challenges.” Bhandari added to this, explaining how prepping and taking the SAT is an intense process, “I kind of wish I knew how intense standardized testing is earlier ... and sometimes it’s not a super great reflection of how you actually perform in school since it is based on how you react under pressure, so I wish I knew how intense of a process that was earlier so I could have prepared more for that without having to stress as much this year.”
When asked what advice she would give to seniors who are currently writing their college application essays, Navarro said to “Be authentic and to be yourself.”
Juniors
Standardized testing can also lead to confusion among juniors. “I'm kind of nervous,” Vivien Chiu, a junior at BHS, said, “I haven’t started my SAT sign-ups, and I feel really behind because (it feels like) everyone is taking the PSAT.”
BHS juniors are also starting to feel the oncoming pressure as they begin to create their resumes and college lists. “As a junior I feel like I have to do so many things before college applications, especially this time between now and senior year,” Meghan Nguyen, a BHS junior, said, “So it’s kind of stressful, I’m just trying to pick up something that I like and then try to get really good at it.”
When asked what advice he could give to juniors who are thinking about college applications, Chung, a senior, said that it is never too early to start thinking about it and that “The number one resource is definitely your college counselor because they're willing to get your letters of recommendation ready and also willing to help you with your PIQs as well.” He continued, saying that “there's also the CCC here, and there are a lot of different people there who have experience with this who can help you out with that.”
The CCC also offers many resources for juniors, including a Google Classroom, which juniors are onboarded into during their spring semester. The classroom provides resources for various applications, including tips for filling out the California State Universities and the Universities of California.
"My main advice (for juniors) would be to ensure that they know the main things that help them stand out to colleges,” Navarro said, “I would encourage students to look at the factors that go into college admissions at different spaces."
"It can help to elucidate what areas you have the most control in, and genuinely, it's your grades, and it's the activities that you do, and it's the kindness that you bring, and the interactions that you have with your teachers, because they're the ones writing your letters of recommendation," Navarro continued on to say, "So it's very much staying grounded and staying focused on not just the future but also on what it is that you're doing right now."
Underclassmen
While upperclassmen are currently starting the process or are in the midst of applying to colleges, underclassmen wonder what they can do to set themselves up for college applications in future years. “For me, a big part of the stress comes from the essay,” Alana Chiu, a BHS sophomore, said, “And I would like to know what things I could be doing outside of school as a sophomore to help with my college applications in the future. I feel kind of clueless; it can be stressful because I don’t know what colleges want from me.”
A lot of this stress comes from BHS students feeling a lack of support when it comes to college applications. "The most helpful thing (for me) would be free college counselors to help students with their college applications and answer all of their questions,” Chiu said. The CCC does have college counselors present at no cost to students, though upperclassmen are generally the ones that utilize this service most.
Another form of stress related to college applications can come from the overall anxiety that teenagers can face while going away to college. “Some kids will spend their whole lives planning out their college plan, and then something holds them back from going all the way through with it,” Annalie Dranitzke, a sophomore at BHS, said, “They feel like they're either not ready or too young.”
When considering what advice she'd give to underclassmen, Bhandari said, “I think it's important to pursue what you're interested in because I think that that's what a lot of colleges are looking for." Bhandari added, “I think it's important to think during freshman year about extracurricular classes that you can take outside of your core curriculum, which shows that determination to pursue extra information about something. Also, don’t think it's more deep than it is, many successful people don’t go to top twenty or top ten schools, it's really not that big of a deal at the end of the day.”
Another piece of advice to underclassmen, given by Zuzu Freed-Thorsen, a BHS senior, was to “visit as many schools as possible because I’d say that that really changed the way I saw the schools that I wanted to go to ... I think that you should be open to having (your college list) change because I don’t want to go to the same colleges that I used to.”
Common Myths
The majority of the application depends on the essays.
In reality, colleges take into account many different aspects of the application. Colleges view applicants using a holistic approach; they take every part of the application into consideration, viewing applicants as whole people, rather than focusing on certain aspects of the application. This also means that an applicant's GPA, SAT, or ACT score is not the only factor that colleges will look at while assessing them.
Students need to manage several different extracurriculars to stand out.
According to Navarro, colleges really just want to see that applicants are passionate about something. “For college, not just college but post high school careers, you need to understand what it is that you are passionate about because that’s your only job right now ... we can help you, guide you in which direction to go in to find more resources that are going to really connect with you, but it’s your job to really see if they connect with you or not. So know thyself,” Navarro said.
Applicants have to decide their majors before applying.
Actually, applicants are able to go to college with undecided or undeclared majors. “I feel kind of behind because I'm feeling kind of indecisive about where I want to go and what I want to major in, but I'm not too worried about it right now ... it's okay to not know what you really want to do, and you should focus on things that you're interested in, not just things that you'd do for college,” Chiu said.