Senior year has started and seniors are crammed with filling out multiple college applications. The process of applying to colleges is AWFUL. It’s very tedious, and if you’re planning on applying to places that don’t accept the common app you are in for a real treat. Through our personal experience, here are some tips and tricks that can make the application process not as stressful.

The first step we encourage everyone to take is to make a master list of all the schools you are planning to apply to. This list will help guide you and keep  you from getting off track. From the list, go down and find out which schools accept the common app and which do not. It is much easier to do any applications that you can through the common app, and we highly recommend that you do.

The next step is to create an account on common app and add every school you’re applying to through that application. Throughout a few days go through and fill out the questionnaires for each application. Do not start the application process two days before the deadline!! The questionnaires are long and you may have questions that your parent or counselor will need to help you with.

          A large majority of students struggle with the essay the most. The best way we came up with to write one is to look through all the prompts given and find out which one you have a good idea for. Write the essay off of that prompt and then if you need other essays, you can usually just tweak your first one. Have multiple people revise and edit your essay, especially someone who is outside of your family.

     Throughout this process make sure that you update naviance and ask teachers to write you letters of recommendations well in advance of the deadline. It is never a good idea to solicit a teacher recommendation at the last minute; after all, you don’t have access to what they say and asking a teacher on a Friday for a recommendation on Monday may not lead to the most complimentary recommendation. All teacher recommendations and transcripts will be dealt with through naviance and your counselor will need notice of at least two weeks to get your recommendations out to the colleges.

     Lastly, make sure you apply to at least one or two back up schools in order to assure you don’t end up in a situation that you don’t want to be in . College admissions is tricky. Feel free to send in questions through our Twitter account(located on home page of titantime.org) and good luck with your application process!