It’s that time of year again: Summer is over, classes have started, and high school seniors are filled with anxiety. Yes, it’s college application time. The formula required for admission to many colleges these days is to strike a delicate balance between highlighting personal and academic accomplishments, outlining future interests and aspirations, and presenting a picture of who you are versus who you want to be.
The prospect of documenting an entire high school career while selling your personality can be daunting. It’s normal for prospective students – and their parents – to feel overwhelmed. But you can do it, whether you’re applying to five schools or 15.
Vox’s guide to college application season
I spoke to the people who know best how much can be at stake: seven current college students who have successfully navigated the process themselves. Here, they share their best advice on how to stay organized, ease anxiety, and the mistakes they wish they had avoided.
The answers have been edited and shortened for clarity.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
“At first, I applied to just one school and then got waitlisted. After that, I applied to several. I didn’t think about college as much as I should have and was dead set on choosing that one school. I just assumed the application process and admissions would be a lot easier than it actually was. I put all my eggs in one basket. I was so overwhelmed and wanted to get the application over with. I wish I had applied to more schools from the beginning. I wish I had relied more on the support and help of other people, like my school counselors and friends who had already applied to colleges and been accepted.”
—Alani Sage, 19. Applied to five schools, accepted to four, waitlisted at one. Now attending the University of Alabama.
Trust that you can overcome heartbreak
“I was one of those students who didn’t get accepted into the school of their dreams, and you feel like it’s the end of the world, like there’s no other hope. But looking back now, I honestly think that everything that happens has a reason. If you adapt and accept things head on, you’ll thank yourself for it. I’m really happy now. I think this experience was better for me, better for becoming more mature and independent.”
—Amna Ahmed, 19. Applied to 22 schools, accepted to 10, waitlisted at six. Now attending Wake Forest University.
Use social media (but don’t let it discourage you)
“Reddit is a great resource. The r/CollegeResults and r/ChanceMe subreddits are great resources because people post their admissions profiles and you can see what extracurriculars they had and what they did to get into school X. On r/ChanceMe, you post your own application and people say whether they think you’ll get in or not.
“Create a story for yourself that is so authentic and unique to you that everyone who reads it will say, ‘That’s so you.'”
Take what others say about your application with a grain of salt, because ultimately, they are not the admissions officers. It’s OK to compare yourself and your application to others, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. Use it as inspiration, but don’t think, “That person is just better than me. I’ll never have a chance.”
—Dylan Ott, 18. Applied to 15 schools, was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania via Early Decision.
“College applications are very tricky if you haven’t heard advice before or if you don’t have family members who have been through it. I had a lot of difficulty because my family is from India and they weren’t used to the American college admissions process. For example, many of my peers could afford college counselors, while my family didn’t even know what that was.
I struggled with selling myself and telling my story in a way that was unique to me because from a young age I felt pressure to be more like the people around me. Whenever I wrote my essays, I would try to portray myself as someone who came from the same background as my peers, even though I didn’t. Create a story for yourself that is so authentic and unique to you that anyone who reads it would say, “That’s so you.” Choose a point of view of yourself that you want to use. I’ve talked about my personal growth and evolution, going from pretty shy to super confident, starting a TikTok, and having discussions.”
—Tanu Tripathi, 20. Applied to 11 schools, accepted to six. Now attending the University of Texas.
“I spent a lot of time finding my story and writing down my life. I asked my parents about things from my childhood that I couldn’t remember and that I could now make connections to. I put a lot of my life on paper and then rewrote it over and over again for a long time.
Those 250-word answers to the short texts were the hardest for me. I wrote about all my interests first and then looked at what fits the essay questions for each school. Then you can edit and change them accordingly so you don’t write as many essays as you need to. In total, there were over 50 essays for each school. But I didn’t write 50 essays. Many of them are reused and many of them were 150 words long. With those questions, I always tried to answer them very creatively and in a way that most people wouldn’t answer, just to show a different side of me.”
—Jeremy Hsiao, 21. Applied to 11 schools, was accepted to six, waitlisted at two. He is now studying at Stanford University.
Stay organized and create an outlet for your emotions
“I found an organizational system that works for me. Creating a Google search was huge. I called it ‘College.’ In that search, I had different folders for scholarships, supplemental essays, and then my Common App. Once you have those folders, create one big spreadsheet for all the colleges you want to apply to. Divide your spreadsheet into three different sections: Early Action, a November 30th or December 1st deadline, and then your regular application colleges. It helped a lot to have everything in one place.”
Everyone is going through this at the same time, and it’s really important to talk to friends and family throughout the process to protect your mental health. Make sure you don’t keep all the stress and overwhelming feelings inside. Let it all out with your friends and your mum. Letting it all out will generally help you a lot more in the long run.”
—Chahat Kapoor, 20. Applied to 15 schools, accepted to nine, waitlisted at two. Now attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Highlight the commonalities of all your activities
“After I was accepted to those schools, I talked to a lot of my admissions officers and interviewers, and they told me what stood out about my profile was that it was so clear what type of student I was going to be. All of my activities, my awards, my essays, even my extracurriculars touched on my leadership skills and my value of community service, especially in the health field. In my penultimate year of high school, when I started thinking about college, I sat down and wrote down all of my extracurriculars and all of my awards, and I saw that so many of the things I did were related to the health field, and I had also held a lot of leadership positions, so that naturally became what I was going to portray in my profile.”
—Olivia Zhang, 19. Applied to 26 schools, was accepted to 20, waitlisted at two. Now she’s studying at Harvard University.
