Seniors suffer anxiety from every notification while awaiting college decisions. Graphic courtesy of senior Addi Woods.
San Luis Obispo High School seniors are currently stressing right now while awaiting their college decisions. Many of the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and various out-of-state or private colleges have already sent out their decisions. However, a few big schools remain, causing seniors a lot of anxiety.
“Don’t freak out, there’s a college out there for everyone. There are plenty of colleges even now that are still accepting applications. If you get rejected, you should forget about it and move on. A lot of people fall in love with their number two or number three school. If you get waitlisted, you should sign up for the waitlist but you do have to pick a school that you’re willing to go to and commit to that school. Find a school that you can live with, and if you need help doing that, I’d be happy to help with the pros and cons sheet for everyone” said College & Career Center specialist Colleen Martin.
The infamous “Ivy Day” is rumored to be on March 26 or March 27 this year, on which multiple Ivy League schools release their Regular Decisions.
“Waiting for college decisions has been a stressful time for me. I applied to about fifteen schools and I’m currently waiting on five schools. I did apply to Cornell so hopefully Ivy Day goes well,” said senior Corinne Sears.
Other UC and CSU schools have already sent out their decisions or have done rolling admissions. But, students have been getting a reality check from a few shocking waitlists and rejections.
“I feel like the college admissions process has been really random this year. Some of my smartest friends have been getting rejected from schools that I would’ve expected them to easily get in,” said senior Lily Niven.
Many believe that these harsher decisions are due to the larger class size of the current seniors. According to Cognia, the high school graduating class of 2025 will peak at around 3.9 million seniors but is projected to fall in the following years. So, college admissions are just a bit extra tough for the current seniors.
“It used to be that kids applied to five or six schools, and now they’re applying to eight to ten schools. So that’s just inflated the whole decision-making process because kids are going to get into a lot of schools they choose not to go to. So do I think it’s harder now? Not really, because there are actually fewer kids going to college now than there were five years ago. I don’t think it’s harder to get in, just the numbers game is kind of skewed,” said Martin.
So, be sure to wish your graduating friends good luck and send them your love, as they might be pretty stressed out.
Sources: Cognia.com, IvyCoach.com
