The college application process is possibly the most stressful time of senior year. The typical senior feels they are being bombarded with questions such as “What do you want to do?” “What colleges are you applying to?” and “Have you looked at ___ college/university? I went there! You should apply.” On top of being asked all these questions, seniors are supposed to know the answers to them and fill out many applications and essays by certain deadlines. It can be quite stressful. To avoid college application stress on top of normal schoolwork stress during the year, I decided to begin my application process in the summer. LOLHS offers a Writing and Communications class which helps seniors with their search for schools, beginning the application process, and even writing their supplemental essays (I would definitely advise you to take this course either during the school year or summer: it’s that helpful). The class met for 1.5 hours four days a week during four weeks of the summer, and was taught by Mrs. Burke. In the first week, she talked about the whole process (in a way that did not stress me out) and gave us counselor and teacher recommendation forms to fill out, as well as a brag sheet that went to your parents. The brag sheet is exactly what it sounds like: your parents write great things about you so your counselor can use the info as reference for writing your recommendation. Once we completed these forms, Mrs. Burke guided us with our college search, even researching safety, match, and reach colleges for us if we were unsure where to begin. Once your list was finalized, you filled out the colleges’ questions on the Common App, the application which most colleges use, or the college’s separate application. These questions mostly ask for general information about you and what you want to major in, if you know. Lastly, to complete the application process, students had to choose what question to answer for their Common App essay, as well as write essays for some college’s supplemental portions. Again, Mrs. Burke is always willing to look at your essay and give you guidance on it. The students who take this class in the summer are not expected to completely finish and submit their applications by the end of the class, but completing the majority of the assignments ahead of time is a great stress reliever. Plus, you feel really accomplished when you hear of others’ situations with applications, and you know that you are done. I just submitted my applications to my nine schools last week after continuously looking them over for weeks. Now, all I do is wait.