As November draws to a close, countless seniors are rushing to submit applications for colleges. For many, it could feel as if they are left to their own devices, their heads swimming with unanswered questions.

The college application process is a convoluted and overwhelming one. For the first time in most students’ lives, the future is in their hands. With this responsibility comes a flurry of uncertainty, doubt and insecurity. Students establish emotional ties to dream schools, harbor regrets from the past four years and try to keep up with their peers. There are the major decisions students have to make—where they want to live, what they want to study and which school feels like the right fit for them—along with the intricacies of the application process—the fine print of the Common App or figuring out which schools to send their test scores to. 

The counseling department at this school attempts to assist seniors in the college application process through efforts like the “College Application Boot Camp” Canvas course, a resource intended to provide students with information about finding the right schools, writing the college essay and how to utilize tools like Naviance. Additionally, announcements are made through the CHS Counseling Canvas course, notifying students of things like local scholarships and college representative visits. These resources appear helpful; however, it is ultimately too much for students.

The endless announcements most often emphasize scholarships while neglecting to remind students of other timely deadlines, like mid-October early action deadlines or reminders to submit SAT and ACT scores so they can be delivered to schools by the time applications are reviewed. Amid taking challenging classes, having leadership roles in extracurriculars, navigating friendships and working part-time, keeping up with the plethora of college deadlines is difficult. 

In reality, most students enter their senior year with the goal of simply figuring out which college they want to attend. To that end, the counseling department should meet students where they are and aim to regularly update students with advice on how to navigate college websites to explore curriculums, campus resources, majors and minors and other research programs.

The “Boot Camp” Canvas course features a module on “finding your college fit;” however, they defer students to resources like the Naviance College Match tool, which provide a rather surface-level glance at a school’s features. Navigating “Boot Camp” is both exhausting—covering numerous topics from choosing a career path to applying for honors colleges, and wildly over-simplified, containing mostly bullet-pointed lists.

In lieu of that, students have to refer to forums like r/applyingtocollege, where, although student testimonies and input from admissions officers can be helpful, can spread misinformation and provide unsubstantiated advice. Basic steps in the college application process for example, getting letters of recommendation can quickly become confusing, as students contemplate submitting for a general or specific request. These simple tasks are often prompted without advice, and seniors have to rely on gut instinct or impersonal advice from strangers on the internet. 

Lastly, students also feel disconnected from their counselors. Being just one of thousands of other students at this school, seniors often hesitate to reach out to their counselor. This is for many reasons—difficulty coordinating a meeting time that works, embarrassment that they may be lost or behind or the belief that their counselor won’t be informed on a topic they have questions about. Currently, this school requires students only one visit to their counselor from September to October to discuss their post-graduate plans. This visit, which is only 15 minutes long, checks to make sure students are meeting graduation requirements, gives students their transcript, and allows for students to ask questions. 

Ultimately, the HiLite staff suggests that students be required to visit their counselor twice rather than once—once at the beginning of the school year, in August or September, and again in October and November—to encourage students to establish a more personal relationship with their counselor, and hold students accountable for keeping up with application deadlines. 

While there are a plethora of resources for seniors in the college application process, the effectiveness of these resources needs to be reevaluated. This school should look to seniors to see which resources are helpful, which ones are missing, to better inform future students.