One of the most stressful times in the school year for seniors is the college application process. This year’s seniors had the additional obstacle of a new counselor,with the retirement of Mrs. Byrd last spring.
The current counselor, Mrs. Morrow, aims to alleviate some stress for many of these students.
“I especially recommend that it’s never too early to start,” Morrow said. “Toward the end of junior year at the latest you should start narrowing down those college selections and looking at college application deadlines.”
The application process isn’t the only thing on student’s plates though – there’s also scholarships, jobs, academics, financial aid and extracurricular activities students have to worry about, but Morrow can provide an outlet.
“I advise students to come to see me for many reasons,” Morrow said. “Seniors right now are coming in a lot for assistance with college applications, with their essay and financial aid questions that they may have.”
While Morrow suggests students come in for assistance, many other students like Emma Prizevoits do not feel like they need it.
“I’m not really struggling at the moment,” said Prizevoits. “For A&M Commerce, I just did it on their website and they only wanted me to input my grades, so I legitimately had to do nothing else.”
While Prizevoits only applied to one college and got accepted, other students like Jacob Bautista, for various reasons, has chosen to fill out a variety of college applications like MIT, Harvard, Stanford and UT, just to name a few.
“A lot of them I’ve chosen because of mechanical engineering and fee waivers,” Bautista said.
All these applications are different, and can be very hard for a student to separate themself from the other applicants. Bautista, however, has additional advice for college applications and essays.
“I would just say make your application interesting,” Bautista said. “Every story can be broken down to the same couple of things, but at the same time, the stuff that makes your story recognizable is the little bits and details that you add.”
While Bautista shares advice about how to separate yourself from others, Morrow has general advice to remain grounded throughout the process.
“My piece of advice first and foremost would be to give yourself grace, because every student [at HCCPHS] came here because they wanted to be here,” Morrow said. “I think giving yourself grace in times of stress and taking care of your mental health during these stressful times is important.”
